"I suppose you're right, 'fresh,'" he admitted slowly. "I'm not of the
fighting sort. And I have my fraternity to consider. That's the worst of
belonging to a fraternity." He took up his pipe again and smoked in
silence for a while. "I suppose you think you'll never be happy, now
that you know you aren't going to be in a fraternity. Take my word for
it, you're ten times luckier in having your freedom. Wait until you're
an upperclassman and you'll agree with me."

It seemed a dreadful sacrilege for him to be saying it. Besides, I
thought he was blaming his own lack of fighting power on his fraternity
in too heavy and unjust a degree. I wasn't any more of a fighter than
he--but I was disappointed, somehow, that his pugnacity had died out so
readily.

"I can't do it, 'fresh,'" he confessed, with a grin. "I'm not the
scrapper I thought I could be. I just want to go through college lazily,
happily, respectably--and all that. I wouldn't know how to make a rumpus
if I wanted to. But listen here." He pointed his finger at me sternly.
"If I were you, I wouldn't rest until I had made the fight and won it.
Fight it not only for yourself but for the hundred other Jewish fellows
in college. See that they get a square deal. See that they don't lose
out on all the things that make college worth while. A Jew is just as
good as anyone else, isn't he?"

"Yes," I answered him only faintly.

"Well, then, go ahead and prove that fact to the whole college world."

But, though I did not answer him, I knew that I was not any more able to
make the fight than he. Less able, perhaps, because I was more
handicapped. I made myself a thousand excuses as I sat there thinking it
over--I was not brave enough, that was all.

But one thing my acquaintanceship with Trevelyan did bring me. He was a
dabbler in light verse, and had been elected to the college funny paper.
He also contributed to the undergraduate literary magazine at
times--though he was a bit ashamed of being taken seriously. At any
rate, he encouraged me to go into these two activities.

Whether or not it was due entirely to his influence, or whether these
two college publications were broader and less exacting as to the
ancestry of contributors, my work for them was welcomed. Before the year
was over I had been elected an associate editor of the funny paper, and
had four articles accepted by the literary magazine--enough to put me
among the list of "probables" for election, next win