st, that's what they call
themselves, and they're rotten bags."

Hugh had a little quiver of fright, but he felt that he ought to defend
himself.

"Well, what of it?" he asked sullenly. "I don't see as you had any right
to pull me away. You never paid any attention before to me. Why this
sudden interest? How come you're so anxious to guard my purity?"

Slade was embarrassed. He threw his cigarette into the fireplace and
immediately lighted another one. Then he looked at his shoes and
muttered, "I'm a pretty bad egg myself."

"So I've heard." Hugh was frankly sarcastic.

"Well, I am." Slade looked up defiantly. "I guess it's up to me to
explain--and I don't know how to do it. I'm a dumbbell. I can't talk
decently. I flunked English One three times, you know." He hesitated a
moment and then blurted out, "I was looking for those bags myself."

"What?" Hugh leaned forward and stared at him, bewildered and
dumfounded. "_You_ were looking for them?"

"Yeah... You see, I'm a bad egg--always been a bad one with women, ever
since I was a kid. Gotta have one about every so often.... I--I'm not
much."

"But what made you stop me?" Hugh pressed his hand to his temple. His
head was aching, and he could make nothing out of Slade's talk.

"Because--because.... Oh, hell, Carver, I don't know how to explain it.
I'm twenty-four and you're about nineteen and I know a lot that you
don't. I was brought up in South Boston and I ran with a gang. There
wasn't anything rotten that we didn't do.... I've been watching you.
You're different."

"How different?" Hugh demanded. "I want women just as much as you do."

"That isn't it." Slade ran his fingers through his thick black hair and
scowled fiercely at the fireplace. "That isn't it at all. You're--you're
awfully clean and decent. I've been watching you lots--oh, for a year.
You're--you're different," he finished lamely.

Hugh was beginning to understand. "Do you mean," he asked slowly, "that
you want me to keep straight--that--that, well--that you like me that
way better?" He was really asking Slade if he admired him, and Slade got
his meaning perfectly. To Hugh the idea was preposterous. Why, Slade had
made every society on the campus; he had been given every honor that the
students could heap on him--and he envied Hugh, an almost unknown
sophomore. Why, it was ridiculous.

"Yes, that's what I mean; that's what I was trying to get at." For a
minute Slade hesitated; he wasn't use