Meanwhile the renters of the organ sat in an automobile and raced back and forth down the main street while it scattered its wheezy music along the trail of gasolene fumes. On one corner, a group of distinguished-looking men and women stood in the dry gutter, with slips of paper in their hands, singing with more or less effect, and great seriousness, “Oh, the class of ’Eighty odd, It is a glorious band, It scatters wisdom, grace and power, Throughout this mighty land!” Over on the opposite side of the campus a crowd of lawyers, bankers, ministers, and business men, who would shock their neighbors at home if they had a shoe-lace untied, paraded in purple wrappers and sun-bonnets topped with paper roses. Then the morning of graduation arrived. The mock wrappings were put aside by the visitors, who appeared in frock coats and sedate manners. By nine o’clock I joined my classmates at the fence and found my place in the line. Meanwhile crowds of people in holiday dress thronged the campus once again, members of the faculty with gowns fluttering in the wind, and with scarlet, purple, yellow, and white hoods, gathered at the administration building. As at the Inauguration the band once more took its place at our head, struck up its vibrant tune, and then at the dropping of the marshal’s baton we took the step and marched around the campus, a black, rhythmical procession of academics. The gay-hooded, but sedate faculty followed, to march through the double line of honor we formed at the entrance to the hall. Then we entered and stood at our seats until the marshal’s baton gave us the signal to be seated. The deep platform before us was ranged with the faculty, the trustees, the recipients of honorary degrees, and the musicians, including a robed choir of students and the musical director. But my eyes fell on the table at the head of the centre aisle on which lay a thick, flat heap of sheepskins; mine among them. Nervously I picked up the program, and, as I looked it through, to see the catalogue of my academic career, it told to all who searched it through that Albert Priddy graduated cum laude, and that he had won four first prizes: two in his junior year and two in his senior year: two essays, a story, and a research in philosophy. The addresses, the salutatory, valedictory, and the greeting by the faculty were given. The choir sang an impressive anthem. The honorary degrees were conferred with great solemnity. The classmate next to me said: “Priddy, my heart is beating so fast that if we don’t get our degrees soon, it will burst. Just think if anything should prevent our getting them--now!” “Don’t mention it,” I suggested, in nervous agitation, “please.”