was for him a
fashion quite subdued. Before his experience at the Institute he would
have gone, if at all, in his own car, and his arrival would have been
notice to "the sporty crowd" that another candidate for initiation into
that select circle had arrived.

But Joe was enjoying the novelty of thinking a little before he acted.
Though he would always be of the irrepressible sort, he was not the same
Joe. He had laid out a program which surprised himself somewhat, and
astonished most of the people who knew him.

He knew now that he would become, if he could, a doctor; a missionary
doctor. No other career entered his mind. He would finish his college
work at the State University, and then go to medical school. He would
devote himself without ceasing to all the studies he would need. Not for
him any social life, any relaxation of purpose. Grimly he told himself
that his play days were over. They had been lively while they lasted;
but they were done.

Of course that was foolish. If he had persisted in any such scholastic
regimen, the effort would have lasted a few days, or possibly weeks; and
then in a reaction of disgust he might easily have come to despair of
the whole project.

Fortunately for Joe and for a good many other people, his purpose of
digging into his books and laboratory work and doggedly avoiding any
other interest was tempered by the happenings of the first week.
Doubtless he would have made a desperate struggle, but it would have
been useless. Not even conversion can make new habits overnight, and in
his first two years at college Joe had been known to teachers and
students alike as distinctly a sketchy student, wholly inexpert at
concentrated effort.

And so, instead of becoming first a grind and then a discouraged rebel
against it all, he had the immense good fortune to be captured by an
observant Junior whom he had met while they were both registering for
Chemistry III.

"You're new here," said the Junior, Heatherby by name, "and I've had two
years of it. Maybe you'll let me show you the place. I'm the proud
half-owner of a decidedly second-hand 'Hooting Nanny,' you know, and I
rather like bumping people around town in it."

That was the beginning of many things. Joe liked it that Heatherby made
no apologies for his car, and before long he discovered that the other
half-owner, Barnard, was equally unaffected and friendly. It was
something of a surprise, though, to learn that Barnard was not a