Bailly lighted his pipe, stretched his legs, and pondered.
"You're giving the laundry up," he said, finally, "because—because it savours of service?"
George didn't get angry. He couldn't with Squibs in the first place; and, in the second, hadn't that thought been at the bottom of his mind ever since Dalrymple's remark about dirty hands?
"I don't need it any more," he said, "and I'd like to have you dispose of it where it will do the most good."
His voice hardened.
"But to somebody who wants to climb, not to any wild-eyed fellow who thinks he sees salvation in pulling down."
"You've just returned from the world," Bailly said, "and all you've brought is three thousand dollars and a bad complexion. I wish you'd directed your steps to a coal mine. You'd have come back richer."
XXIII
Goodhue got in a few hours after George. There was a deep satisfaction in their greetings. They were glad to be together, facing varsity football, looking ahead to the pleasures and excitements of another year, but George would have been happier if he could have shared his room-mate's unconcern about the clubs. Of course, Goodhue was settled. Did he know about George? George was glad the other couldn't guess how carefully he had calculated the situation—to take the best, or a dignified stand against all clubs with Allen getting behind him with all the poor and unknown men. But wasn't that exactly Wandel's game?
Stringham and Green were glad enough to see him, but Green thought he had been thoughtless not to have kept a football in the office for kicking goals through transoms.