“Goodness gracious!  Who’s that in the ‘yard’ a yelling in the rain? 
That’s the boy who never gave his mother any pain,
But now his moral character is sadly on the wane,
‘Tis little Peter Stirling, bilin’ drunk again. 
Oh, the Sunday-school boy,
His mamma’s only joy,
Is shouting drunk as usual, and raising Cain!”

Yet joke Peter as they would, in every lark, be it drive, sail, feed, drink, or smoke, whoever’s else absence was commented upon, his never passed unnoticed.

In Sophomore year, Watts, without quite knowing why, proposed that they should share rooms.  Nor would he take Peter’s refusal, and eventually succeeded in reversing it.

“I can’t afford your style of living,” Peter had said quietly, as his principal objection.

“Oh, I’ll foot the bills for the fixings, so it shan’t cost you a cent more,” said Watts, and when Peter had finally been won over to give his assent, Watts had supposed it was on this uneven basis.  But in the end, the joint chambers were more simply furnished than those of the rest of the gang, who promptly christened them “the hermitage,” and Peter had paid his half of the expense.  And though he rarely had visitors of his own asking at the chambers, all cost of wine and tobacco was equally borne by him.

The three succeeding years welded very strong bands round these two.  It was natural that they should modify each other strongly, but in truth, as in most cases, when markedly different characteristics are brought in contact, the only effect was to accentuate each in his peculiarities.  Peter dug at his books all the harder, by reason of Watts’s neglect of them.  Watts became the more free-handed with his money because of Peter’s prudence.  Watts talked more because of Peter’s silence, and Peter listened more because of Watts’s talk.  Watts, it is true, tried to drag Peter into society, yet in truth, Peter was really left more alone than if he had been rooming with a less social fellow.  Each had in truth become the complement of the other, and seemed as mutually necessary as the positive and negative wires in electricity.  Peter, who had been taking the law lectures in addition to the regular academic course, and had spent his last two summers reading law in an attorney’s office, in his native town, taking the New York examination in the previous January, had striven to get Watts to do the same, with the ultimate intention of their hanging out a joint legal shingle in New York.

“I’ll see the clients, and work up the cases, Watts, and you’ll make the speeches and do the social end,” said Peter, making a rather long speech in the ardor of his wishes.

Watts laughed.  “I don’t know, old man.  I rather fancy I shan’t do anything.  To do something requires that one shall make up one’s mind what to do, and that’s such devilish hard work.  I’ll wait till I’ve graduated, and had a chin with my governor about it Perhaps he’ll make up my mind for me, and so save my brain tissue.  But anyway, you’ll come to New York, and start in, for you must be within reach of me.  Besides, New York’s the only place in this country worth living in.”