“Maine. I live in Cheney Falls.”
“No one can blame you. How’s the grub?”
“Fine, thanks. Who is Goodloe?”
“Gene Goodloe? Track Team captain. Know him?”
“Not very well. I—I sort of met him awhile back.”
“You’ll like him, I guess. Most of us do. He’s a corking runner. Good fellow to know, Rowland. Better cultivate him. Meet all the fellows you can, old man. The more the merrier. You can’t know too many at school, especially if you’re a new boy. I had a perfectly miserable time of it here my first year. I was horribly shy, you see. Yes, I got over it!” He laughed as he caught Ira’s quick glance of surprise. “Had to. I used to get red clear around to the back of my face if anyone spoke to me. The second year I realised that it wouldn’t do and I made up my mind to get cured. How do you think I did it? I got up one morning and went out and spoke to every fellow I met, whether I’d ever seen him before or not. It nearly killed me at first and I got all sorts of snubs and funny looks, but it cured me. Now I—I’d slap Jud himself on the back if it would do me any good.”
“Jud?” asked Ira.
“Otherwise Doctor Judson Lane, principal of this here school. All through? Going to have desert? No? Come along then. There’s your check. Might as well pay it if you’ve got the money. They have a nasty way of going out on the street after you and bringing you back if you get absent-minded.”
They slid off their stools and made their way to the cashier’s desk, Johnston hailing many acquaintances on the way and once pausing in response to the invitation of one. Ira had an uncomfortable suspicion that he was the subject of the short, whispered dialogue that ensued. “It’s probably these clothes,” he thought. “They are different from other fellows’. I’ll have to get some new ones, I guess.”