“Say, Vinton, Joe Chambers says you’re going to join Oxford. Is that right?”
“Why—I don’t know yet. I haven’t decided,” stammered Dan.
“Then it isn’t too late,” said Loring, with an exaggerated sigh of relief. “There’s still time to save yourself from humiliation and dishonor.”
“Don’t you like Oxford?” asked Dan innocently.
“Oxford! Oxford!” replied the other scathingly. “Do I look to you like an idiot, Vinton? Answer me quite frankly; do I?”
“No,” laughed Dan. “But you know there are quite a few fellows who do belong to Oxford.”
“Sore-heads,” responded Loring promptly. “Fellows who couldn’t make Cambridge and are trying to hide their despair under a pretense of happiness. Don’t let them fool you, my boy.”
“Still,” said Dan thoughtfully, “Oxford has a billiard table!”
“Huh! A billiard table! Have you ever seen it? Give you my word, Vinton, if you start a ball at one end of that table it’ll roll to the full length of the cloth, go over the edge and drop on the floor! Why, that table was old and decrepit when Adam was a little child! Old Tobey brought it over from England with him, they tell me! And even with their blessed billiard table they can’t win a debate more than once in two years. We let ’em win now and then for fear they’ll get discouraged and quit. Now, don’t you go and link your fate to a one-horse society like Oxford when you’ve got the chance to be a Cambridge fellow. Don’t you do it, Vinton. Cambridge has got the pick of the school. Look at Colton and Capes and Mitchell and Hill and Ridge and—and lots of others!”