Lambert shook his head.
"That's different."
"Not very honestly different," George said, attempting a smile.
"You mean," Lambert laughed, "because I've never asked you to Oakmont? Under the circumstances——"
"I don't mean that," George said. "I mean Blodgett."
"I can only arrange my own likes and dislikes," Lambert answered, still amused.
Then who at Oakmont liked the fat financier?
Rogers was in the street, too, selling bonds with his old attitude toward the serious side of life, striving earnestly only to spy out the right crowd and to run with it.
"Buy my bonds! Buy my bonds!" he would cry, coming into George's office. "They're each and every one a bargain. Remember, what's a bargain to-day may be a dead loss to-morrow, so buy before it's too late."
Goodhue planned to enter a stock exchange firm in the fall, and a lot of other men from the class would come down then after a long rest between college and tackling the world on twenty dollars a month. Wandel alone of George's intimates rested irresolute. George, since he had taken two rooms and a bath in the apartment house in which Wandel lived, saw him frequently. He could easily afford that luxury, for each summer his balance had grown, and Blodgett, now that he had George for as long as he could keep him, was paying him handsomely, and flattering him by drawing on the store of special knowledge his extended and difficult application had hoarded.