"I go to Doolittle and Pray's."
"That's the big private school in Marlborough Street, isn't it?"
The fat boy made the inarticulate grunt which with most Americans means "Yes." "I was put down for Groton, only mother wouldn't let me leave home. I'm going to Harvard."
"I'm going to Harvard, too. What class do you expect to be in?"
The fat boy replied that he expected to be in the class of nineteen-nineteen.
Tom said he expected to be in that class himself.
"Now I've got to beat it to the Latin School. So long!"
"So long!"
Tom carried to his school in the Fenway an unusual feeling of elation. With friendly intent someone had approached him from the world outside. It was not the first time it had ever happened, but it was the first time it had ever happened in just this way. He could see already that the fat boy was not one of those he would have chosen for a friend; but he was so lonely that he welcomed anyone. Moreover, he divined that the fat boy was lonely, too. Boys of that type, the Miss Nancy and the mother's darling type, were often consumed by loneliness, and no one ever pitied them. Few went to their aid when other boys "picked" on them, but of those few Tom Whitelaw was always one. He found them, once you had accepted their mannerisms, as well worth knowing as other boys, while they spared him a scrap of admiration. It was possible that in this fat boy he might find the long-sought fellow who would not "turn him down" on discovering that he lived in Grove Street. Being turned down in this way had made him sick at heart so often that he had decided never any more to make or trust advances. In suffering temptation again he assured himself that it would be for the last time in his life.
On returning from school he looked for the boy in Louisburg Square, but he was not there. A few hundred yards farther, however, he came in for another adventure.