“Ump. He’s having one fine, large, tough time, so the fellows tell me. Flunked out last year Freshman and had to take the work over. Nothing much to him but grit, but he’s got a peak load o’ that. Works in Hassler’s to keep going, but I haven’t seen him there for a week or so. Darned shame a fellow like that can’t get a little boost over the humps, I’ll say. If Old Sheddon had any heart she’d have scholarships, or something, for ’em.”
Larry let Purdick drop for the remainder of the session; but the under-thought, that he’d been neglecting something, kept trotting along just the same; that, together with the “flop-around,” as he was calling it, of one Ollie McKnight. From something that had been mighty nearly a snob at the beginning of the year, the son of Consolidated Steel was actually thawing down into a human person with decencies and sympathies a good bit like those of other fellows. That word about the Purdicks just now, for example.
At the half-past-nine-o’clock dispersal, when the roomful went straggling out by ones and twos, McKnight was still working on his final trig. problem. When he finished it he stretched himself luxuriously in his chair and stuck his hands into his pockets.
“Once more I can face Old Figures without batting an eye,” he exulted. Then: “You’re all kinds of a decent chap, Donnie.”
“Don’t I know it?” Larry grinned. “But I’m not as decent as I might be. If I were, I’d have looked Purdick up before this time. Maybe he’s sick.”
“Still worrying about that poor little rat, are you? I don’t wonder at it, if he’s a friend of yours. He needs somebody to worry for him.”
“I wish I could worry to some good purpose, Ollie.”
“Money?” said McKnight.
“If I had it—yes. I’d like to stake him for his course. Some of the fellows can romp their way through on the work-out track and it doesn’t hurt ’em. Purdy’s got the nerve for it, but that’s about all he has got.”
For a long minute McKnight sat trying to balance his pencil, end up, on one finger and apparently giving his entire attention to the accomplishment of the impossible feat. When he spoke again it was to say: “Donnie, once upon a time I was low-down enough to call you a ‘mucker’: you’re not one, but I am.”