men of
the same general grade and having the same general object, is a great
thing for them all. It obliterates the prejudice of locality, and
gives to each the key-note of the region of another. It builds up an
acquaintance among those who will be regulating a land's affairs from
different vantage-grounds in years to come, and has its most practical
utility in this. When men meet to nominate a President this fact comes
out most strongly. The man from Texas makes a combination with the man
from Michigan, and two delegations swing together, for have not these
two men well known each other since the day their classes met in a rush
upon the campus twenty years ago?

No studious recluse was Harlson. His backwoods training would not
allow of that. In every class encounter, in every fray with townsmen,
it is to be feared in almost every hazing, after his own gruesome
experience--for they hazed then vigorously--he was a factor, and
beefsteak had been bound upon his cheek on more than one occasion. A
rollicking class was his, though not below the average in its
scholarship, and the sometimes reckless mood of it just suited him.
"There were three men of Babylon, of Babylon, of Babylon."

There is what some claim is an aristocracy in American colleges. It is
asserted that the leading Greek fraternities are this, and that the
existence of Alpha Delta Phi, Psi Upsilon or Delta Kappa Epsilon, or
others of the secret groups, is not a good thing for the students as a
whole. Yet in the existence of these societies is forged another of
the links of life to come outside, and all the good things to be gained
in college are not the ratings won in classes. Harlson was one of
those with badges and deep in college politics. He never had occasion
to repent it.

And so, with study, some rough encounter and much scheming and much
dreaming, time passed until the world outside loomed up again at close
quarters. The present view was a new struggle. The great money
question intervened. There had come a blight upon his father's dollar
crop, and when Grant Harlson left the university he was so nearly
penniless that the books he owned were sold to pay his railroad fare.

CHAPTER IX.

MRS. POTIPHAR.

It must have been some person aged, say, twenty, who expressed to Noah
the opinion that there wasn't going to be much of a shower. At twenty
tomorrow is ever a clear day, and notes are easy things to meet, and
friends and women