Page 52 - The Adventures of a Freshman

"But, Jim, Young's not such a kid."

"He wouldn't be, but, you see, he's had too much success in too many ways--it has dazzled and rattled the
young man from the country. Success has turned his head. He's flattered at being taken up by these prominent
young sporty Freshmen, and he doesn't know how to let well enough alone."

"You mean--- "

"I mean that he wants to get clear 'in it.' He doesn't want to be considered a big, green giant. He wants to make
himself like the rest of the--Invincibles, I think they call themselves. That is the way to be a college man, he
thinks."

"Well," said Nolan, "can you account for the way people in general, not only here in college, but in the big,
outside world--people that ought to know better, people you'd never expect it of--can you account for their
making fools of 'emselves to stand in with the crowd? Asses!"

Then these two moralizers changed the subject to baseball. Both thought of taking an early opportunity of
giving the big Freshman a friendly tip, for they knew him well enough by this time. And both went off and
forgot; and if it recurred to them, they put it off till they "felt more like it."

What had Deacon Young actually done? Oh, nothing at all, or next to nothing. Billy Drew one morning at
breakfast was telling about his experience of the night before, and then stopped suddenly when Young entered
the room.

"Go on, I want to hear the rest of it," said the Deacon, smiling broadly. "I heard the first part while I was
taking off my coat in the hall. Go on." So Drew went on in the grinning, boastful way of a certain sort of
Freshman, with his account of how he fell upstairs, and how he tried to catch the bed as it whirled around.

Some of them began to chuckle. Lucky Lee looked at Young; so did one or two of the others. Young knew
they were looking at him. Here was his chance to show them he was not so stiff and sober and green as they
imagined. He leaned back in his chair and laughed heartily. Then Lucky Lee and the rest of the table laughed
heartily.

And after that no one took pains to keep things away from the Deacon again. That seems a very little thing,
but, as Linton said, he was not very likely to stop there.