. Jarvis offered us cigarettes and put us so
much at our ease that we stayed there an hour. It was a dazzling
experience. He told us a lot about the city, and asked us about
ourselves and laughed at our experiences. And he told us that he often
dined there and hoped to see us again. When we got safely outside, after
having bade him good-by without any sort of a break, I mopped my
forehead. Then I took off my hat. "Bangs," said I, "you're the world's
champion. Some day you'll get killed for impudence in the first degree,
but just now I've got ten cents and I'm going to buy you a big cigar and
walk home to pay for it."

Incredible as it may sound, that was the beginning of a real friendship
between the three of us. Jarvis seemed to take a positive pleasure in
being democratic. And he was wonderfully thoughtful, too. He realized
instinctively that we had about nine cents apiece in our clothes as a
rule, and he didn't offer to be gorgeous and buy things we couldn't buy
back. We got to dropping in at the cafe once a week or so and eating at
the same table with him. Why on earth he fancied eating around with
grubs like us, when he could have been tucking away classy fare up on
Fifth Avenue, we couldn't imagine. Some people are naturally Bohemian,
however. It seemed to delight Jarvis to hear us tell about our team, and
our college, and our prospects, and how lucky we had been up to date,
not getting stepped on by any financial magnate or other tall city
monument. He wasn't a talkative man himself. It was especially hard to
pry any football talk out of him, probably because he was so modest.
When we insisted he would finally open up, and tell us the inside facts
about some great college game that we knew by heart from the newspaper
accounts. And he would mention all the famous players by their first
names--you can't imagine how much more alarming it sounded than calling
a president "Teddy"--and we would just sit there and drink it in, and
watch history from behind the scenes until suddenly he would stop, look
absent and shut up like a clam. No use trying to turn him on again.
Presently he would bid us good night and go away. The first time we
thought we had offended him and we were miserable for a week. But when
we ran across him again he seemed as pleased as ever to see us. It was
just moods, after all, we finally decided, and thought no more about
it. Great men have a right to have moods if they want to. We admired his
moods