A COLLEGE EDUCATION
and rose up in bed to listen and make sure, but he pretended to be asleep when they all came bounding in, the noisy, healthy, pipe-smoking crowd, that he hated. "Well, Sour Ball! Hello, Bob! How are you by this time? What can I do for you?" they said.
The first to enter the room impolitely took the one available chair. Downing, the man who used platitudes so exasperatingly to Elliot, sat down on the bed, upon Elliot's foot, who said nothing. The Glee Club man and the Princetonian editor, both thoroughly despicable, planted themselves in the window-seats, putting their muddy feet on the cushions. Some of the rest of the odious gang perched on trunks, brushing Elliot's things off upon the floor. Others leaned against the wall and furniture. They made seven in all. Elliot counted them. He looked at each in turn covertly. He followed them when they moved about the room. Rankin came in later. He was a noisy man, and he shuffled his feet along the hallway and kicked open the door sing-
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