So they looked in the catalogue and discovered that Cartwright College had an endowment of $1,750,000, producing an income of about $80,000 a year, and that the churches of its territory gave about $25,000 more.  They learned also that most of the buildings had been provided by friends of the college, with the Carnegie Library mainly the gift of the millionaire ironmaster.  They learned also that about $500,000 of the endowment had been raised in the last two years, under the promise of the General Education Board, which is a Rockefeller creation, to provide the last $125,000.  The college property was valued at about half a million dollars.

“And there you are, Martin Luther, my bold reformer,” said J.W., cheerfully.  “The people who put up the money have invested about two and a half millions on you and me, and the other five hundred students, say about $250 a year per student.  And we pay the rest of what it costs to give us a college career, $125 to $175 a year, depending on our taste in courses.  I remember I felt as if the John Wesley Farwell family had almost gone broke when dad signed up for $1,000 on that last endowment campaign.  I thought the money gone forever, but I see now he merely invested it.  I’ve come to Cartwright to spend the income of it, and a little more.  Five or six people have given a thousand dollars apiece to make a college course possible for each of us.  There’s some reason in college endowments, after all.”

And Marty said, “One good I can see in this particular endowment is that anybody but a selfish idiot would be glad to match four years of his life against all the money and work that Christian people have put into Cartwright College.”

“I hope you don’t mean anything personal by that remark,” J.W. said, with mock solemnity, “because I’m inclined to believe you’re more than half right.  It reminds me again of what Phil Khamis said.  I’m beginning to think I’ll never have a chance to forget that Greek’s Christian remark about Christians.”

By being off at school together J.W. and Marty gave each other unconfessed but very real moral support in those first days when a lone freshman would have known he was homesick.

But another antidote, both pleasant and potent, was supplied by the Epworth League of First Church.  It had allied itself with the college Y.M.C.A.—­and for the women students, with the Y.W.C.A.—­in various ways, but particularly it purposed to see that the first few Sundays were safely tided over.

So the two chums found themselves in one of the two highly attractive study courses which had been put on in partnership with the Sunday school.  It was in the early afternoon of one of the early Sundays that J.W. called Marty’s attention to a still more alluring opportunity.

“Looky here, Marty, it’s raining, I know, but I’ve a feeling that you’d better not write that letter home until a little further on in the day.  What’s to stop us from taking a look at this League fellowship hour we’re invited to, and getting a light lunch?  We don’t need to stay to the League meeting unless we choose, though we’re members, you know.”