aith in his
infallibility. The older students relied on him in much the same way,
though there were some who said that self lay at the bottom of Lyman's
system of morals, that the watchword of his philosophy was "Does it
pay?" These men were sentimentalists who had ideals. Langdon, the
Sequoia editor, would have told you that he thought more of Lyman than
of any two men in the class; it is a question, though, whether he would
have recommended Lyman's advice in everything. Frank was a good man to
keep a Freshman's money for him, to listen to his class-room troubles or
to stand between the luckless youngster and Faculty wrath; but when it
was a case into which something deeper entered, perhaps the Senior's
worldly philosophy was not of the best sort. This was the idea of
dreamers like "Pegasus" Langdon, who said things about "sentiment" and
to whom Freshmen seldom came for advice. But Lyman continued to hold his
after-dinner receptions, and his admirers piled themselves comfortably
on his bed and believed in him implicitly.

The psychological moment came for the regular withdrawal. Frank opened
his windows with care, donned the old bath-robe which was his armor for
the battle intellectual, put on his eye-shade over his straight brown
hair, and opened his Pollock. At this hint the others slipped out; only
Jimmie Mason lingered, his gaze on the shadowy hills with their faint
fringe of dark green, the dregs of his pipe purring in the stillness.
Lyman's room-mate was somewhere queening. Lyman himself, pretending to
study, looked up from time to time, waiting for the Sophomore to unbosom
himself. Frank knew the symptoms.

"Well, Jimmie?" he said at length--one couldn't study with that going on
and Frank had his stint to finish.

"It's about my father."

"Drinking again?"

Jimmie only nodded. The smoke went out in his pipe; he knocked the ashes
from it and put it away mechanically in the common pipe-rack over the
radiator.

"Tell me about it." Frank had closed his book, and was leaning back in
his tilted chair, his feet braced in the shelf beneath, his hands
clasped over his knees.

"Not much to tell, I guess, no more than you know already. I got a
letter from the old lady."

"Your grandmother, eh?"

"Yes. She says something must be done. 'In low saloons,' she says, and
I've been sizing it up--and Frank, don't you think I ought to go home?"

A silence again, with Lyman's alarm clock ticking placidly on the table
b