Ted Billett is dark too, but it is a ruddy darkness with high clear color of skin. He could pass anywhere as a College Senior and though his clothes seem to have been put on anyhow with no regard for pressing or tailoring they will always raise a doubt in the minds of the uninstructed as to whether it is not the higher carelessness that has dictated them rather than ordinary poverty--a doubt that, in many cases, has proved innocently fortunate for Ted. His hands are a curious mixture of square executive ability and imaginative sensitiveness and his surface manners have often been described as 'too snotty' by delicate souls toward whom Ted was entirely unconscious of having acted with anything but the most disinterested politeness. On the other hand a certain even-tempered recklessness and capacity for putting himself in the other fellow's place made him one of the few popularly lenient officers to be obeyed with discipline in his outfit during the war. As regards anything Arty or Crafty his attitude is merely appreciative--he is finishing up his last year of law at Columbia. Johnny introduces Oliver and Ted to everybody but Peter--the three were classmates--shepherds his flock with a few disarmingly personal insults to prevent stiffness closing down again over the four that have already got to talking at the arrival of the two newcomers, and marshals them out to the terrace where they are to have dinner. Without seeming to try, he seats them so that Ted, Peter and Oliver will not form an offensive-defensive alliance against the three who are strangers to them by retailing New Haven anecdotes to each other for the puzzlement of the rest and starts the ball rolling with a neat provocative attack on romanticism in general and Cabell in particular. II “Johnny's strong for realism, aren't you, Johnny?” “Well, yes, Ted, I am. I think 'Main Street' and 'Three Soldiers' are two of the best things that ever happened to America. You can say it's propaganda--maybe it is, but at any rate it's real. Honestly, I've gotten so tired, we all have, of all this stuff about the small Middle Western Town being the backbone of the country--” “Backbone? Last vertebra!” “As for 'Main Street,' it's--” “It's the hardest book to read through without fallin' asleep where you sit, though, that I've struck since the time I had to repeat Geology.” Peter smiles. “But, there, Johnny, I guess I'm the bone-head part of the readin' public--” “That's why you're just the kind of person that ought to read books like that, Peter. The reading public in general likes candy laxatives, I'll admit--Old Nest stuff--but you--” “'Nobody else will ever have to write the description of a small Middle Western Town'” quotes Oliver, discontentedly. “Well, who ever wanted to write the description of a small Middle Western Town?” and from Ricky French, selecting his words like flowers for a _boutonniere_.