"Are you a student here?" asked the stranger of Andy.

"No, but I expect to be. I'm going to start in."

"So am I. Chamber is my name--Duncan Chamber, though I'm always called Dunk for short."

"Glad to know you. My name's Blair--Andy Blair."

They shook hands, and then followed the usual embarra.s.sed pause. Neither knew what to say next. Finally Duncan broke the silence by asking:

"Got your room yet?"

"Up there," and Andy pointed to it.

"Gee! That's all right--a peach! I'm up a stump myself."

"How so?"

"Well, I've about taken one in Pierson Hall, but it's a double one, and I've got to share it with a fellow I don't take much of a leaning to.

He's a stranger to me. I like it better here, though. Better view of the campus."

Andy took a sudden resolve.

"I'm about in the same boat," he said. "That's a double room of mine up there in Wright, and I haven't a chum yet. I don't know what to do. Of course I'm a stranger to you, but if you'd like to share my joint----"

"Friend Andy, say no more!" interrupted Duncan. "Lead me to thy apartment!"

Andy laughed. He was liking this youth more and more every minute.

The room was inspected. Andy was still the only one who had engaged it.

"It suits me to a T if I suit you," exclaimed Duncan. "What do you say, Blair? Shall we hitch it up?"

"I'm willing."

"Shake!"

They shook. Thus was the pact made, a union of friends that was to have a strange effect on both.

"Now that's settled I'll call the Pierson game off," said Dunk, as we shall call him from now on. "I'm wished onto you, Blair."

"I'm glad of it!"

The final arrangements were made, and thus Andy had his new roommate.

They went to dinner together, and planned to do all sorts of possible and impossible things when the term should open.

Andy returned to the Summer cottage with the good news, and then began busy days for him. He replenished his stock of clothes and other possessions and selected his favorite bats and other sporting accessories with which to decorate his room. He had a big pennant enscribed with the name MILTON, and this was to drape one side wall.

Dunk Chamber was from Andover, and his school colors would flaunt themselves on the opposite side of the room.

And then the day came.

Andy, spruce and trim in a new suit, had sent on his trunk, and, with his valise in hand, bade his parents and sister good-bye.

The family was still at the summer cottage, which would not be closed for another month. Then they would go back to Dunmore.

Yale was calling to Andy, and one hazy September morning he took the train that, by dint of making several changes, would land him in New Haven.

"And at Yale!" murmured Andy as the engine puffed away from the dingy station. "I'm off for Yale at last!"

CHAPTER IX

ON THE CAMPUS

Andy's train rolled into the New Haven station shortly before dusk. On the way the new student had been surrept.i.tiously "sizing up" certain other young men in the car with him, trying to decide whether or not they were Yale students. One was, he had set that down as certain--a quiet, studious-looking lad, who seemed poring over a book and papers.

Then Andy, making an excuse to get a drink of water, pa.s.sed his seat and looked at the doc.u.ments. They were a ma.s.s of bills which the young man evidently had for collection.

"Stung!" murmured Andy. "But he sure did look like a Yale senior." He was yet to learn that college men are not so different from ordinary mortals as certain sensational writers would have had him believe.

There was the usual bustle and rush of alighting pa.s.sengers. Now indeed Andy was sure that a crowd of students had come up on the train with him for, once out of the cars their exuberance manifested itself.

There were greetings galore from one to another. Renewals of past acquaintance came from every side. There were hearty clappings on the backs of scores and scores, and re-clappings in turn.

Youths were tumbling out here, there, everywhere, colliding with one another, b.u.mping up against baggage trucks, running through the station, one or two stopping to s.n.a.t.c.h a hasty cup of coffee and some doughnuts from the depot restaurant.

Andy stood almost lost for the moment amid the excitement. It had come on suddenly. He had never dreamed there were so many Yale men on the train. They gave no evidence of it until they had reached their own precincts.

Then, like a dog that hesitates to bark until he is within the confines of his own yard, they "cut loose."

Taxicab chauffeurs were bawling for customers. Hackmen with ancient horses sent out their call of:

"Keb! Keb! Hack, sir! Have a keb!"

The motor bus of the Hotel Taft was being jammed with prosperous looking individuals. Around the curve swept the clanging trolley cars.

"I guess I'll walk," mused Andy. "I want to get my mind straightened out."

He managed to locate an expressman to whom he gave the check for his trunk, with directions where to send it. Then, gripping his valise, which contained enough in the way of clothing and other accessories to see him through the night, in case his baggage was delayed, our hero started up State Street.

In the distance he could see, looming up, the lighted top stories of the Hotel Taft, and he knew that from those same stories one could look down on the buildings and campus at Yale. It thrilled him as he had not been thrilled before on any of his visits to this great American university.

He paid no attention to those about him. The sidewalks, damp with the hazy dew of the coming September night, were thronged with pedestrians.

Many of them were college students, as Andy could tell by their talk.

On he swung, breathing in deep of the air of dusk. He squared back his shoulders and raised his head, widening his nostrils to take in the air, as his eyes and ears absorbed the other impressions of the place.