Stover at Yale | Page 4

the team right off -- that'll make you
friends." Then, turning to Stover, he added, with just a shade of
difference in his tone: "I was looking for you particularly. I want you to
dine with me to-night. I'll be around about seven. Awfully glad you're
here. At seven."
He passed on, giving his hand to the right and left. Stover felt as if he
had received the accolade. Schley ahead was squirmingly impressed;
one or two heads across the aisle turned in his direction, wondering
who could be the freshman whom Le Baron so particularly took under
his protection.
"Isn't he a king?" He said enthusiastically to Regan, with just a
pardonable pleasure in his exuberance. "He made the crew last year --

probably be captain; subtackle on the eleven. I played against him two
years ago when he was at Andover. Isn't he a king, though!"
"I don't know," said Regan, with a drawing of his lips.
Stover was astounded.
"Why not ?"
"Don't know."
"What's wrong?"
"Hard to tell. He sizes up for a man all right, but I don't think we'd
agree on some things."
The incident momentarily halted the conversation. Stover was a little
irritated at what seemed to him his companion's over-sensitiveness. Le
Baron had been more than kind in his proffer of help. He was at a loss
to understand why Regan should not see him through his eyes.
"You think I'm finicky," said Regan, breaking the silence.
"Yes, I do," said Stover frankly.
"I guess you and I'll understand each other," said Regan, approving of
his directness. "Perhaps I am wrong. But, boy, this place means a great
deal to me, and the men that are in it and lead it."
"It's the one place where money makes no difference," said Stover, with
a flash, "where you stand for what you are."
Regan turned to him.
"I've fought to get here, and I'll have a fight to stay. It means something
to me."
The train began to slacken in the New Haven station. They swarmed
out on to the platform amid the returning gleeful crowd, crossing and

intercrossing, caught up in the hubbub of shouted recognition.
"Hello, Stuffy!"
"There's Stuffy Davis!"
"Hello, boys."
"Oh, Jim Thompson, have we your eye?"
"Come on."
"Get the crowd together."
"All into a back."
"Back again, Bill!"
"Join you later. I've got a freshman."
"Where you rooming?"
"See you at Mory's."
Buffeted by the crowd they made their way across the depot to the
street.
"I'm going to hoof it," said Regan, extending his hand, "Glad to have
met you. I'll drop in on you soon.
Stover watched him go stalwartly through the crowd, his bag under one
arm, his soft hat set a little at defiance, looking neither to the right nor
left.
"Why the deuce did he say that about Le Baron? He thought, with a
feeling of irritation.
Then, obeying an impulse, he signaled an expressman, consigned his
bag, and made his way on foot, dodging in and out of the rapidly filled

hacks, where upper classmen sat four on the seat, hugging one another
with bearlike hugs.
"Eli, freshman, take off that hat!"
He removed his derby immediately, bowing to a hilarious crowd, who
rocked ahead shouting back unintelligible gibes at him.
Others were clinging to car steps and straps.
"Hello, Dink!"
Some one had called him but he could not discover who. He swung
down the crowded street to the heart of the city in the rapid dropping of
the twilight. There was a dampness underfoot that sent to him long,
wavering reflections from early street-lamps. The jumble of the city
was in his cars, the hazy, crowded panorama in his eyes, at his side the
passing contact of strangers. Everything was multiplied, complex,
submerging his individuality.
But this feeling of multitude did not depress him. He had come to
conquer, and zest was in his step and alertness in his glance. Out of the
churning of the crowd he passed into the clear sweep of the city
Common, and, looking up through the mist, for the first time beheld the
battlements of the college awaiting him ahead, lost in the hazy elms.
Across the quiet reaches of the Common he went slowly, incredibly,
toward these strange shapes in brick and stone. The evening mist had
settled. They were things undefined and mysterious, things as real as
the things of his dreams. He passed on through the portals of Phelps
Hall, hearing above his head for the first time the echoes of his own
footsteps against the resounding vault.
Behind him remained the city, suddenly hushed. He was on the campus,
the Brick Row at his left; in the distance the crowded line of the fence,
the fence where he later should sit in