with
any one else when I have so far to go?"

XIX

He thrust Squibs' uncomfortable prods from his brain. He applied himself
to his books--useful books. Education and culture were more important to
him than the physical reactions of overworked labour or the mental
processes of men who advocated violence. Such distracting questions,
however, were uncomfortably in the air. Allen, one of the poor men
against whom the careful Rogers had warned him long ago, called on him
one cold night. The manner of his address made George wonder if Squibs
had been talking to him, too.

"Would like a few minutes' chat, Morton. No one worth while's in
Princeton. It won't queer you to have me in your room."

No, George decided. That was an opening one might expect from Allen. The
man projected an appreciable power from his big, bony figure; his
angular face. George had heard vaguely that he had worked in a factory,
preparing himself for college. He knew from his own observation that
Allen wasn't above waiting at commons, and he had seen the lesser men
turn to him as a leader.

"Sit down," George said, "and don't talk like an ass. You can't queer
me. What do you want me to do--offer to walk to classes with my arm over
your shoulder? There's too much of that sensitive talk going around."

"You're a plain speaker," Allen said. "So am I. You'll admit you've seen
a lot more of the pretty crowd than you have of me and my friends. I
thought it might be useful to ask you why."

"Because," George answered, "I'm in college to get everything I can. You
and your crowd don't happen to have the stuff I want."

Allen fingered a book nervously.

"I came," he said, "to see if I couldn't persuade you that we have."

"I'm listening," George said, indifferently.

"Right on the table!" Allen answered, quickly. "You're the biggest poor
man in the class. You're logically the poor men's Moses. They admire
you. You've always been talked of in terms of the varsity. Everybody
knows you're Princeton's best football player. The poor men would do
anything for you. What will you do for them?"

"I won't have you split the class that way," George cried.

"Every class," Allen said, "is split along that line, only this class is
going to let the split be seen. You work your way through college, but
you run with a rich crowd, led by the hand of Driggs Wandel."

So even Allen had noticed that and had become curious.

"Wandel," Allen went on, "will use you to h