TALKS WITH A KID BROTHER
but it's the other pupils who educate him? And I hope—but you aren't thinking about their teaching possibilities; you are hoping that they will like you. That's all right; it's a worthy ambition. Every normal man in this procession shares it. I always look askance at people who profess to despise popularity. I knew a man in college who used to say he did, though how he was in a position to judge of popularity I couldn't see. He tried to make himself as well as the rest of us think he meant it, but I noticed that when any one out of pity took him up for a while he liked it so much that it always ended by his proving a nuisance to the one who tried to be decent to him—gave more than was bargained for, like a lonely dog which jumps up and licks you in the face when you only wanted to pat him. But remember, Dick, that it's much better to be loved by a few firm friends for what you really are than to be liked by many acquaintances for what you seem to be.
No, that stalwart young man is not an upper-classman—you'll learn to tell at a
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