rnities; he spoke longingly of the day when he would
be living in his "chapter lodge." Waters was easy company. He had four
hundred "friends" around the campus, and when I met him was engaged in
capitalizing on those friendships by canvassing votes for his election
to a team managership.

That perhaps is why he came into my room so often to sit and chat
pleasantly, lightly, about almost every topic known to the college man.
He was very much of a type. There were at least thirty other men in that
class who were like him, no better nor worse, nor more nor less
attractive than he was. Popularity was an end and a means with him. It
was all he wanted of college.

"Well, how are you, old top?" was the greeting that came singing from
his room, each time I passed its open door. It was a door perennially
open, lest some passerby might escape without the greeting.

"D'you know, old chap," he'd say, sweeping into my room in the midst of
a study-hour and slumping down upon the divan with a great show of silk
socks and shirtings, "it's high time you and I did something for that
'grind' across the hall."

He was tremendously interested in Fallon, it would appear. Not
personally, he explained to me--but just because Fallon might become a
valuable friend in time. A college man needed friends--and he, Waters,
had only four hundred of them!

Fallon, however, had something of his own opinion about it. He went
about the building with his book before him, bowing neither to me nor
Waters nor any one else. It was dreadful to have to speak to him. He
could scarcely answer; his big Adam's-apple would go juggling painfully
up and down, and finally he would succeed in emitting a barely audible
whisper. He would blush, stammer, clap his mouth shut, then hurry away.

That was Fallon, worst of "grinds." He was beginning to be the butt of
all sorts of miserable jokes. Even the freshmen over-stepped the line to
make fun of him. For, like Waters and myself, he was a sophomore.

In the guise of helping a classmate, Waters took charge of him. He gave
him nightly lectures in cordiality, in self-confidence, in the bettering
of one's appearance. Once, when I chanced to go by, I heard him
delivering glib advice upon what "Fallon, old top" ought to eat, in
order that he might grow stouter and more favorable to look upon. And
Fallon sat through it all and clutched his bony knees and grinned the
grin of the helpless.

But one day, the story goes, he su