Sanderson occupied a corner room in one of the newer dormitories. In it was a piano on which he played Beethoven and rag-time with equal ease. The mission bookcase was topped by a very large, felt college streamer and a “perpetual care” sign, which in his Freshman wildness he had taken from a cemetery. As he was a literary man with a pronounced taste for Poe and the French short story writers, there were various evidences of “atmosphere” in the orderings of the room. For instance, some old swords, which might have been discovered in the ruins of Troy, but which, in fact, were clever imitations bought for a song in Boston, hung over the door. A Turkish fez, which Sanderson would wear when company was present, usually hung from the clothes post in a corner of the room, over a quaint, full-length lounging robe made from scarlet cloth and embroidered with Mohammed’s crescent. An oriental scent lingered on those habits of dress; a scent which I have seen Sanderson compound from barks and minerals bought at the druggist’s and of which he would never give me the names. When he held a spread or a meeting of any sort, Sanderson’s room would be thick with the fumes of joss which he kept burning from a blue Chinese bowl. If any one complained, Sanderson would have no scruples in telling the complainant that perhaps the smoke would be even denser and more sulphurous in a later destination! It was fortunate that I did not catch, like some insidious fever, Sanderson’s habit of procrastination, for while his dreams were in the present tense, real, and vivid, his deeds lingered in the nebulous future. Thus, one night while he lounged on his couch wearing his fez, he informed me that he had the plot of an exciting tale that a publisher might make a fortune by. There was a secret staircase in the first chapter, and between that and the twenty-eighth--a distance of eight thousand words, for he had measured them--enough blood was shed in the numerous duels, alley encounters and small riots with the watch, to stain a miniature Waterloo. “What are you wasting your time with those blood and thunder yarns for?” I exclaimed, for the utmost frankness was the rule between us. “Blood and thunder!” he echoed. “Why, it’s thoroughly exciting, whatever you may say about it, Priddy. In my best style, too. Racy, full of tender sentiment at the love passages, and written with an iron pen, whose tip was flaming hot!” “Let me see this epic of thunder then,” I demanded. “I should like to look it over.” “Oh,” yawned Sanderson, “I haven’t had time to put it on paper--yet. I have my studies you know!” Thus it was not only with his literary dreams, but also with his studies. He never seemed to be in his books, but I knew that at some secret hour he must work hard, for his recitations were generally brilliant. He was a sly fellow, at times, especially when he chanced to be back with work. It was his habit then to get me in his room, when he would yawn and say: