Larry managed to force a sort of donkey-bray laugh.
“Much obliged for the compliment, Purdy, but I’m not so generous as all that amounts to. I told you it wasn’t charity, and it isn’t. It’s a sure-enough scholarship, and it runs for four years. After that, if you make a go of your profession, you’re to pass it on to some other fellow that needs it. That’s fair enough, isn’t it?”
Purdick turned his face to the wall and for a long minute there was silence in the freezing little room. When he spoke again there was something more than the grippy hoarseness in his voice.
“I—I can’t take it in, Donnie,” he stammered brokenly. “I’m a perfect fool about this engineering course. I’ve wanted it ever since I knew what engineering was—wanted it so bad that I could taste it. The—the home doctor said I could never stand it to work my way through, and I guess maybe he was right. And now—” again he turned his face to the wall, and because it is a shame for one fellow to see another one cry, Larry jumped up and went to shiver at the rattling window.
When he thought he had given Purdick time enough to sort of get a grip on himself, he went on to the business part of his errand.
“Think you’re not too sick to stand the trip over to the house if I get a flivver and wrap you up good?”
By this time the little fellow was able to grin again.
“If it’s any colder out doors than it is up here, it must be going some,” he replied.
“It’s a rough night, just like it listens,” said Larry, “but we’ll make it, all right.” After which he groped his way out and down the two pairs of stairs and went to look for an auto cab.
That proved to be some hunt. There wasn’t a vehicle of any kind in sight on the college-suburb side of the river, and he had to go creeping and slipping over the bridge and into the town proper before he could find one. He discovered one at last, and had a wrangle with the driver because the man said he didn’t need tire chains and Larry insisted that he did; kept on insisting until the hackman grumblingly consented to put them on—with Larry to help.