A COLLEGE CHAMBER OF HORRORS.

I WENT to visit Snodkins, '83, at his suite in Beck, and found him in the midst of a select gathering of carpet-tackers, upholsterers, and carpenters. However, he received me with dignified cordiality, and proceeded to give me points on his rooms. "Here, you see," he remarked, "these pictures are going to be hung in a row; they don't amount to much, but are handsomely framed, and I thought they would be first-rate to hang my medals on. Won't you propose me for the Art Club?"

"My dear fellow," thought I, "if you continue to be as great an ass as you are now, your pictures will probably remain undecorated, unless you should go to France, and compete for the medal of which La Marjolaine got such a number; and even then, you might not succeed. Again, why have any pictures that don't 'amount to much'? Your wall-paper, which is not intolerably ugly, is better than a bad print." This is what I thought. I only said, "Though the Art Club does not generally admit Freshmen to its hilarious meetings, your room is evidence that your taste is already equal to that of most of its members."

Snodkins, emboldened by what he considered a compliment, proceeded,-

"Then here are some rugs which I got because I heard that carpets are not at all the thing; they are exactly like the real Persian rugs, too."

"O, Snod! Snod! a handsome Wilton carpet would be better than fifty cheap rugs; more beauty and wear, and less sham."

"Here are my bookcases; aren't they handsome?" (They certainly were in good taste, because the taste was an upholsterer's.) "This set of Shakespere is a stunner. (I looked at the volumes; they were uncut, and Othello was standing on his head; I sympathetically put him on his feet) "And this set of Marryat's works looks very well on the shelves." (The books certainly did encumber enough space for Thackeray and Jane Austen's works and looked as if they at least had been read.) And so he went on. He had already "ragged" a sign, bearing the inscription "Harvard Laundry," which brilliant witticism he intended to hang over his mantel.

His room was a fair type of the hideous abodes which our students make for themselves. The signs may disappear by Junior year; a few books which show the inmate's literary appreciation may begin to appear. But the imitation rugs, the walls covered with bad engravings, worse heliotypes, and trash of all sorts, the two sorts of chairs, - the ugly and the uncomfortable, - will remain as before. Harvard men ought soon to realize that a room to be student-like and comfortable need not be crowded, untidy, and cheap-looking, and that a few real ornaments are better than the greatest profusion of cheap trash.

R. X.