But this year, when the parade was starting at the gymnasium, and the big, card-board placards were being lifted to the marchers' shoulders, I noticed that all the Jewish boys were being put conspicuously into one group. They would march together. And those placards! The sickening succession of them was only a repetition of "Oi oi" and the pawnbroker's symbol--and humor of that high order. And these Jewish freshmen went down the street amid the jeering--and I had to stand by and see them, some with heads high and eyes blazing with pride, others stumbling and bowed, one of them with tears running inanely down his cheeks--had to stand there and watch it all, and curse myself for a coward because I would not, could not, go out into the middle of the road and tear down, one by one, the daubed, cheap jests that they had to carry. A few weeks later there was another such celebration. There were speeches to be made. The class wits--and what class is without them?--were to have their turn. And their wit--what did it consist of? One after another, they made blunt, exaggerated references to the "invasion of the Huns," to the "Jews coming unto Jordan," to "the lost Ten Tribes ..." and hoots of applause went up to the night sky like the roar of a Philistine army! One of the men who spoke was a classmate of mine--a fellow-member of the joke paper's board. I knew him well, for he had been to see me often. It was only a few nights ago that he had told me he was chosen to speak at this celebration, and had promised me he would make no reference to the Jewish influx. "I don't agree with you about it," he had said. "You're too sensitive, all you Jews--and anyhow, you know perfectly well we're not aiming this campaign at you personally. It's against this big bunch of them in the freshman class." "So it's a regular campaign, is it?" I demanded. He evaded the question--but satisfied me with his promise. But when I heard him break it--heard him, more than any other speaker, launch one smiling epithet after another against the "sons of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob," I lost all the gnawing consciousness that I had had as to the justice of this remark about Jewish sensitiveness--and I went forward to the cart-end from which he was speaking. I meant to pull him down and get up there in his place, and to speak hotly, straight from the shoulder--I didn't care what I said so long as I put them all to disgrace! But when I was within a few feet of him in the jostling, laughing crowd, I could go no further. I tried to cry out, but that was denied me. My courage gave me only the power to glare and sneer at him--and once, as he spoke, he looked down and saw my face, I think. For his own grew paler in the light of the gas lantern which flared windily beside him, and he faltered in his speech.