Walking back, he stopped at the Grad house for a coffee and saw Astrid and Violet sitting at table and went to join them. When he sat down, he turned to Astrid and asked, "Asti, have you told Vi about your problem yet?"
It was Vi that answered, "She just finished telling me. Do you have any ideas yet?"
Jack replied, "Not really but if her father is as overprotective as she thinks he is, I suspect we may need to do a variation on the long con."
"Long con?" Asti asked perplexed.
Again Vi did the answering, "I'll explain later."
Then turning to Jack she said, "I agree that looks like the best approach, but we better make it good, it may be old dudes we're dealing with but, I'm sure they can smell a rat a mile away. I'll think on it this week and next Saturday we can exchange ideas. Together, we might come up with a plan."
They chatted a bit about what to expect the upcoming week before breaking up. As they were walking away from Jack, he heard Vi explaining to Asti about how cons were confidence tricks used to get people to part willingly with something they value.
***
Monday morning between classes Gina dropped by the Dean's office to speak with Jade, his assistant. Jade made it known to the female students that if they had any difficulties, the girls were to come and talk to her about them.
Gina had been to talk to her the previous year when she and Greg had broken up.
She told Jade what had happened at the pub. Jade's first thought was Gina's safety, so she asked, "Did he hit you?"
"I was worried he might but a first year, Jack Crawford, was with us and Greg just backed right off."
Jack Crawford was one of the students the Dean had asked Jade to keep an eye on, along with Astrid Alfredson and Violet Abbot because of their unusual circumstances. Her curiosity piqued, she asked Gina what Jack had done.
"Nothing really, he just stood up and politely told Greg that he thought I had made myself clear. Odd thing was when stood up, he somehow changed from Jack the nice guy to someone who, I guess the best way to put is, radiated menace."
"So your new boyfriend stood up for you?"
"He's not my boyfriend, Greg just thought he was?"
"Does Jack want to be your boyfriend?"
"I wish. He's dating Kathy, and it's pretty clear he's a one woman man."
"Okay sweetie, I'm glad you came by. I'll have a word with Greg so don't worry about him anymore."
***
When their classes started, Jack discovered three things about law school.
Law school at first consisted of mountains of reading, most of it cases that had been decided in the past but had a principle buried in them somewhere. These cases were referred to as precedents and meant to clear up things that seemed perfectly straight forward to him.
The further he got into the term, the more the value of the study groups became apparent. Just because he found something clear didn't mean that everyone agreed and at times someone else in the group would have a clear vision completely different from his own.
The second thing he discovered was buying second hand books proved to be of more value than buying new books, as the previous owner had highlighted the key concepts in the cases, the value did diminish a bit as the key passages depended on who the previous owner had for a professor in that subject.
And third, that the number of conceited, full of shit, classmates he had was staggering.
The study group did not always sit together, choosing most of the time to sit with friends they had made. The one constant was Jack and Astrid always sat together.
As for the courses they had to take, he found Property Law to be excruciatingly boring.
Legal History to be full of interesting stories on how the law had evolved and factoids, such as, at one point the British Empire had over 300 hanging offences.
His least favorite was Torts, or in plain English things you could be sued for. The professor in that class was a pompous little jerk who used the Socratic method of teaching; that is, he asked random individuals questions and then proceeded to criticize the answers humiliating them in the process.
The professor, Horlicks, started the first class telling them just how brilliant he was, how he had a Ph.D. in law from Harvard, how he had scored 100% on the LSAT and in their entire legal careers it was unlikely they would ever meet another lawyer who had accomplished this feat.
Astrid took an instant dislike to Horlicks and when he mentioned the LSAT, Jack thought he was going to have to sit on her to keep her from blowing his secret.
They were kept so busy reading that they didn't get back to the planning of Asti's emancipation from the Williams, the friends of her father's she was staying with, until the beginning of October. The three of them, Vi, Jack and Asti met at the Grad House and compared Ideas, came up with a plan, and immediately put it into effect.
Once the plan was put into effect the following conversations took place:
"Hi Arne, Bill Williams here. It seems little Astrid is ready to take her first forays out of the sheltered life. She's been bringing up two friends in conversation everyday for the past week telling us how great they are. One's Ted Abbot's daughter Violet and the other is a young man, Jack Crawford."
"Is he related to Hugh Crawford?"
"I don't think so, if he is, it's very distant".
Arne Alfredson thought for a few seconds then said, "It sounds like they are working the long con to get Astrid some space. It's about time someone lit a fire of rebellion in my girl to get her out and experiencing the real world."
They both laughed.
