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Dick himself is big, blond, and seventeen. He isn’t exactly handsome, judged by accepted standards of masculine beauty, but he has nice gray eyes, a smile that wins you at once, and a pleasant voice. Somehow, in spite of the fact that nature has endowed him with a miscellaneous lot of features he is rather attractive; as Chub has once remarked: “He’s just about as homely as a mud fence, only somehow you forget all about it.” It is the crowning sorrow of Dick’s young life that, owing to his nomadic existence, his schooling has been somewhat neglected, with the result that he is a year behind his two friends and that when he reaches college in the fall—if he’s lucky enough to get in—he will be only a freshman, while Roy and Chub are dignified and superior sophomores. Chub, however, tries to console him by telling him not to worry, that like as not he won’t pass the exams!

Chub is staying with Roy, as his guest, and Dick has taken dinner with them this evening. And now, having left Mr. Porter to his paper in the library and Mrs. Porter to her book, they have scurried up to Roy’s room for a good long talk; for there is much to be said. At the present moment Roy, sprawled on his bed, is doing the talking.