When Marty stopped he looked up into Joe’s good-natured face, and blushed, with an embarrassed self-consciousness.  “You think you’ve been stringing me, don’t you?”

“Now, Marty,” Joe spoke genially, “don’t you misunderstand.  I said I had a reason.  I have.  My folks have some money they want to put into a safe place.  And they like Cartwright.  I do too, but—­you know how it is.  I want to be sure.  Anyhow I’m glad I asked these questions.  You’ve given me some highly important information; and, honestly, I’m grateful.  You surely don’t think I’m small enough to be making fun of you, or of Cartwright.  If I seemed to be, I apologize on the spot.  Believe me?” and there was no mistaking his genuine earnestness.

“Of course I believe you, old man,” Marty rejoined, just a wee bit ashamed.  “Forgive me too, but I’ve been reading up on that college thing lately, and it’s a little different from what most people think.  So you got me going.”

“I’m glad he did,” said J.W.  “It makes me prouder than ever of Cartwright College.”  And, as he got up he said, as though still at the game, “The ‘locomotive’ now!” and gave Cartwright’s favorite yell as a solo, while Marty and Joe grinned approval and some students passing in the street answered it with the “skyrocket.”

* * * * *

There is material for a book, all mixt of interest varying from very light comedy to unplumbed gloom, in the life of two boys at college—­any two; and some day the chronicles of the Delafield Duo may be written; but not now.

Senior year, with its bright glory and its seriously borne responsibilities.  It found Marty a trifle less shy and reticent than when he came to Cartwright, and J.W., Jr., a shade more studious.  Marty would miss Phi Beta Kappa, but only by the merest fraction; J.W. would rank about number twenty-seven in a graduating class of forty-five.  Marty had successfully represented his college twice in debate, and J.W. had played second on the nine and end in the eleven, doing each job better than well, but rarely drawing the spotlight his way.

Curiously enough, you had but to talk to Marty, and you would learn that J.W., Jr., was the finest athlete and the most popular student in school.  Conversely, J.W., Jr., was prepared to set Cartwright’s debating record, as incarnated in Marty, against that of any other college in the State.  What was more, he cherished an unshakable confidence that the “Rev. Martin Luther Shenk” would be one of the leading ministers of his Conference within five years.