make him one of us," and
Watts had a remarkable way of doing what he chose. At first Peter did
not respond to the overtures and insistance of the handsome,
well-dressed, free-spending, New York swell. He was too conscious of the
difference between himself and Watts's set, to wish or seek
identification with them. But no one who ever came under Watts's
influence could long stand out against his sunny face and frank manner,
and so Peter eventually allowed himself to be "taken up." Perhaps the
resistance encountered only whetted Watts's intention. He was certainly
aided by Peter's isolation. Whether the cause was single or multiple,
Peter was soon in a set from which many a seemingly far more eligible
fellow was debarred.

Strangely enough, it did not change him perceptibly. He still plodded on
conscientiously at his studies, despite laughter and attempts to drag
him away from them. He still lived absolutely within the comfortable
allowance that his mother gave him. He still remained the quiet, serious
looking fellow of yore. The "gang," as they styled themselves, called
him "kill-joy," "graveyard," or "death's head," in their evening
festivities, but Peter only puffed at his pipe good-naturedly, making no
retort, and if the truth had really been spoken, not a man would have
changed him a particle. His silence and seriousness added the dash of
contrast needed to make the evening perfect. All joked him. The most
popular verse in a class-song Watts wrote, was devoted to burlesquing
his soberness, the gang never tiring of singing at all hours and places:

"Goodness gracious! Who's that in the 'yard' a yelling in the rain?
That's the boy who never gave his mother any pain,
But now his moral character is sadly on the wane,
'Tis little Peter Stirling, bilin' drunk again.
Oh, the Sunday-school boy,
His mamma's only joy,
Is shouting drunk as usual, and raising Cain!"

Yet joke Peter as they would, in every lark, be it drive, sail, feed,
drink, or smoke, whoever's else absence was commented upon, his never
passed unnoticed.

In Sophomore year, Watts, without quite knowing why, proposed that they
should share rooms. Nor would he take Peter's refusal, and eventually
succeeded in reversing it.

"I can't afford your style of living," Peter had said quietly, as his
principal objection.

"Oh, I'll foot the bills for the fixings, so it sha