The man nodded.
"I've never been with him more than a day or two, you see, and I thought I'd go up to New Haven this spring—when he graduated, and see him. Just a day or two. And then I was planning to drop out. Of course I never meant to see him much. I was always deadly afraid something'd happen, and I didn't want to get connected up with Jim. But I've been careful. There's not a line o' writing anywhere, and the man that sold the stuff for me in Jersey City is close as wax."
"But your friends—" Lindsay was wrung with an angry pity.
"I don't care for much of anybody but Jim," said the man.
Caroline was moving restlessly about in the dining-room again. Lindsay shook himself nervously.
"Of course, this is very awkward for me," he began, "I mean—I—oh, the devil! You know what I've got to do, of course?"
The man looked appealingly at him. "You've got it all back," he said quickly, "and you know Jim—"
"Yes, plague take it—I know Jim," the boy muttered, "we all know Jim."
"Known well, isn't he?" the man inquired eagerly, "there's no cleverer scholar there, much cleverer, I mean, is there?"
Lindsay shook his head. "Not that amounts to anything," he said shortly.