“I met that good-looking classmate of yours, Bradley, at the door,” he said. Curtiss walked straight up to Hewitt,--he had a dramatic way of doing almost everything,--and grasped his friend’s hand. “Has he been here?” he asked, smiling a pleased smile. “Yes; he’s just left.” A pause. “Did he ask you to go see him?” “No,” very simply. “Will he come back?” “No.” “The pig!” “I beg your pardon, he’s nothing of the kind.” “I’m afraid I don’t understand, then.” “Oh, yes, you do, better than anybody, except possibly myself.” Another silence. “Well, go on; I’m waiting.” “Why should the man ask me to go see him?” asked Hewitt, passionately. “He--” “But, my dear boy!” protested Curtiss. “Don’t! don’t!” Horace drew away pettishly. “When you bluff like that, you make me sick. Bradley has done everything he ought to have done, and more too,” he went on quietly. “If I expect more, I’m a fool; if you do, you’re a hypocrite! Bradley might have written me a polite note, and considered the thing square. Instead of that he took the trouble to climb up here to apologise and thank me. He was well-bred and polite and unget-at-able,--the way gentlemen ought to be. And that’s all; that’s the end of it. We’ll never see each other again; why should we? I suppose if I’d gone to any other college in the country, and this had happened, Bradley would have put his paws on my shoulders and lapped my face; and we’d have roomed together next year, and proposed to each other’s sisters on Class Day. But I didn’t go to any other college; I’m damned glad I didn’t,--everybody always is. I don’t know why, but I am. Between you and Bradley, I’ve learned more about this place than I ever knew there was to know. If I could write, I’d knock the spots out of any magazine article on Harvard that’s ever been printed.” Horace stopped and looked out of the window. What he had been saying was a curious mixture of bitterness and indifference. “Come, let’s take a walk,” he exclaimed briskly, in another tone. “Yes, let’s,” answered Curtiss; “that’s what I came for,” and he began to hum, while Horace was looking for a hat,-- “Oh, Harvard was old Harvard When--” THE SERPENT’S TOOTH “College life,” murmur old men, as they pause a moment, before getting into bed, and listen to the singing of some drunken cabmen in the street below. “College life,” whisper the Cambridge unsought, as they cut out preposterous baby clothes at the Social Union and discuss somebody or other’s ungraceful departure from the University. “College life,” shudder apprehensive mothers, diagnosing the athletic column for dislocations. “College life,” mutters the father of the man who got sixteen A’s and brain fever.