THE GRIME

"And here I am back in Cambridge again, finding the dear old town quite deserted by the members of the Vagabond family. While Freshmen prepare for English A and Mill Si. 1, and even gentle men talk about studying the official scion of that worthy race wanders far afield, stopping now in a Maine lumbering hut, now in a Montreal saloon, and then in a New York night club as the light fancy of the vacationist happens to prompt him. This is all very well and quite as it should be, but in his absence I feel the urge of my former habits strong upon me.

This morning at 9:05 o'clock I shall arise from my eggs and coffee, and with shredded wheat all over my lapels and icicles hanging down my neck saunter slowly forth on my material peregrinations. Since I have not been able to find any lectures of interest today, I shall proced directly to one of the many examinations which are being held for the benefit of conscientious students and the Widow's (alias Manter Hall School). I I never used to pay much attention to these things when I lived here regularly, but yesterday I visited a few and found them quite amusing, especially when the head proctor's toe missed me as I was going out of the door.

At 9:15 o'clock I shall go to Emerson J. where Assistant Professor Troland has arranged some interesting problems, in the "Psychophysiology of Motivations", After having answered a question on the "Idiombecility of Harvard Morons" and another on the "Plumbo Tenementation of a Freezing Day" I shall take my leave quietly, being careful to put squeakoabsorbent on my boots before I go out. Trusting to gather a strong motivation to further progress from this first adventure, I shall proceed to Sever 18 where I can take either Latin 3 (hf) or Latin 7 (hf) according as the spirit may move me.

One reason I go to Sever is that I have always loved the old hall. I love to sit at one of its quaint benches, with the annals of Harvard football from 1892 to the present day before me, tying the shade string into an ever larger and higher, knot, which mounts the string so fast and far that I have to stand on the bench and finally scale the wall itself to keep up with it. And then I love to put my pencil in a little depression in the top of the bench and watch it actually come out of the bottom, all the while wondering why steam pipes that make so much noise can't seem to produce any heat.

But all such delightfully exotic meditation must end in stark reality and when I once more resume my weary way (at 10:45 o'clock) I find my steps directed toward the portals of Memorial Hall, Here Mr. Keogh, Mr. Moore, and Mr. Starke, are holding an inquisition in English A for the suppression of heretical Freshmen. Here I sit down to solve the "Why and the Wherefore, and if not why-not," of the euclitic 'thee' in 'prithee'. Since I am, of course, posted in advance of the questions which are going to be asked, I am also ready to distinguish between Plato, Pluto, Plutarch, Pliny, and Petrarch, and if necessary to write a limerick.

I would go on to Part 2, question 7, on nineteenth century English authors and tell why Silas Marner never went to sea, and why his daughter Eppie really was not the salt of the earth, but I don't consider it worth while. I should also like to make a few remarks on Hardy's "Far from the Madding Crowd," but I might be tempted to make a pun. Meanwhile the dumb-looking youth next to me will be calling for his fifth blue book so that he can tell all of Gore Hall at dinner this noon how much he wrote on the English exam: It won't do him any good, of course, since every one will either fail to hear him or think that he cheated and wrote on every other line. Meanwhile six proctors are rushing to his aid, the head proctor in his haste forgetting the table in front of him and taking a headlong live on to the floor, thereby hurting himself not a little. Overcome, I jump out of the west rose window and hastily repair to Wadsworth House for a little special instruction in mental hygiene.