“It's just this: I am alone in the world. I have no money and I have no friends. I've got to make money and I want to have friends here. I'm not a hand-shaker, but—” Tommy paused.
“Yes?” Mr. Nevin looked a trifle uncomfortable, as men do when they listen to another man telling the truth about himself.
“I know I'm going to be damned lonesome. Do you know what it means to have been called Tommy all your life by all the fellows you ever knew, and all of a sudden to be flung into a crowd of strangers to whom you cannot say, 'I'm one of you; please be friends'? I'm nobody but Leigh, a stranger among strangers. And what I want to be is Tom Leigh to people who will not be strangers. If I push myself they'll mistrust me. If I don't they'll think I am stuck on myself. Sooner or later I'll have to be Tom Leigh or get out. I'd rather be Tommy sooner because I don't want to get out. Do you understand?”
“Sure thing, Le—er—Tommy,” said Nevin, heartily. “And I'll be glad to help all I can. Come to me any time you want any pointer about anything. Those are Mr. Thompson's orders; I'd have to do it whether I wanted to or not. But—this is straight!—I'll be glad to do it, my boy!”
Mr. Nevin was surprised at his own warmth. He was a sort of general-utility man and understudy of several subheads of departments, a position created expressly for him by Mr. Thompson, who had a habit of inventing positions to fit people on the curious theory that it was God who made men and men who made jobs. In admitting to himself that he liked young Leigh, Nevin classified the young man as another of “Thompson's Experiments.”
At quitting-time Tommy hastened to find Bill, whose full name, he had ascertained, was William S. Byrnes. Bill was waiting for him.
“I'll have to stop at the station and get my valise,” apologized Tommy. “I have a trunk also, but I'd better find out if Mrs. Clayton will take me.”
“Get an expressman to take it up; she'll take you,” said Bill. He always spoke with decision when he knew.
They stopped at the station, where Tommy did exactly as Bill—the upper-classman—said, and then they walked to the boarding-house.
Bill was carrying his dinner-pail and Tommy his dress-suit case. They walked in silence until Tommy shifted the valise.