"Swazey, tell me about yourself," said Stover, surprised at his own eagerness. "By George, I'd like to hear it! Why did you come to college?"
"It was an idea of the governor's, and he got it pretty well fixed in my head. Would you like to hear? All right." He touched a match to the kindling, and, his coat bothering him, cast it off. "The old man was a pretty rough customer, I guess—he died when I was twelve; don't know anything about any one else in the family. I don't know just how he picked up his money; we were always moving; but I fancy he was a good deal of a rum hound and that carried him off. He always had a liking for books, and one set idea that I was to be a gentleman, get to college and get educated; so I always kept that same idea in the back of my head, and here I am."
"You said you'd earned your living ever since you were twelve," said Stover, all interest.
"That's so. It's pretty much the usual story. Selling newspapers, drifting around, living on my wits. Only I had a pretty shrewd head on my shoulders, and wherever I went I saw what was going on and I salted it away. I made up my mind I wasn't going to be a fool, but I was going to sit back, take every chance, and win out big. Lord of mercy, though, I've seen some queer corners—done some tough jobs! Up to about fifteen I didn't amount to much. I was a drifter. I've worked my way from Portland, Oregon, to Portland, Maine, stealing rides and hoofing it with tramps. I've scrubbed out bar-rooms in Arizona and Oklahoma, and tended cattle in Kansas City. I sort of got a wandering fit, which is bad business. But each year I tucked away a little more of the long green than the year before, and got a little more of the juice of books. About four years ago, when I was seventeen—I'd saved up a few hundreds—I said to myself:
"'Hold up, look here, if you're ever going to do anything, it's about time now to begin.' So I planted my hoof out in Oklahoma City and I started in to be a useful citizen."
The pipe between Stover's lips had gone out, but he did not heed it. A new life—life itself—was suddenly revealing itself to him; not the guarded existences of his own kind, but the earnest romance of the submerged nine-tenths. As Swazey stopped, he said impulsively, directly:
"By George, Swazey, I envy you!"
"Well, it's taught me to size men up pretty sharply," said Swazey, continuing. "I've seen them in the raw, I've seen them in all sorts of tests. I've sort of got a pretty guess what they'll do or not do. Then, of course, I've had a knack of making money out of what I touch—it's a gift."
"Are you working your way through here?" said Stover. All feeling of patronage was gone; he felt as if a torrent had cleared away the dust and cobwebs of tradition.