a hidden
spectacle, to the station and put on the train. Nothing like that on our
front campus! Nothing like "sex" in the front rooms of our minds. The
crowd returned chuckling. Immoral? Hell, no. Simply bad form.

* * * * *

"What am I going to write about?"

"Games," said the college. "Only games. Don't go adventuring down into
life."

CHAPTER VII

Then I found Joe Kramer.

He had "queered" himself at the beginning in college. I had barely known
him. He belonged to no fraternity, and except on the athletic field he
kept out of all our genial life. And this life of ours, for all its
thoughtlessness, was so rich in genuine friendships, so filled and
bubbling over with the joy of being young, that we could not understand
how any decent sort of chap could deliberately keep out of it. We put
Joe Kramer down as a "grouch."

But now that I too was "queering" myself, our queerness drew us
together, or rather, Joe's drew mine. In the ten years that have gone
since then I have never met any man who drew me harder than he did, than
he is drawing me even still--and this often in spite of my efforts to
shake him off, and later of his quite evident wish to be rid of me. For
Joe had what is so hard to find among us comfortable mortals, a
sincerity so real and deep that it absolutely ruled his life, that it
kept him exploring into things, kept him adventuring always.

In long tramps over the neighboring hills, on our backs in the grass
staring up at the clouds, or in winter hugging a bonfire in the shelter
of a boulder, or back in college over our beer or over countless pipes
in our rooms, together we adventured through books and long hungry talks
down into life--and of the paths we discovered I see even now no end.

Joe was tall and lean, with heavy shoulders stooping slightly. He was
sallow, he never took care of himself. He ate his meals at all hours at
a small cheap restaurant, where he bought a bunch of meal tickets each
week. His face was obstinate, honest, kindly, his features were as blunt
as his talk. He was the first to understand what I was so vaguely
looking for, and to say, "All right, Kid, you come right along." And as
he was farther along than I, he pulled me after him on the hunt after
what he called "the genuine article" in this bewildering modern life.

His own life, to begin with, was a tie with this real modern world that
had forced itself on me long ago through