At the beginning of the novel, a young man named Gamut enters the school and introduces himself as Gamut's father, a senator. Gamut tells Gamut that he is different from the other students because he is not a student at the school, but a guest of his father's. He asks Gamut if he is going to enroll at the university, and Gamut answers that he will enroll. He then asks if Gamut has ever kicked a ball, and when Gamut replies that he has, Gamut says that he knows how to kick a ball. The young man, however, is mocking Gamut, and he leaves to return to his mother's house. When Gamut returns, he finds Gamut and his father together, and they begin to talk about their different upbringings. They are both different in their birth and upbringing, but Gamut thinks that they have seen something in one another that is missing in their own selves. He is glad to see Gamut so happy, because he thinks that Gamut made a friend, and that he can see him anytime he wants. He says that everyone looked at Gamut fawningly, both children and adults, and at one point Gamut told him that he did not know where he was, but that his father was disgusted with him for being nothing but an accessory to someone important. He taught Gamut the things he had not known, and taught him games he had never played, and it was a brief period that did not last for long.