Lindsay was registered as a middler. Being weak in Latin and Greek, and strong in French and German, he found himself spread over three classes, pushed ahead in modern languages, and degraded among the juniors in classics. To this mixture of classes and associates he resigned himself the more readily, as he honestly purposed to do what the school authorities advised, maintain his position in the middle and senior subjects and work his way up out of the junior class. But the experience of the first few days did not strengthen his confidence. To hear these young boys rattle off declensions and principal parts, run through synopses as he might run through the alphabet, give glib translations of passages through which he must toil his slow and painful way; to see how with every question on ablative or subjunctive, the air quivered with the hands of those eager to answer—all this, with the distractions of strange boys and their stranger acts added to the bewilderment of unfamiliar surroundings, plunged him in despair.

In the junior class were the Peck twins, Duncan and Donald. If ever two lads started in life with an exactly equal chance, it was this light-haired, snub-nosed, solemn-eyed pair. Externally as much alike as bullets cast in the same mould, they wore clothes of the same material and cut, bought neckties and hats by pairs, and from the spirit of fun which twinship seems to develop even in the sedatest couple, habitually appeared in the same dress at the same time. In actions, too, they were a unit; they attended the same recitations, held the same views, trained with the same set, and, in general, shared each other’s joys and sorrows and stood by each other in time of trouble in a manner most unusual to brothers.

Unfortunately, however, alike as were their appearance and interests, nature had endowed them with very different mental characteristics. Donald was an excellent scholar, in fact almost bookish, easily ranking among the best. Duncan on the contrary, who inclined decidedly to heaviness, bumped along at the bottom of the class, carried by the general momentum. If he ever was ready with an answer in the class room, the chances were that he knew as much about it as the receiver of a telephone knows about the message which passes through it. A prompt and correct answer in Duncan’s mouth was suspicious; it usually came from Donald, or some other sympathetic friend who understood the art of conveying information undetected, and who shared the delusion that in this way he was performing a neighborly service. Among boys who really knew the twins, the heavy Duncan with his slow, droll ways and never failing good nature was unquestionably the favorite. As a rule, however, since the majority could not distinguish them when they were together, and only their most intimate friends could identify them singly, the qualities of the brothers were lumped together in a composite, and credited to “the Pecks.” That this represented the just point of view, the conduct of the pair clearly showed, for each was a loyal admirer of the other, and inevitably shared in the other’s glory or disgrace.

The system of mutual coÖperation which the twins regularly followed was responsible for Lindsay’s first failure in recitation. It occurred in junior Greek. The Pecks sat side by side as subdued as sleeping kittens, while Mr. Warner passed along the row with his questions. Donald responded promptly and correctly. The instructor beamed with satisfaction over the success of his method of instruction; the answers were flawless. Then Tom Riley—Wolcott did not know him at that time—had doubts about a contraction, and persisted in his doubts until Mr. Warner was forced to leave his chair and chalk the forms in plain view upon the board. The moment the instructor’s back was turned, the twins quietly shifted places, and waited in complacent patience until Riley was satisfied, when a second flawless recitation was credited to the Peck family. And while Wolcott was staring and trying to make out what was happening and which boy was reciting, the questions had passed from the twins’ row to his own, and he suddenly heard his own name called, felt the blood rush to his face as he strove to find the place and fix his fluttering attention. There was a moment of terrible silence, while the lines of type blurred themselves over the section marks, and the page seemed to swell and decrease like a landscape behind a moving lens; then the impatient hands began again their furious waving, another boy gave the answer which was hovering on Wolcott’s lips, and the fire of questions swept on to another row. It was certainly the fault of the twins.

In the middle class Lindsay sat between Laughlin and Marchmont, two neighbors as opposite as north and south, while just beyond was Poole. Laughlin was captain of the Eleven for the next year, a big, broad-shouldered, heavy-featured fellow of twenty-one, with a face on which rested the glow of rare physical health, and massive hands in which any book but the biggest lexicon seemed out of place. His clothes, though neither of fine quality nor of good fit, were well brushed and clean, and the broad thumb which lay at the folding of the book, covering completely the double margin, if roughened and hardened by exposure and labor, still gave evidence of the personal neatness of its owner. David Laughlin had not a quick mind,—that one could read in the expression of his face, in which honesty and determination were more apparent than alertness. But he learned his lessons as thoroughly as he knew how, gave his whole attention to the class-room work, and as a result ranked above many who were by nature cleverer.

Marchmont, Lindsay’s other neighbor, has been called the opposite of Laughlin. He was tall and slim, possessed delicate, intelligent features and white, shapely hands; wore clothes of fine material which in smoothness of fit and moderation of style showed the skilled hand of the city tailor; took a negligent interest in the recitation, and answered questions addressed to him with sufficient readiness to satisfy the instructor without displaying an unseemly eagerness for learning.

At the first glance Wolcott made up his mind that he should like Marchmont and dislike Laughlin. The impression which the latter conveyed, of roughness and brute force and determination to make his way in spite of early disadvantages, was repellent to the young man fresh from a European city where distinctions of class and wealth are everywhere magnified. Marchmont, on the other hand, had the appearance and manners of one familiar with the usages of good society.

Lindsay passed out of his first recitation with the middlers feeling much alone among the jostling crowd of chattering boys. Many glanced at him with curiosity, taking quick measure of the newcomer, but few wasted words upon him; an unknown boy stands at zero in the Seaton world. Laughlin brushed against him, nodded, said “Hello!” and asked if he had ever played foot-ball. When Lindsay modestly answered “a little,” Laughlin gave a sharp look at his shoulders and arms, and turned, apparently indifferent, to talk with another boy. Poole, a quiet, dignified lad, whose importance in the school world one could guess from the eagerness with which others addressed him, seemed disposed to be polite to the newcomer, gave him his hand and the information that he was “in the best class in school.” Marchmont joined him in the corridor and accompanied him to the entrance of Hale, where Wolcott had slipped into a room recently vacated. Yes, Marchmont was decidedly the most attractive fellow he had seen.

A senior, named Tompkins, living next door, was our hero’s first caller. The visit was an unusual honor, had Wolcott but known it, for new boys are ordinarily left alone until they have shown themselves worth knowing. Tompkins introduced himself and straddled a rocking-chair.

“Well, how do you like it as far as you’ve got?” asked the senior, glancing around the room to see what kind of things Lindsay had brought with him, and then making a general summing-up on the new boy himself.

“Pretty well,” replied Lindsay. “I don’t feel quite at home yet.”

“You’ll be homesick for about a week, dead homesick. After that you’ll begin to get used to things, like a prisoner to the jail. In two or three months you’ll think you’ve always lived here, and by the time you’ve been here a couple of years you’ll be so fond of the place that you’ll hate to leave it to go to college. Where do you live when you’re at home?”

“Boston.”

“Why, you’re right in your own dooryard! You’ve no call to be homesick. It might be different if you lived in a caÑon twenty-five hundred miles away, as I do.”

“I didn’t say I was homesick,” protested Lindsay.

“That’s a fact, you didn’t! I wonder how I got the idea we were talking about homesickness.”

Wolcott looked sharply at Tompkins, suspicious, as every new boy in strange surroundings, that he was being played upon. But Tompkins merely blinked in return with his blank four-cornered eyes, and Wolcott’s suspicions vanished.

“I should think it would grow monotonous after a while,” he said, “just studying and reciting and going to chapel and the gymnasium.”

Tompkins grinned. “Beastly monotonous; but that programme doesn’t exist outside the school catalogue. The fact is there’s so everlasting much going on that it seems wicked to waste time on such ordinary things as studying and going to recitations. That’s what Smith and Wilder thought.”

And as Lindsay naturally wished to know about Smith and Wilder, Tompkins consented to explain.

“They had this room earlier in the year. Smith came all the way from Omaha for the benefits of the institution. He cut four recitations in two weeks and the third week he was on his way back to the West. Then Wilder turned up and took the room. He wasn’t a strong boy, his mother said, and she got him excused from gymnasium on a doctor’s certificate. I never heard whether all the cigarettes he smoked were on the doctor’s certificate, too, but he proved too sickly to stand the strain, and after a couple of months was sent home to his mamma. You’re the third.”

Lindsay smiled uneasily. “I hope there isn’t a hoodoo on the place.”

“Oh, no, nothing special. They fire here by platoons. According to Tom Riley this is a record year,—fifty-two to date—and the firing season is just under way. What are you, middler or senior? I saw you to-day in senior French.”

“I’m a mixture of senior and middler, with two subjects in the junior,” replied Lindsay, who was beginning to feel ashamed of his amphibious position.

“Then you must be with the two Pecks. I’d give a silver dollar to be with that combination. They’re more fun than a box of monkeys!”

“They room in this entry, don’t they?” asked Lindsay.

“Very much so, and they’re always running in and out, singly and in pairs, and always up to some shine or other. If you didn’t know that there were only two, you’d feel sure there was at least a bushel of them.”

“Instead of half,” said Lindsay, smiling.

“Just half,” returned Tompkins. “Know any fellows yet?”

“Two or three have spoken to me. Marchmont, who seems a very nice fellow, and Poole, and that big Laughlin.”

Tompkins rose. “You’d better be a bit careful about making friends until you know who’s who. In a school like this it isn’t so easy to shake friends as it is to make ’em. But you won’t be going wrong to tie up with Phil Poole, if he gives you the chance.”

But Lindsay’s thoughts were not so much with the present members of the school as with the exiles. “If they fire as many as you say, I shouldn’t think there’d be any bad ones left.”

“Oh, bless you! fellows aren’t fired merely because they’re bad! Some are unlucky, and some are lazy, and some are considered better off elsewhere, and some are too big blockheads to keep. There are really only two punishments in this school, firing with warning and firing without. So they drop off pretty fast. The main thing, if you want to stay here, is to behave yourself and do your work. Come and see me.”

And Tompkins withdrew his body from between the door and jamb, where it had been resting during his last speech, leaving the new boy with many unuttered questions on his lips and much wonderment in his mind.