especially of Westby and Carroll, was almost as good as applause. He
could not resist saying, in a casual way, "The knife seems to be sharp
this Sunday." And he felt that for once Westby was nonplussed.

But the days passed, and Irving felt that he was not getting any nearer
to the boys. At his table the talk went on before him, mainly about
athletics, about college life, about Europe and automobiles,--all topics
from which he seemed strangely remote. It needed only the talk of these
experienced youths to make him realize that he had gone through college
without ever touching "college life,"--its sports, its social diversions,
its adventures. It had been for him a life in a library, in classrooms,
in his own one shabby little room,--a cloistered life; in the hard work
of it and the successful winning of his way he had been generally
contented and happy. But he could not talk to these boys about "college
life" as it appeared to them; and they very soon, perhaps by common
consent, eliminated him from the conversation. Nor was he able to cope
with Westby in the swift, glancing monologues which flowed on and on
sometimes, to the vast amusement of the audience. Often to Irving these
seemed not very funny, and he did not know which was the more trying--to
sit grave and unconcerned in the midst of so much mirth or to keep his
mouth stretched in an insincere, wooden smile. Whichever he did, he felt
that Westby always was taking notes, to ridicule him afterwards to the
other boys.

One habit which Westby had was that of bringing a newspaper to supper
and taking the table with him in an excursion over headlines and
advertising columns. His mumbling manner, his expertness in bringing out
distinctly a ridiculous or incongruous sentence, and his skill in
selecting such sentences at a glance always drew attention and applause;
he had the comedian's technique.

The boys at the neighboring tables, hearing so much laughter and seeing
that Westby was provoking it, would stop eating and twist round and tilt
back their chairs and strain their ears eagerly for some fragment of the
fun. At last at the head table Mr. Randolph took cognizance of this
daily boisterousness, spoke to Irving about it, and asked him to curb
it. Irving thereupon suggested to Westby that he refrain from reading
his newspaper at table.

"But all the fellows depend on me to keep them _au courant_, as it
were." Westby was fond of dropping into French in his argument