rouble's a sort of bait that lands ambitious youths into doing
settlement work--and into coming to me for advice. They say I'm pretty
good at giving it. Why don't you try me?"

I did. I told him exactly how I felt: that I was growing impatient of
all the tomfoolery of college; that I wanted work more sure of manly
results, more broadening, more full of character. Then, too, I told him
of what Trevelyan had said, and he laughed at it merrily.

"Trevelyan?" he said. "Oh, yes, I know him. He belongs to my fraternity,
doesn't he? I've met him at one or another of our affairs. A good enough
fellow--a little too much money, and a little too easy with himself in
consequence. But he's a thorough gentleman at heart, isn't he?"

I almost gasped. He had summed up Trevelyan marvelously well in those
few words. He saw my wonderment and smiled.

"I've only met him once or twice," he said, "but I have the faculty of
knowing men. It's a faculty I have to have in this sort of work. It
depends so much on the human equation. I meet thousands of young men and
women every year--meet them, talk with them a little while, give them
the best I have to give in that short space--and like to think that,
even if I never see them again, I've helped them along a bit. That's all
that a settlement can do, after all."

Outside the door, in the gymnasium, we could hear the joyful shrieks of
a crowd of young boys playing basketball. From the upper floors came a
scraping of feet to tell that the clubs were beginning to meet for the
evening. From across the hall came the sound of young girls singing the
parts of a cantata--and this was all planned, all created by Lawrence
Richards who sat there at his desk and had a smile for each and everyone
who came before him.

"Don't think you're different from all the other fellows at the
university," he said to me. "You're not. You're all as much alike as a
row of pins. Your problems are youth's problems--and you needn't be
ashamed to have them, as long as you work them out to suit the best that
is in you. You've nothing definite in mind, have you?"

I said, "No." I only had an idea that he might be able to use me here at
the settlement in some capacity.

"There's a good deal in what Trevelyan said," he told me. "While you're
at college you might as well give college all that it needs of your time
and energy. College will surely pay you back. All the work that you do
on a team, for a college paper, for any of