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.