“Oh, Rowland’s able to look after himself. If he wasn’t I wouldn’t have asked him around here to meet you chaps. I might as well explain, Rowland, that you’re quite at liberty to cut these fellows dead the next time you see them. I only wanted to show them to you so you’d know whom to avoid.”
“Where are you hanging out?” asked Lyons.
“Mrs. Magoon’s, on Main Street.”
“Maggy’s, eh? Not a bad place. She lets you do about as you like, anyway, so long as you pay your bills. They said last year that faculty was sort of frowning on Maggy’s and weren’t going to let the fellows go there any more. Who’s in the house with you?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t met any of them yet. At least, not exactly. One of them gave me a scare last night, though.” He told about the boy who had asked the date of the Peloponnesian War, and the rest laughed.
“That was ‘Old Earnest,’” said White. “He’s been at Maggy’s ever since he came here.”
“And he will be there awhile yet if he doesn’t stick to his courses,” said Lyons. “He took up so many extras last year that he didn’t have time for the required studies and flunked in a couple of them. He’s a wonder! You’ll find him amusing, Rowland, when you get to know him. He’s our prize ‘grind,’ I guess.”
“Rather handy having him around,” observed White. “If you ever want to know anything all you’ve got to do is run down and ask Ernest Hicks.”
“Yes,” agreed Gene, “it’s like the signs you see: ‘Ask Hicks: he knows!’”
“He didn’t know about the What-you-may-call-it War, though,” said Fred Lyons. “I hope you were able to tell him, Rowland.”