Besides, what force would this sort of thing have coming from Lawrence, Ninety Blank? That was the disadvantage of having a reputation like his. Nor could he very well halt the freshman on the campus and say, "See here. Stop this. I am a good boy now. You also must be a good boy." Ugh!
The mid-year examinations would be on in a week or two, or three, and for the present he was simply obliged to leave off reforming the freshman—especially as he had decided that it would look nice this time for his report to go home without any conditions on it. It was his duty to pole.
Study, after all, is what one comes to college for. It would doubtless have displeased his parents if they knew that he was wasting valuable opportunities, which come but once, over a little freshman who was no relative of the Lawrences.
He poled very hard and was conditioned in nothing. So hard did he work, indeed, that when the long, nervous strain was over there was very little stuff left in him. At the senior dance, which came on the evening after the last examination, he ran three girls' cards, and tried to make each think that she was the only reason he had come. This has been tried before. The next day he felt a slight touch of the old trouble.
He became alarmed about himself, felt his pulse, and decided that he needed a rest. He spent three days and ten of his new term cuts at Lakewood. The One of the three girls was there spending Lent.
When he came back to the campus he bumped against that freshman by the lamp-post in front of South Reunion. He was walking with a sportive young class-mate named Thompson, who was a typical little fool, and Darnell said "Hello, Lawrence!" in a tone which just missed being fresh, and seemed to mean "See, I'm not such a poler as you thought." For five minutes Lawrence forgot there was a place called Lakewood, where tall pines murmur.
That evening he heard things about his freshman that he did not want to hear. They were not very bad, but quite enough so to make Lawrence look up his address in the catalogue. He didn't know how to talk to freshmen. They nearly all looked alike. But he rang the door-bell.
It was Saturday evening and Darnell was not in. Lawrence frowned and held that freshmen had no business leaving their studies at night. He shook his head and went back to Jim Linton's room. The freshman had not returned when he called again at eleven.
Lawrence now thought that he had a right to be indignant. He had left a comfortable room, a game of whist, and three class-mates, who gave him many abusive epithets for it, all to talk to this freshman. And see how he was treated! Besides, it wasn't as if Lawrence wanted anything of him. What pleasure was it to him to talk to a little ass freshman? But he was doing his duty anyway.
It did not discourage him. He was not that sort of a fellow. He only shook his head and arose early the next morning, which was Sunday. He hurried through breakfast without stopping to read the papers, and marched straight to the freshman's room on the way to morning service.