Oddly enough, Frank Lamson began to develop a sort of friendship for Toby. He seldom met him without stopping and talking. The conversation was never very important or very confidential, but Frank seemed to derive satisfaction from it. At first Toby was embarrassed, but after awhile he found himself quite ready to stop and chat. For one thing, Frank was near to Arnold and Toby could speak of the latter to him. One day—Frank had found Toby idly reading the notices on the bulletin board in the corridor of Oxford while awaiting a recitation—Frank observed:
“Say, Toby, what’s up between you and Arn? He seems to have a peach of a grouch about something, and I notice you don’t go around much together any more. What’s wrong, eh?”
“Oh, nothing,” answered Toby evasively. “What—what does Arn say?”
Frank shrugged. “Nothing. Just scowls. I thought you two were regular what-do-you-call-’ems—Damon and—what was the other chap’s name?”
“Pythias?”
“I guess so. What have you quarreled about?”
But Toby was silent, and Frank, amusing himself by running the end of a pencil across the radiator pipes, evoking a discordant result that appeared to give him much pleasure, went on: “Gee, you and he were so inseparable at Christmas time that I never saw Arn but once all during vacation, and that was Christmas morning when I went down to his room to leave a present.”
“That was an awfully pretty pin he gave you,” remarked Toby carelessly.
“What pin?” asked Frank in puzzled tones.