you are, and don't look at me out of the side of your
eye like that--pretendin' you're a bad horse. I'm _really_ serious now,
and you listen to me. I don't think argufying and debating like that
little Fraulein Werder's does much harm. She's a right nifty young
rolypoly, by the way, though you didn't notice, of course."

"Why didn't I?" Ramsey demanded, sharply. "Why didn't I notice?"

"Oh, nothing. But, as I was saying, I don't think that sort of talk does
much harm: everybody knows it goes on among the pro-Germans, and it's
all hot air, anyhow. But I think Linski's sort of talk does do harm,
prob'ly among people that don't know much; and what's more, I think Dora
Yocum's does some, too. Well, you hit Linski in the snoot, so what are
you-- Sit still! My lord! You don't think I'm askin' you to go and hit
Dora, do you? I mean: Aren't you ever goin' to talk to her about it and
tell her what's what?"

"Oh, you go on to bed!"

"No, I'm in earnest," Fred urged. "Honestly, aren't you ever goin' to?"

"How could I do anything like that?" Ramsey demanded explosively. "I
never see her--to speak to, that is. I prob'ly won't happen to have
another talk with her, or anything, all the time we're in college."

"No," Fred admitted, "I suppose not. Of course, if you did, then you
would give her quite a talking-to, just the way you did the other time,
wouldn't you?" But upon that, another resumption of physical violence
put an end to the conversation.

Chapter XVII

Throughout the term Ramsey's calculation of probabilities against the
happening of another interview with Dora seemed to be well founded, but
at the beginning of the second "semester" he found her to be a fellow
member of a class in biology. More than that, this class had every week
a two-hour session in the botanical laboratory, where the structure of
plants was studied under microscopic dissection. The students worked in
pairs, a special family of plants being assigned to each couple; and the
instructor selected the couples with an eye to combinations of the quick
with the slow. D. Yocum and R. Milholland (the latter in a strange state
of mind and complexion) were given two chairs, but only one desk and one
microscope. Their conversation was strictly botanical.

Thenceforth it became the most pressing care of Ramsey's life to prevent
his roommate from learning that there was any conversation at all, even
botanical. Fortunately, Fred was not taking the bio