“Well, Yale got two mighty fine chaps when she got those fellows,” said Dan Vinton. “Alf’s one of the best there is; and so is Tom.”
They turned into Clarke Hall and climbed the stairs, Tom Roeder consenting to “come on up and chin awhile.”
“I ought not to, though,” he declared. “Wallace is waiting for me to help him hang pictures. I’ll get a hard look when I get back.”
“How is he?” asked Dan. “Has he taken care of himself this summer?”
“Looks pretty fit. Maybe a few pounds heavy, but it won’t take him long to drop that. He’s just back from a cruise in his brother’s boat, and you can’t help getting fat lying around on deck. You don’t seem to have put on much fat, Gerald.”
“I haven’t,” was the reply. “I’ve been playing tennis most all summer, and doing a little running.”
“He’s grown like the dickens, though,” said Dan. “Look at his shoulders. Remember him when he first came, Tom? Doesn’t look now much like he did then, eh? Oh, we’ll make a man of you yet, Gerald!”
“Thank you,” laughed Gerald Pennimore. “That’s very kind of you.”
The three turned to the left at the head of the stairs and Kendall, pushing open the door of Number 24, saw them enter the corner room at the front of the building. Kendall’s own room, which he shared with a classmate named Harold Towne, was Number 21, and was on the rear of the building, its two windows looking out past the back of Dudley to the edge of the grove. Towne was in the room when Kendall entered. He was arranging a row of books on the study table which, placed in the center of the room, equidistant between the two single beds, was common property.