February dripped snow and rain, the cyclonic freshman mid-years passed,
and life in 12 Univee continued interesting if not purposeful. Once a
day Amory indulged in a club sandwich, cornflakes, and Julienne potatoes
at "Joe's," accompanied usually by Kerry or Alec Connage. The latter was
a quiet, rather aloof slicker from Hotchkiss, who lived next door and
shared the same enforced singleness as Amory, due to the fact that his
entire class had gone to Yale. "Joe's" was unaesthetic and faintly
unsanitary, but a limitless charge account could be opened there, a
convenience that Amory appreciated. His father had been experimenting
with mining stocks and, in consequence, his allowance, while liberal,
was not at all what he had expected.

"Joe's" had the additional advantage of seclusion from curious upper-
class eyes, so at four each afternoon Amory, accompanied by friend or
book, went up to experiment with his digestion. One day in March,
finding that all the tables were occupied, he slipped into a chair
opposite a freshman who bent intently over a book at the last table.
They nodded briefly. For twenty minutes Amory sat consuming bacon buns
and reading "Mrs. Warren's Profession" (he had discovered Shaw quite
by accident while browsing in the library during mid-years); the other
freshman, also intent on his volume, meanwhile did away with a trio of
chocolate malted milks.

By and by Amory's eyes wandered curiously to his fellow-luncher's book.
He spelled out the name and title upside down--"Marpessa," by Stephen
Phillips. This meant nothing to him, his metrical education having
been confined to such Sunday classics as "Come into the Garden, Maude,"
and what morsels of Shakespeare and Milton had been recently forced upon
him.