when he sat with him in the study. It was then that
George realized he had no such views apart from his own case. Vaguely he
knew that somewhere outside of Princeton strikes multiplied these days,
that poor people complained of the cost of food and housing, that
communistic propaganda was talked with an increasing freedom, that now
and then a bomb burst, destroying more often than not the people it was
designed to help. He saw that Squibs sought to interest him, and he gave
a close attention while the tutor elaborated his slight knowledge of the
growing unrest.

"But it's all so far away, sir," he said. "I've so much of more
importance to me to bother about right here."

Bailly relighted his pipe.

"The happy, limited vision of youth!" he sighed. "You'll be through your
a, b, c's before you know it. Are you going to face such big issues
without any forethought?"

He smoked for a few moments, then commenced to speak doubtfully.

"And in another sense it isn't as far away as you think. It all goes on
_in petto_, right here in undergraduate Princeton. The views a man takes
away from college should be applicable to the conditions he meets
outside."

"I don't quite see what you mean, sir."

Why was Bailly going at it so carefully?

"I mean," Bailly said, "that here you have your poor men, your earnest
men, and your lords of the land. I mean there is no real community of
interest here. I mean you've made friends because you're bigger and
better looking than most, and play football like a demon. You haven't
made any friends simply because you are poor and earnest. And the poor
students suffer from the cost of things, and the rich men don't know and
don't care. And the poor men, and the men without family or a good
school behind them, who haven't football or some outstanding
usefulness, are as submerged as the workers in a mine. Prospect Street
is Fifth Avenue or Park Lane, and the men who can't get in the clubs,
because of poverty or lack of prominence, remind me of the ragged ones
who cling to the railings, peering through at plenty with evil in their
hearts."

"You're advocating communism, sir?"

Bailly shook his head.

"I'm advocating nothing. I'm trying to find out what you advocate."

"I can't help feeling," George said, stubbornly, "that a man has to look
after himself."

And as he walked home he confessed freely enough in his own mind:

"I'm advocating George Morton. How can Squibs expect me to bother