College stories, American; Princeton (N.J.) -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Princeton University -- Fiction
That is what a crowd of noisy, lazy, slouchy-looking fellows, in a
circle in front of Reunion were singing to a little, old, dried-up
man, with a plaintive face and blue uniform, in the centre of it.
John Dagnan, chief of college police and envoy extraordinary to the
faculty, cast a sad reproachful glance at two of the number to whom he
had borne many a summons to appear at one o'clock, and then relapsed
into his characteristic melancholy silence, gazing inscrutably into
the distance.
Over by the elm in front of the _Princetonian_ Office were four
seniors pitching pennies and looking very much in earnest over it. Up
and down in front of the shambling old building two or three
base-balls were flying back and forth over or against the heads of the
loafers and passers-by. Several other groups were merely sitting on
the steps or standing on the stone walks, talking or whistling or
waiting for nothing.
The steps in front of the entry door were so crowded that young
Symington, following his friend Tucker, had to tread upon some of the
loungers to get inside. But the loungers were used to that and did not
stop their conversation. It's easier than arising.
Symington would have liked to stop and watch the fellows pitching
pennies, and hear more of the song, and see what the little policeman
was going to do about it, but he did not say a word. He merely
followed Tucker up to his room and wondered why he failed to notice
it.
Charlie Symington was a well-built prep. boy who had been known to
strike out three men with the bases full. He had been invited to spend
Sunday in Princeton by some important athletic men in order that he
might see how much better their college was than all others in the
world. This was because Charles was young and foolish and had shown
signs of shifting his youthful affections and his future athletic
brilliance to that other college where two of his intimate friends
were going, and which had brilliance enough already.
These athletic officials thought that this would be narrow-minded in
him, and they were giving him a very good time. The way they did it
was not by treating him as a distinguished guest or by telling him
what a fine fellow he was, which would have turned the little boy's
head and have made him think he could do as he pleased. They simply
said "Come," and when he came, let him walk around with them.
For they were a right conceited lot in regard to their college, and
thought that all they had to do was put a boy on the campus, let him
use his eyes and breathe the air and get it in his young system, and
his good sense would do the rest. If it did not, his sense was not
good and they did not want him, thought they.
As for the young pitcher, he did not quite understand why these great
and awful men whom he had often heard of were so kind to him, and he
did not care. He only opened his eyes and ears and shut his mouth, and
let his friends do whatever they wanted with him and thought it was
very nice in them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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