“‘Shall I speak something more, to feed thy wrath?’” and then he paused to explain, “and when you called it baby talk, I recited the line which I am to use when the King slanders me for being blind, ‘O miserable reproach, which all who now behold thee, soon shall thunder forth on thee!’ and,” went on Quarles, “you are to know, if you do not know it now, how that later the King does blind himself with hot irons and fulfils the prophecy I hurl at his coward lips!” “Horrible, it must be!” I shuddered. “What a dark tragedy to lighten a college stage!” “But,” mused Quarles, “think of the achievement, in these days, when the college critics are charging the college with immersing itself in practical concerns so as to forego the classics. My work is cut out for me, Priddy,” he went on. “If they are to have a real blind man for Teiresias, they must also have fair acting of the lines, for it is all to be given in Greek, not a word of English; for barbarians like you, who will probably be mystified, there will be an English line-for-line translation.” “Oh,” I retorted, “I have studied some Greek. I have read the New Testament!” Quarles laughed, “That is only the introduction to Greek. Listen!” He stood before me and recited the fluid, rounded, Greek lines of the blind Prophet, as he leaves the King, “‘Ere I depart, I will declare the word For which I came, not daunted by thy frown. Thou hast no power to ruin me.’” “You will have to have a clear brain for the storing of so much pure, classic speech, Quarles,” I said. “Come out for a walk over the four-mile road with me and you may talk King Œdipus to me till I faint!” So, arm in arm, over the ruts of the four-mile road, which first took us up a steep hill and then around to the west through some dark, cool woods, the blind student and I walked, and talked of the Greek tragedy in which he was to play so realistic a part. [Illustration: SO ARM IN ARM THE BLIND STUDENT AND I WALKED] On our way back, as we neared the campus, Quarles said: “Priddy, have you ever met ‘Squeem’ Hirshey? I’ve got to see him before supper, if you’ll take me to him. He’s one of the old men of the chorus, in the play, and wants me to help him with pronunciation.” “No, I haven’t met him,” I said. “A poor Georgian,” explained Quarles, “lives in a stuffy bit of a room with an Irish family, down at The Alley; you know where that is, of course.” So while we walked in the direction of “Squeem’s” lodging, Quarles gave me full information about this student, one who lived in the back-waters of college life.