"At the I.I. and C." "What is the I.I. and C?" At this question a look of doubt, if not suspicion, crossed the lady's face. "Where are you-all from?" she demanded. The statement that we came from New York seemed to explain satisfactorily our ignorance of the I.I. and C. Evidently Mrs. Eichelberger expected little of New Yorkers. The I.I. and C., she explained, was the Mississippi Industrial Institute and College, formerly known as the Female College, a State institution for young women; and the senior dramatics were even then in progress in the college chapel, just up the street. To the chapel, therefore, my companion and I repaired as rapidly as might be, guided thither by frequent sounds of applause. From among the seniors standing guard in cap and gown at the chapel door, the quick artistic eye of my companion selected a brown-eyed auburn-haired young goddess as the one from whom tickets might most appropriately be bought. Nor did he display thrift in the transaction. Instead of buying modest quarter seats he magnificently purchased the fifty-cent kind. The dazzling ticket seller, transformed to usher, now led us into the crowded auditorium and down an aisle. A few rows from the stage she stopped, and, fastening a frigid gaze upon two hapless young women who were seated some distance in from the passageway, bade them emerge and yield their place to us. Of course we instantly protested, albeit in whispers, as the play was going on. But the beautiful Olympian lightly brushed aside our objections. "They don't belong here," she declared loftily. "They're freshmen--and they only bought quarter seats." Then, as the guilty pair seemed to hesitate, she summoned them with a compelling gesture and the command: "Come out!" At this they arose meekly enough, whereupon we redoubled our protests. But to no purpose. The Titian-tinted creature was relentless. Our pleas figured no more in her scheme of things than if they had been babblings in an unknown tongue. To add to our discomfiture, a large part of the audience seemed to have perceived the nature of our dilemma, and was giving us amused attention. It was a crisis; and in a crisis--especially one in which a member of the so-called gentle sex is involved--I have learned to look to my companion. He understands women. He has often told me so. And now, by his action, he proved it. What he did was to turn and flee, and I fled with him; nor did we pause until we were safely hidden away in humble twenty-five cent seats at the rear of the chapel, in the shadow of the overhanging gallery. It is not my intention to write an extended criticism of the performance. For one thing, I witnessed only a fragment of it, and for another, though I once acted for a brief period as dramatic critic on a New York newspaper, I was advised by my managing editor to give up dramatic criticism, and I have followed his advice.