“Those boys in the medical school surely do amuse me,” he laughed.  “When I tell ’em I’m to be a missionary doctor, which I do first thing to give ’em sort of a shock they don’t often get, they stand off and say, ’What, you!’ as if I had told ’em I was to be a traffic cop, or a trapeze artist in the circus.  Some of ’em seem to think I’m queer in the head, but, boys, they are the ones with rooms to let.  When the others talk about hanging out a shingle in Chicago or Saint Louis or Cleveland or some other over-doctored place, I tell ’em to watch me, when I’m the only doctor between Siam and sunrise!  Won’t I be somebody?  With my own hospital—­made out o’ mud, I know—­and a dispensary and a few native helpers who don’t know what I’m going to do next, and all the sick people coming from ten days’ journey away to the foreign doctor!” And then his mood changed.  “That’s what’ll get me, though; all those helpless, ignorant humans who don’t even know what I can do for their bodies, let alone having any suspicion of what Somebody Else can do for their souls!  But it will be wonderful; next thing to being with him in Galilee!”

There was a pause, each boy filling it with thoughts he would not speak.

“Where do you expect to find that work, Joe?” J.W. asked him.

The answer was quick and straight:  “Wherever I’m sent, J.W., boy,” he said.  “Only I’ve told the candidate secretary what I want.  I met him last summer in Chicago, and there’s nothing like getting in your bid early.  He’s agreed to recommend me, when I’m ready, for the hardest, neediest, most neglected place that’s open.  If I’m going into this missionary doctor business, I want a chance to prove Christianity where they won’t be able to say that Christianity couldn’t have done it alone.  It can!”

Then, with one of those quick turns which were Joe Carbrook’s devices for concealing his feelings, he said, “And how’s everything going at this Methodist college of yours?  Your boys put up a beautiful game to-day, and they ought to have won.  How’s the rest of the school?”

Both the boys assured him everything was going in a properly satisfactory fashion, but Marty had caught one word that he wanted Joe to enlarge upon.

“Why do you say ‘Methodist college’?  It is a Methodist college; but is there anything the matter with that?”

Joe rose to the mild challenge.  “Don’t think I mean to be nasty,” he said, “but I can’t help comparing this place with the State University, and I wonder if there’s any big reason for such colleges as this.  You know they all have a hard time, and the State spends dollars to the church’s dimes.”

“Yes, we know that, don’t we, J.W.?” and Marty appealed to his chum, remembering the frequent and half-curious talks they had on that very contrast.

J.W. said “Sure,” but plainly meant to leave the defense of the Christian college to Marty, who, to tell the truth, was quite willing.