"He'll hedge," objected Lawrence. "All the profs do if you ask them anything like that." Winsor laughed. "You don't know Jimmie Henley. He won't hedge. You've never had a class with him, but Hugh and Pudge and I are all in English Fifty-three, and we'll put it up to him. He'll tell us what he thinks all right, and I hope to God that he says it is worth while. I'd like to have somebody convince me that I've got something out of these four years beside lower ideals. Hell, sometimes I think that we're all damn fools. We worship athletics--no offense, Hugh--above everything else; we gamble and drink and talk like bums; and about every so often some fellow has to go home because a lovely lady has left him with bitter, bitter memories. I'm with Henley. If we're the cream of the earth--well, thank the Lord, we're not." "Who is," Lawrence asked earnestly. "God knows." CHAPTER XXV English 53 had only a dozen men in it; so Henley conducted the course in a very informal fashion. The men felt free to bring up for discussion any topic that interested them. Nobody was surprised, therefore, when George Winsor asked Henley to express his opinion of the value of a college education. He reminded Henley of what he had said two years before, and rapidly gave a resume of the discussion that resulted in the question he was asking. "We'd like to know, too," he concluded, grinning wickedly, "just whom you consider the cream of the earth. You remember you said that if we were you felt sorry for the skimmed milk." Henley leaned back in his chair and laughed. "Yes," he said, "I remember saying that. I didn't think, though, that you would remember it for two years. You seem to remember most of what I said. I am truly astonished." He grinned back at Winsor. "The swine seem to have eaten the pearls." The class laughed, but Winsor was not one to refuse the gambit. "They were very indigestible," he said quickly. "Good!" Henley exclaimed. "I wanted them to give you a belly-ache, and I am delighted that you still suffer." "We do," Pudge Jamieson admitted, "but we'd like to have a little mercy shown to us now. We've spent four years here, and while we've enjoyed them, we've just about made up our minds that they have been all in all wasted years." "No." Henley was decisive. His playful manner entirely disappeared. "No, not wasted. You have enjoyed them, you say. Splendid justification. You will continue to enjoy them as the years grow between you and your college days. All men are sentimental about college, and in that sentimentality there is continuous pleasure."