I talked to Trevelyan, too, of my interest in the work of Lawrence Richards. Trevelyan had heard of him and of his settlement, and was rather at sea to give an opinion about it. He was only mildly enthusiastic.

"What's the use of bothering with things so far away from your college life?" he protested lazily. "Of course, the idea of being useful to people in need is splendid and all that. But somehow, it doesn't fit in with college life."

"Why not? Why shouldn't it?" I argued.

He waved his hand as if to begin some generalization, but made no real reply.

"Wait until you're through with college before you settle down to manhood," he said a little later. "College is just the sport of kids, after all."

It came to me—though I did not tell him so—of how, in the beginning, I had thought of college as a place of full manhood—and of the misgivings I had had, that perhaps, after all, college would be only another stepping stone to that manhood. And so it was: just a stepping stone, through brambles of prickly prejudice and childish pranks. When would it come, that manhood?

"You know, Trev," I said to him hesitatingly, "I sometimes feel I am much older than most fellows. Almost old enough to do a man's work."

He looked at me and laughed, refusing to take me too soberly. "You are older," he admitted. "Only what do you call a man's work?"

I didn't know, and told him so. He seemed to consider it a triumph for his own argument.

"See here," he said, "what's the use of all this stewing about the slums and the wretched poor and that sort of thing, if you're just aching to make trouble for yourself? If you want manhood, you'll reach it ten times sooner if you'll slip into it comfortably, gracefully, lying quietly on your back and floating—and not splashing too hard. You'll never get anywhere if you insist on getting there with a rumpus."

I admired the studied grace of his similes, but had to confess that they did not impress me as true. But, at the same time, I did not try to explain any further to him how I felt.

That did not end the questioning for me, however. I even broached it to Aunt Selina once, and she threw up her hands in despair. I think I did it somewhat with the idea of seeing her do just that. It was beginning to amuse me, how hopeless she thought I was.

So that was why I did not tell her of my intention to go, one evening, to see Mr. Lawrence Richards at his East Side Settlement. But immediately after supper, I bade my aunt good night, and answered her suspicious query with the information that I was "bound for a social affair." The answer seemed to reassure her and she gave me gracious permission to go.

I took the subway to Spring street, walked across to the Bowery, and a few blocks on the other side of it, came to the Settlement. It was in the heart of a noisy crowded section, towering high above the shabby buildings like a great, clean, shining bulwark.

Mr. Richards was at supper, I was told. A bright-eyed little Jewish boy, neatly dressed and careful of speech, offered to show me the way to the dining room on the fifth floor.

I had a hearty welcome from the Head Worker when he recognized me. He was disappointed that I had already had my supper; made me sit down beside him and introduced me to all his associates. They were mostly young men, I was surprised to find; one of them told me that he had graduated from one of the New England colleges only the year before.

Mr. Richards showed me all about the place, as he had promised he would. Then he took me with him into his "den" as he called it—a little room, just off the gymnasium, where he had his desk and filing cabinets and books. He sat me down opposite him on a canvas-covered chair, and, when he had gone over some reports which needed his signature, looked up at me and smiled.

"Well," he said, "what's the trouble?"

"Oh, I didn't—well, how did you know there was any trouble?"

The smile broadened. "None of you ever come down here unless you are in trouble. Trouble's a sort of bait that lands ambitious youths into doing settlement work—and into coming to me for advice. They say I'm pretty good at giving it. Why don't you try me?"

I did. I told him exactly how I felt: that I was growing impatient of all the tomfoolery of college; that I wanted work more sure of manly results, more broadening, more full of character. Then, too, I told him of what Trevelyan had said, and he laughed at it merrily.

"Trevelyan?" he said. "Oh, yes, I know him. He belongs to my fraternity, doesn't he? I've met him at one or another of our affairs. A good enough fellow—a little too much money, and a little too easy with himself in consequence. But he's a thorough gentleman at heart, isn't he?"I almost gasped. He had summed up Trevelyan marvelously well in those few words. He saw my wonderment and smiled.

"I've only met him once or twice," he said, "but I have the faculty of knowing men. It's a faculty I have to have in this sort of work. It depends so much on the human equation. I meet thousands of young men and women every year—meet them, talk with them a little while, give them the best I have to give in that short space—and like to think that, even if I never see them again, I've helped them along a bit. That's all that a settlement can do, after all."

Outside the door, in the gymnasium, we could hear the joyful shrieks of a crowd of young boys playing basketball. From the upper floors came a scraping of feet to tell that the clubs were beginning to meet for the evening. From across the hall came the sound of young girls singing the parts of a cantata—and this was all planned, all created by Lawrence Richards who sat there at his desk and had a smile for each and everyone who came before him.

"Don't think you're different from all the other fellows at the university," he said to me. "You're not. You're all as much alike as a row of pins. Your problems are youth's problems—and you needn't be ashamed to have them, as long as you work them out to suit the best that is in you. You've nothing definite in mind, have you?"

I said, "No." I only had an idea that he might be able to use me here at the settlement in some capacity.

"There's a good deal in what Trevelyan said," he told me. "While you're at college you might as well give college all that it needs of your time and energy. College will surely pay you back. All the work that you do on a team, for a college paper, for any of the undergraduate organizations, will be just so much of a pledge on the part of your college that she will honor you, give you power and position and the opportunity to do bigger things. Don't you want those honors? Doesn't that power mean anything to you?"

I could not answer him; I did not want to tell him that I thought myself above these little things. He understood me, however, even in my silence.

"They are things worth while," he said. "There is a senior society worth 'making,' if you can. It would be something to be proud of to be the only Jew ever to have 'made' it. But it's more than an honor. That senior society practically governs the student body—molds its thought, holds sway over all campus opinion. Think what you could do if you were a member of it. You could fight for the other Jewish boys, make things easier and fairer for them—could spare them the unpleasant things you had to bear. You could master all snobbery, could make the university a place of real American democracy and gentlemanliness. Don't you think that that's worth while?"

I admitted it was. I had not thought of it in that way.

"Now, this is what I suggest," he said. "It's getting near the end of the term, and there's no use in your beginning any work down here at the settlement while college is still in session. But when vacation begins, I want you to come down here to live for a couple of months. I'll make you a resident club-leader, and you'll have your full share of the best sort of work." He paused a moment. "Will you come?"

"Will I? You bet I will!"

"Good! And in the meanwhile, take Trevelyan's advice—it's mine, to. Stick to your college work and your college play, and don't bother about the outside world for a while. That is your world—the college. Fight hard in it. The whole world likes a stiff upper lip, and the college world likes it best of all. And, sooner or later, Jew or Gentile, the college world will repay you for all that you give it. If you go through college shunning everyone, afraid of your own shadow, surly to the approach of all who would be friendly to you, you will reap nothing but loneliness and a bitter 'grouch.' If you loaf and play cards and hang about the billiard parlors all day long, you won't make a friend worth having, you won't gain anything worth remembering. If you work at your studies only, you'll gain nothing but Phi Beta Kappa—and, for all its worth, that'll mean nothing to you unless it brings along with it the respect and good will of all the men from whom you wrested it. At college as much as in any business office a smile will beget a smile, willingness to work will reap willingness to reward—and Alma Mater, if only you prove your love for her by working for her, will return your love tenfold."

He reached over the desk and touched my arm.

"I don't mean to be just rhetorical," he continued. "I have been through the same inner struggle and wonder and repugnance that you have—and I know how deeply you feel it. Well, I worked blindly ahead at the things that college gave me to work at—the football team and the newspaper and all that—and soon enough I knew that I had been working into manhood by the only right road. Manhood is a matter of disposition, not of work. There's a place for manhood in your little college world. Go and find that place—and give it all that is manly and courageous in you."I left him, I confess, doubting his words a little to find that place of which he spoke so feelingly.

Well, perhaps I would find it. Perhaps an opportunity would spring up from out of the sing-song ordinariness of my daily life—and what would I do then?