"You will," said Stover. And in his mind was already something of the paternal protection that he had surprised in Hunter, the big man of the Andover crowd.
"If I'm to do anything at football I've got to put on a deuce of a lot of weight," said McCarthy a little disconsolately. "Guess my best chance is at baseball."
"The main thing, Tough, is to get out and try for everything," said Stover wisely. "Show you're a worker and it's going to count."
"That's good advice—who put it into your head?"
"Le Baron talked over a good many things with me," said Stover slowly. "He gave me a great many pointers. That's why I said go slow—we want to get with the right crowd."
"The right crowd?" said McCarthy, wheeling about and staring at his room-mate. "What the deuce are you talking about, Dink? Do you mean to say any one cares who in the blankety-blank we eat with?"
"Yes."
"What! Who the deuce's business is it to meddle in my affairs? Right crowd and wrong crowd—there's only one crowd, and each man's as good as the other. That's the way I look at it." He stopped, amazed, looking over at Stover. "Why, Dink, I never expected you to stand for the right and wrong crowd idea."
"I don't mean it the way you do," said Stover lamely—for he was trying to argue with himself. "We're trying to do something here, aren't we—not just loaf through? Well, we want to be with the crowd that's doing things."
"Oh, if you mean it that way," said McCarthy dubiously, "that's different. I've been filled up for the last hour with nothing but society piffle by a measly-faced runt just out of the nursery called Schley. Skull and Bones—Locks and Keys—Wolf's-Head—gold bugs, hobgoblins, toe the line, heel the right crowd, mind your p's and q's, don't call your soul your own, don't look at a society house, don't for heaven's sake look at a pin in a necktie, never say 'bones' or 'fee-fie-fo-fum' out loud—never—oh, rats, what bosh!"