Phillip broke his gun, blew through the barrel and stepped back to the hut, looking quite as sober as though he had missed every bird. “He’s coming on,” thought John. “The ability to disguise your satisfaction at a deed well done seems to be one of the first lessons we teach at college nowadays.” He nodded to Phillip and the latter joined him.
“Hello,” he said. “Have they discharged you from the board of coaches?”
“No,” replied John; “but I got through early and thought I’d come over and see you shoot. They tell me you’re quite a dab at it.”
“Oh, well, I manage to hit them now and then. Of course, the captain there is our star. We’re about through. If you’ll wait I’ll walk back with you.”
John waited and they tramped back to the square in the teeth of the November gale, loitering a minute or two on the porch of the Weld Club house to watch one of the crews disembark—eight glowing, water-drenched young giants and a shrill-voiced, imperative wisp of a coxswain. Phillip accompanied John to his room and they had a restful smoke in the gathering darkness, their feet well up and their heads well back, with the subdued clanging of the cars on the avenue and the rattling of the casements under the assaults of the wind for an accompaniment to their lazy conversation.
“Larry Baker told me you were round to see him the other night,” said John.
“Yes; I really didn’t want to go. I thought maybe he’d think I was cheeky. But he didn’t seem to mind; in fact, he was right nice to me.”
“Why should he mind? This thing of each class huddling to itself like a lot of chickens in a rainstorm is all poppycock, Phil. We’re all in the same boat; we’re all Harvard men. What earthly difference does it make whether a chap is a first year man or a fourth? Why shouldn’t I take my friends from the freshmen or sophomores if I can find them there? If there were more coalescence between the upper classes and the lower it would be a darned sight better, I think.”
“I reckon it would be better for the lower men,” laughed Phillip, “but it might be a bit of a bore to the upper. We freshies are a kiddish lot, you know—that is, most of us. Some aren’t. There’s Guy Bassett. He seems more like a fellow of twenty-five or six than a freshman, he’s so kind of serious and—and smart.”