ed-dog and twenty-one and jackpot from dinner
to dawn, and on the occasion of one man's birthday persuaded him to buy
sufficient champagne for a hilarious celebration. The donor of the party
having remained sober, Kerry and Amory accidentally dropped him down two
flights of stairs and called, shame-faced and penitent, at the infirmary
all the following week.

"Say, who are all these women?" demanded Kerry one day, protesting
at the size of Amory's mail. "I've been looking at the postmarks
lately--Farmington and Dobbs and Westover and Dana Hall--what's the
idea?"

Amory grinned.

"All from the Twin Cities." He named them off. "There's Marylyn De
Witt--she's pretty, got a car of her own and that's damn convenient;
there's Sally Weatherby--she's getting too fat; there's Myra St. Claire,
she's an old flame, easy to kiss if you like it--"

"What line do you throw 'em?" demanded Kerry. "I've tried everything,
and the mad wags aren't even afraid of me."

"You're the 'nice boy' type," suggested Amory.

"That's just it. Mother always feels the girl is safe if she's with me.
Honestly, it's annoying. If I start to hold somebody's hand, they laugh
at me, and let me, just as if it wasn't part of them. As soon as I get
hold of a hand they sort of disconnect it from the rest of them."

"Sulk," suggested Amory. "Tell 'em you're wild and have 'em reform
you--go home furious--come back in half an hour--startle 'em."

Kerry shook his head.

"No chance. I wrote a St. Timothy girl a really loving letter last year.
In one place I got rattled and said: 'My God, how I love you!' She took
a nail scissors, clipped out the 'My God' and showed the rest of the
letter all over school. Doesn't work at all. I'm just 'good old Kerry'
and all that rot."

Amory smiled and tried to picture himself as "good old Amory." He failed
completely.

February dripped snow and rain, the cyclonic freshman mid-years passed,
and life in 12 Univee continued interesting if not purposeful. Once a
day Amory indulged in a club sandwich, cornflakes, and Julienne potatoes
at "Joe's," accompanied usually by Kerry or Alec Connage. The latter was
a quiet, rather aloof slicker from Hotchkiss, who lived next door and
shared the same enforced singleness as Amory, due to the fact that
his entire class had gone to Yale. "Joe's" was unaesthetic and faintly
unsanitary, but a limitless charge account could be opened there, a
convenience that Amory appreciated. His father h