In pursuance of his policy of open defiance, he chose to appear at Mory's with the wildest element of the class. His companions were a little in awe of his grim, concentrated figure; when he sat into a game of poker or joined a table of revelers, he did it with no zest. He never joined in the chorus, and if he occasionally broke out into a boisterous laugh, there was always a jarring note to it, that caused his companions to glance at him uneasily. With the impetuousness of his nature, he outstripped his associates, plunging deeper and deeper, obstinately resolved, into the black gulf of his cynicism. In a week his excesses became college gossip, and, unknown to Stover, the subject of many long conferences among his friends.
One Friday night, as, straying aimlessly from room to room, he set out for Mory's in quest of Tom Kelly and a group of Sheff pagans, he was trudging along the hard ways in front of Welch Hall, fists sunk in his pockets, head down under a slouch hat, when he chanced on Tom Regan coming out of the Brick Row.
"Hello there, bantam," said Regan, with the prerogative of his size.
"Hello, Tom," he said, but without enthusiasm, for he had rather avoided him in company with the rest of his old friends.
"That's a deuced cordial greeting! Where are you bound, stranger?"
"Mory's."
"Mory's," said Regan, appearing to consider. "Good idea. I've got a hankering after a toby of musty ale and a rabbit myself. Wait till I stow these books and I'll join you."
Stover stood frowning, suspicious and rebelling, for at that age it is a point of honor, when a man of the world resolves to run his head against a stone wall, that any interference from a friend is regarded as an unwarranted insult.
"He thinks he'll try the big brother act on me," he said, scowling. He was not in a particularly good humor, nor was his head clear from several nights that had gone their reeling way.