Very quickly after that all classes were back in cadet barracks, and the charming summer of Mars had given place to the hard fall, winter and spring of the academic grind.
The return to studies found both Greg and Dick forced to do some extra hard work.

Mathematics for this year went "miles ahead" of anything that the former Gridley boys had encountered in High School.

Had they been able to pursue this branch of study in the more leisurely and lenient way of the colleges, both young men might have stood well.
As it was, after the first fortnight Greg went to the "goats," or the lowest section in mathematics, while Dick, not extremely better off, hung only in the section above the goat line.
As the fall hops came on Greg went to about three out of every four.
"A fellow can bone until his brain is nothing but a mess of bone dust," he complained.

"Dick, old chum, you'd better go to hops, too." Dick went to only one, in October.

He stagged it, whereas Greg often dragged.