So long." He swung himself on a passing car and I turned away and stared at a shop window. I must have stood there several minutes before I realized it was a bakery, and that there was absolutely nothing to look at behind the glass except three loaves of bread and a dish of imitation ice cream that had n’t been dusted for weeks (it has just this minute occurred to me for the first time that I must have been homesick that day and the next. Isn’t it queer, I didn’t know what was the matter with me?) I bet I can describe every article in every shop window in the Square; for there was nothing for me to do the first few days except to walk up and down and pretend I was going somewhere. Of course I tried to get the books the various instructors told me about; but every time I asked for them at the three bookstores I found either that the last one had just been sold or that they had n’t arrived yet. Mrs. Muldooney’s tables were unfortunately full when I applied and I have been eating around at the most ridiculous places—ice-cream parlors, and dairy restaurants where you sit on high stools and grab things, because you can’t get over the feeling that a conductor will stick his head in the door pretty soon and say, "All Abo-urrrd." On Bloody Monday night the Freshmen reception took place. I scarcely know how to touch on that event, as my part in it (or rather in what followed) was so unexpectedly prominent and terrible. The old college men at home had let drop all kinds of mysterious hints about Bloody Monday. In their time, apparently, it was the custom for the upper-classmen to send grewsome notices to the Freshmen, telling them what would happen if they did n’t have a punch in their rooms on that occasion. These warnings were written in blood and began and ended with a skull and cross-bones. Then in the evening there was a rush in the Yard between the Freshmen and Sophomores. The old graduates knew perfectly well that the punches had been given up long ago; but I don’t think they liked to admit it even to themselves—although they do groan a good deal about college days not being what they used to be. From what they said I could not tell whether there really were such things nowadays or not, so I wrote a little note to Mr. Duggie and left it on the stairs, where the postman puts our letters, asking him what to do if I got a notice, and if there was going to be any rush. He answered: "The custom, I am sorry to say, is _ausgespielt_; it must have been great sport. As for the rush—theoretically we don’t have it. By the way, my name (Mrs. Chester to the contrary notwithstanding) is not Mr. Duggie, but Douglas Sherwin."