"And that?" It was the moon-face at the bottom of the pin that next came in for an explanation. The little fellow grinned back at it feelingly.
"Ah, that's the best of all," Kerwin exclaimed. It was quite as though he were telling a pretty fairy story to a child. "That denotes geniality, joviality, and—there's another 'ality' in the list, but I've forgotten it for the moment. You understand, though, don't you?"
"Oh, yes, I understand."
And then—this is hard to believe—what did that little freshman do but ask:
"Say, what do you think my chances are of ever wearing a pin like that?"
Kerwin almost fell off the radiator. He had heard of freshmen as fresh as this one, but at the stories of such he had always smiled, regarding them as pleasant fictions. Recovering, he realized that his duty was to disillusion the youth who awaited his reply, with a look of anxiety in his clear eyes. So——
"Very slim," he replied, brutally, sliding off his marble perch. "Very slim indeed! You see," he added, buttoning his coat and measuring with his eye the distance to the transverse corridor, "you're too bloomin' fresh ever to wear anything but a cornflower, or a wood-violet at best."
He ran then, and, even before the little independent realized the full significance of the speech, was out of sight.
It was quite two minutes later by the clock above the president's door that the blush began to mount the youngster's cheeks. He gathered his books under one arm and tiptoed down the corridor, staring at the floor and regretting heartily that he had even so much as mentioned the pictures on his classmate's—his wiser classmate's—pin.
But the displeasure that he suffered so keenly, the chagrin that forbade a lifting of his eyes, and the realization—harder to bear than the rest—that he had displayed his freshness so frankly, were emotions of the moment only, for when, two weeks later, his "stringer" came up before his class as the fraternity candidate for the toast-mastership he cast his ballot for him regardless of the fact that his own independent brethren had put forward a man as well. For, you see, that was Kerwin's way of making friends; perhaps not the best way, to be sure, but, in Kerwin's case, justified by its success.