ay, he
strikes up an acquaintance with some other social Freshman, and together
they watch the upper class-men coming in. Man after man drifts into the
arms of waiting friends. How well they all know one another! Gradually
he learns who and what these men are, the Seniors who manage the Hall or
edit the College papers, the 'Varsity idols, the men who make College
life. Important beings they seem to the Freshman, men who have reached
heights above his modest possibilities, heroes who are great in the
land. After dinner he mingles in the stag dances on the second floor
hall-way; finding that a fellow class-man has neglected the graceful
art, he takes him up on the third floor and teaches him the step. He is
fitting in, you see. Then he hears the crowd surging into the lobby and
picks up the chorus of "We'll rush the ball along," and before this
first day is over he catches the contagion of that intangible,
pervasive, never wholly fading thing, College spirit.

Jimmy Mason, Sophomore, hustling Student-Body assessments, drops in on
him, and stops to chat awhile. Haviland learns that our team this year
has lost such and such valuable men; that there are opportunities for a
chap with football in him. The Freshman thinks of the day when the crowd
at home cheered him as his school beat the Academy. He hands Mason the
assessment money, being beautifully green yet. Like oases are these
Freshmen to the Student-Body collector. Very likely the Sophomore
rewards him by coming to his door, after the lights are out, at the head
of a motley mob. They put him on the table, shivering in his nightie,
and make derogatory remarks about his shape and his personal charms;
then, having solemnly baptised him "Callipers," or whatever metaphorical
name his physical architecture may suggest, they make him cavort for
their delectation. If he shows modesty and courage in his unhappy
obedience, he is greeted as a nice little boy and is introduced to his
tormentors, who explain that the ritual was offered from the kindest
motives. Doubtless it is this knowledge that makes him enjoy so keenly
the sacrifice of fellow class-men, at which he is permitted to be
present the next evening.

When he is spoken to mysteriously one night by "Pellams" Chase, a Junior
from the Row, and told to put on his oldest clothes and to get his
trunk-rope ("to rope up a Sophomore's trunk this time," hints the
Junior), for the first time he sees his class as a whole, and stand