ngs which other people were too stupid to notice
or to appreciate. He was forever having amusing misadventures; and
before long he took Tom off with him for week-end walks, and they had
amusing misadventures together. No one else existed for Tom, and
anything he suggested became law. In this way Tom came to play baseball
sufficiently well to be allowed in his senior year the privilege of
standing in the right field of the School team.

Mr. Hilton was a Woodbridge man, and, after earnest discussion with Mr.
Reynolds, he obtained permission for Tom to go to Woodbridge. The
financial problem was a simple one, for Tom had awaiting him in trust a
comfortable income from his mother's estate, and having him away would
be cheaper for Mr. Reynolds. Beginning with Sophomore year, therefore,
the previously dull curriculum took on a romantic hue, since by means of
it Ephesus could be left behind forever. Studying became a "stunt," and
he swept through examination after examination as though they were
novels or ball games, until at length he found himself at Woodbridge.

Tom's college life after the first year had been as pleasant as college
life ever is. At the start, his career was like that of most boys
entering Woodbridge from a high school. His "funny" clothes and mildly
awkward manners indicated that, as yet, he hardly spoke the same
language as his more fortunate classmates who had been privately
prepared for their higher education. He had heard something, of course,
as everyone has, of the celebrated democratic tendency that obtains at
Woodbridge. It was disconcerting, therefore, to be eyed by these young
men as though he were a too strange bird who had somehow wandered into
the zoo proper instead of staying, where he belonged, in the aviary. He
had been possessed, however, with the desire to "make good," and so
avoided the little group of cynics that, in every class, leave their
alma mater with gall and bitterness in their hearts. As it was, he came
to admire the happy, well-dressed majority. There was an easiness of
manner about them that charmed him. They were reserved and did not dull
their palms with entertainment of each new-hatch'd comrade, but when
they did accept one it appeared to be a thoroughgoing performance. They
were the _jeunesse doree_; but Tom frankly hoped that he might qualify
for something as fine.

Tom had, as a matter of fact, qualified, and in the spring of his Junior
year he had been awarded the ou