He shunned the people around him as much as possible, studying his lessons in a precisely weary manner and squatting on the grass of a public park near his home where he wrote his dimly placid lyrics to the sun and moon. He had no companions at school, for the children around him were quick to jibe at any remark of his that contained a searching wraith of thought, and he did not join in the school’s minor activities because of his angry pride at the giggling accusations of queerness which he received from the other boys and girls. They regarded him for moments as an enticing target, reviling his exact grammar and mild manners, but for the most part they paid little heed to this grotesque atom lost in the swirl of their games and plans. In a smaller school the strident inquisitiveness of average children thrown upon each other might have overwhelmed him, but in the immense city high-school he managed effortlessly to isolate himself, and the children, once having dubbed him poet-laureate--sarcastically mimicking the phraseology of their elders--proceeded to forget about him. When at length he was graduated, he begged his parents to send him to college, desperately fighting for another long period in which he could brush aside dry information and rhyme “earth” with “birth,” since he preferred the frolic of misty promises to a world of prearranged shouts and sweating dreads. But his parents felt that their period of uneasy indulgence had inevitably ended, and words trooped from them in righteously redundant regiments. “You’re a big boy now, yes, a big boy, and you know that we’ve sacrificed everything to give you a good education,” said Mrs. Felman. “Not that we regret it, no indeed, we only hope that it helps you to get along in life, but this college stuff, now, is a lot of foolishness. That’s only for people with rich parents, or them that can afford to go a long time without working; and not only that, but it fills your head, you know, with a lot of nonsense. It’s time now that you go out and make money to help your parents. You know that we’re just barely able to get along on what your father makes. Not that we’re begging you for your help, you understand, but you should be only too proud to give comfort to your parents. Uncle Emil can use a smart boy like you in his clothing business and he told us only the other night that he’d give you a good job the minute you come down. You’ve got to give up those writing notions of yours! They don’t bring you in anything, and a man must go out into the world and make his own living. Writing is no business for a strong, sensible boy!”