When an “outer barbarian” goes to a college fraternity house the first time, he is quite likely to be rehashing a lot of weird ideas about the secrecies, grips, passwords, gauntlets to be run at the door, and things of that sort. So Larry Donovan, ringing the bell at the door of the Zeta Omegas, had made up his mind that he wouldn’t try to break in; he’d just ask whoever might open the door to send Dick out to him.

But things didn’t break that way at all. It was Wally Dixon who did the door-opening, and when he saw who it was standing on the step he stuck out a ham-like hand.

“Donnie, you old knock-’em-out, put ’er there!” he bellowed. “Had to sneak around and get into a little good company, after all, didn’t you? Tumble in and be at home: fellows’ll all be glad to see you.”

“I want to see Dick Maxwell,” Larry began, when he was once safely within the sacred precincts.

“Private and personal?” Dixon queried; adding: “I suppose you know poor old Dickie’s in mourning just now?”

“I know all about it,” said Larry. “That’s why I’m butting in. I’ve grabbed off a bit of good news for him.”

“What’s it like?” Dixon asked. “The house is all broke up about Dick.”

“I’ve just been to see Prexy. Dick’s going to have another chance.”

“Why, you bully old stick-in-the-mud!” roared Dixon. “We sent a delegation to Prexy this morning, but it didn’t get anywhere, just because we’re Dick’s frat brothers, and it was expected that we’d leg for him as a matter of course. What did Prexy say?”

“Said the faculty would review Dick’s case—with a recommendation to mercy.”

“Glory be! that means that he won’t have to go home. Come on and I’ll chase you up to his room. He’s packing up, right now.”

Dixon was right. When Larry was pushed into an upstairs room of the fine old country-town mansion that had been remodeled into a fraternity house he found Dick on his knees before an open trunk. Dixon merely shoved Larry into the room and then backed out and disappeared. Dick squatted back on his heels and said, “So you broke in, did you? I thought maybe you’d come around to see me disappear over the horizon.”

“Hold up a minute,” gasped Larry breathlessly. “Have you wired your father?”

Dick shook his head.

“Not yet; I’ve been putting it off—like a coward. Wally Dixon has staked me to enough to get home on. I thought I’d rather tell Dad face to face, but I can’t do that, either. The faculty letter’ll get there before I do.”

“Dick,” said Larry, and he tried to say it casually, and couldn’t, “the faculty letter isn’t going to your father. You’re to have another chance.”

For a time Dick didn’t speak or move; just squatted there on the floor with his hands locked over his knees and with queer little twitches coming and going at the corners of his mouth. After a bit he managed to say: “How do you mean?—another chance.”

Rapidly, because he couldn’t trust himself to go at it deliberately, Larry told of his interview with the president, and of the president’s promise to “review” Dick’s case.

“You’ll be conditioned, and you’ll have to make up your classroom work,” he went on, “but we can pull you over that hill all right. And he told me that the letter hadn’t been sent to your father. I guess he was just as sorry about having to send it as you were about having it sent. They think a lot of your father here in Old Sheddon, Dick.”

Slowly Dick got upon his feet, crossed the room, and sat upon the edge of his bed.

“For a minute or so you got me all ‘hope up,’ Larry,” he said soberly. “Goodness knows, I want to stay bad enough, but I can’t. I won’t ask Dad for any more money, and it’s a cinch that I’m not going to let you go to work in Prac. Mechan. and lose out on foot-ball, just to put up for me.”

“Now see here,” Larry was beginning; but just then there was a rap at the door and half a dozen of Dick’s house brothers, Carey Lansing among them, came stringing into the room to drape themselves around on the different pieces of furniture.

“We know all about it, Dick,” said Lansing without preface. “Wally Dixon has spilled the beans all over the place. Here’s how—with the Sheddon series for this red-headed pal of yours.”

Dick rose to the occasion manfully.

“You fellows are all right; you always have been, to me. But I’ve got to go home, just the same.” And then, with his jaw set, he made a clean breast of everything, telling about his debts and winding up with Larry’s offer,—which he wasn’t going to accept—and with his own intention of kicking himself out of the Zeta Omegas.

“Like Zeke you will!” said Lansing. “Also like Zeke you’d let Donnie side-step his chance on the ’Varsity and take on as an instructor to split with you. What do you think you’re one of us for, anyhow? The house will organize a corporation and stake you—you ought to know that much, little as you know about other things. And next year you can bone down and save your nickels and pay it back. What’s the matter with that?”

Dick’s mouth was twitching again.

“There’s nothing the matter with it, except that you’re a lot of dad-beaned, inforgotten, turkey-trodden easy marks,” he said, hiding his real feelings under a mask of brotherly abuse. “I’m not worth saving.”

“Of course you’re not,” said Lansing, retorting in kind. “We all know that. We’re not doing it for you; we’re doing it for the sake of getting at least one good man on the ’Varsity next year. See?”

Larry Donovan’s emotions, as he sat by listening to this give-and-take, and Lansing’s offer, were considerably mixed. At first, you see, he had been charging Dick’s downfall chiefly to his association with the Zeta Omegas, and when Dick had wiped that charge off the slate, he had still managed to hang on to some of his old prejudice against the fraternities. He had even gone so far as to wonder if the bunch wouldn’t willingly turn its back upon a member discredited and kicked out of college in disgrace. But here was a spirit altogether human and beautiful; good, man-sized loyalty that didn’t seem to care a rap whether Dick’s father had a million or a mere pittance.

The occasion—and Dick’s evident balance on the raw edge of a breakdown—seemed to call for a diversion, and Larry made it.

“See here, Lansing—and the rest of you,” he broke in, making himself the target, instead of Dick, “I’ve been holding a pretty savage grudge against you Greek-Letter fellows all the way along, and I want to take it back. You’re just white folks, like the rest of us, after all.”

“Much obliged,” returned Lansing gravely; and then, to Larry’s utter astonishment: “You can’t put one over on me like that, Donnie, and get away with it. You know, and I know, why you’re not a member of the Omegs, right now. The name of the reason is Old Problem Seven-fifty-four. It was a low-down trick for me to swipe your demonstration sheet that night back yonder in January, and I’ve been ashamed of it ever since.”

For a minute Larry was too astounded to answer. That the head of a fraternity chapter and a Senior should make such open and frank amends to an outsider and a Freshman was almost incredible. But he contrived to find his tongue after a bit.

“I guess maybe I stood up so straight that I leaned over backwards,” he said. “Besides, I was prejudiced, and I never was much of a ‘joiner.’ Let’s call it an even break and let it go at that. I’ve got to hand it to you fellows for the way you’re standing by Dick, and you can bet I’ll do my part. Now I must get out; I’ve got a whole descrip. assignment to work off before I turn in.” And he went while the going was good.

Partly because he thought Purdick needed it, Larry told the story of the evening’s happenings, after he got back to the upper room in the Man-o’-War. But little Purdick’s prejudices in the matter of the classes and masses were too deeply ingrained to be removed by a single instance on the other side of the ledger.

“Of course they’d back him to stay,” he offered. “It would give them a bad black eye if he had to get out in disgrace. What they’re going to do is only a matter of self-preservation.”

“Purdy,” said Larry, as he got out his drawing-board and settled down to his descriptive geometry, “there are times when you make my back ache, and this is one of them. Got your trig.? All right; you go to bed and get out of my way. I’m due to crowd about two days’ work into the next hour and a half.”