"Well, he knew it."
"Lots of difference that makes!"
Below Brocky, muffled to the ears, brim down, was whistling in unmusical enthusiasm.
"'Tis a jolly life we lead,
Care and sorrow we defy—"
"Hello, that you, Dink?" he said, breaking off. "Come on for a tramp."
At that age, being inexperienced, the undergraduate in questions of sympathy wisely returns to the instincts of the canine. Stover, without speaking, fell into his stride, and they swung off towards West Rock.
"Wiggin is the type of man," said Brockhurst, meditatively puffing his pipe, "that is the glorification of the commonplace. He is a sort of sublime earthworm, plodding along and claiming acquaintance with the rose because he travels around the roots. He is really by instinct a bricklayer, and the danger is that he may continue either in literature or some profession where the cry is for imagination."
"You could have beaten him out," said Stover, as a solace.
"And become an earthworm?" said Brockhurst. "The luck of it is, he made up his mind to heel the Lit. With his ideas he would have made leader of the glee club, president of the Phi Beta Kappa, chairman of the News, or what not."