I ’ve got so that I don’t have to look at the printed schedule any more
to see the days and hours of my various lectures. I just go to the
right one when the bell rings as if I had been doing it all my life. In
fact the college world has settled down to a routine of lectures and
recitations, pleasantly broken by football games on Wednesdays and
Saturdays, dining in town now and then, and the theatre afterward. Come
to think of it, I ’ve been to the theatre rather oftener than "now and
then." At home there are only two; and the things we have there—except
once in a long time—are pretty fierce. But here there are about seven
or eight big ones, and all sorts of continuous performance places, dime
museums and "nickelodeons" besides. You simply have to go pretty often
or you miss something good that everybody ’s talking about. Berrisford
goes every night.
I know now what Mr. Duggie meant when he said my allowance would not be
big enough. He said it was generous; there, however, I disagree with
him. I ’m not in the _least_ extravagant, but papa does n’t seem to
appreciate how many unexpected things happen that cost money. There was
my new overcoat, for instance. Berrisford was having one made, and I
realized when I saw him trying it on at the tailor’s (it’s a great,
soft, loose thing; the kind all the fellows are wearing now) that my old
one wouldn’t do at all. In fact I had n’t cared to put mine on,
although the wind has been pretty sharp once or twice on the way home
from town late at night. The tailor said that now was the time to get a
coat like Berrisford’s, as it would be much more expensive later in the
season; so I ordered one. In a certain way it was real economy to do so.
Then, I ’ve gone to town in the afternoon several times with some of the
fellows who are at our table and stayed at the last moment to dinner and
the theatre. I did n’t have enough money with me to do all this and was
n’t going to at first; but I found that the others did n’t, either, and
expected to charge their dinners at the hotel. You can even charge
theatre tickets if you get them from an agent and pay fifty cents more.
It’s very convenient. I bought a few pictures for my study—it looked so
bare (Berrisford has all sorts of queer, interesting prints and
embroideries on his walls that he brought back from abroad); and I
simply had to get some more chairs. For I had only one (the whirligig
in front of the desk doesn’t count; it’s too uncomfortable), which made
it embarrassing when four or five men dropped in. Then I had a dozen
shirts made at a place just off Tremont Street. The shirts mamma got me
at home are very nice and all that; but they’re not the kind the fellows
are wearing here. Everybody has colored ones—pale pinks and blues, or
white with a little stripe of something running through them. Mine were
all white. I really did n’t need more than six new ones, I suppose, but
the man said they were cheaper by the dozen. He showed me some really
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