Julius Erlich, who played quarter on the State team, took him
aside and said affably: “Come home to supper with me tonight,
Wheeler, and meet my mother. Come along with us and dress in the
Armory. You have your clothes in your suitcase, haven’t you?”
“They’re hardly clothes to go visiting in,” Claude replied
doubtfully.
“Oh, that doesn’t matter! We’re all boys at home. Mother wouldn’t
mind if you came in your track things.”
Claude consented before he had time to frighten himself by
imagining difficulties. The Erlich boy often sat next him in the
history class, and they had several times talked together.
Hitherto Claude had felt that he “couldn’t make Erlich out,” but
this afternoon, while they dressed after their shower, they
became good friends, all in a few minutes. Claude was perhaps
less tied-up in mind and body than usual. He was so astonished at
finding himself on easy, confidential terms with Erlich that he
scarcely gave a thought to his second-day shirt and his collar
with a broken edge,—wretched economies he had been trained to
observe.
They had not walked more than two blocks from the Armory when
Julius turned in at a rambling wooden house with an unfenced,
terraced lawn. He led Claude around to the wing, and through a
glass door into a big room that was all windows on three sides,
above the wainscoting. The room was full of boys and young men,
seated on long divans or perched on the arms of easy chairs, and
they were all talking at once. On one of the couches a young man
in a smoking jacket lay reading as composedly as if he were
alone.
“Five of these are my brothers,” said his host, “and the rest are
friends.”
The company recognized Claude and included him in their talk
about the game. When the visitors had gone, Julius introduced his
brothers. They were all nice boys, Claude thought, and had easy,
agreeable manners. The three older ones were in business, but
they too had been to the game that afternoon. Claude had never
before seen brothers who were so outspoken and frank with one
another. To him they were very cordial; the one who was lying
down came forward to shake hands, keeping the place in his book
with his finger.
On a table in the middle of the room were pipes and boxes of
tobacco, cigars in a glass jar, and a big Chinese bowl full of
cigarettes. This provisionment seemed the more remarkable to
Claude because at home he had to smoke in the cowshed. The number
of books astonished him almost as much; the wainscoting all
around the room was built up in open bookcases, stuffed with
volumes fat and thin, and they all looked interesting and
hard-used. One of the brothers had been to a party the night
before, and on coming home had put his dress-tie about the neck
of a little plaster bust of Byron that stood on the mantel. This
head, with the tie at a rakish angle, drew Claude’s attention
