Amory lay for a moment without speaking.     

       “I won’t be—long,” he said finally. “But I hate to get anywhere by working for it. I’ll show the marks, don’t you know.”      

       “Honorable scars.” Kerry craned his neck suddenly at the street. “There’s Langueduc, if you want to see what he looks like—and Humbird just behind.”      

       Amory rose dynamically and sought the windows.     

       “Oh,” he said, scrutinizing these worthies, “Humbird looks like a       knock-out, but this Langueduc—he’s the rugged type, isn’t he? I distrust that sort. All diamonds look big in the rough.”      

       “Well,” said Kerry, as the excitement subsided, “you’re a literary genius. It’s up to you.”      

       “I wonder”—Amory paused—“if I could be. I honestly think so sometimes. That sounds like the devil, and I wouldn’t say it to anybody except you.”      

       “Well—go ahead. Let your hair grow and write poems like this guy D’Invilliers in the Lit.”      

       Amory reached lazily at a pile of magazines on the table.     

       “Read his latest effort?”      

       “Never miss ’em. They’re rare.”      

       Amory glanced through the issue.     

       “Hello!” he said in surprise, “he’s a freshman, isn’t he?”      

       “Yeah.”      

       “Listen to this! My God!     

   “‘A serving lady speaks:       Black velvet trails its folds over the day, White tapers, prisoned in their silver frames, Wave their thin flames like shadows in the wind, Pia, Pompia, come—come away—’ 

       “Now, what the devil does that mean?”      

       “It’s a pantry scene.”      

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