I hid my face in the grass, pretending to groan from the strain I had just undergone. Instead, I was smothering a laugh at myself ... at the school ... at all things.... "God and witch-hazel," I wanted to shout hysterically, "hurrah for God and witch-hazel." Then I rose shakily to my feet, and, flinging myself loose from those who offered to help me, I ran at a good clip, in my sneakers, dangling my running shoes affectionately--to my solitary room ... with a bearing that boasted, "why, I could run all those three races over again, one right after the other, right now ... no, I'm not tired ... not the least bit tired!" That night, in the crowded dining hall, the ovation for me was tremendous. "I'll smash life just like those races," I boasted, in my heart. But my triumph and eminence were not to last long. To be looked up to at Mt. Hebron you had to lead a distasteful, colourless life of hypocrisy and piety such as I have seldom seen anywhere before. Under cover of their primitive Christianity I never found more pettiness. First, you prayed and hymn-sung yourself into favour, and then indulged in sanctimonious intrigue to keep yourself where you had arrived. I could not stand my half self-hypnotised hypocrisy any longer. A spirit of mischief and horseplay awoke in me. I perpetrated a hundred misdemeanours, most of them unpunishable elsewhere, but of serious import in schools and barracks, where discipline is to be maintained. I stayed out of bounds late at night ... I cut classes continually. I visited Fairfield ... and a factory town further south, where I lounged about the streets all day, talking with people. Professor Stanton, not to my surprise, sent for me again. Yet I was amazed at what he knew about me, amazed, too, to discover the extent of the school's complicated system of pious espionage that checked up the least move of every student. Stanton brought out a sheet of paper with dates and facts of my misbehaviour that could not be controverted.... "So we will have to ask you to withdraw from the school, unless you right-about-face ... otherwise, we have had enough of you ... in fact, if it had not been for your great promise--your talents!--" I waved the compliment aside rather wearily. "I think that if this school has had enough of me, I have had about enough of the school." I expressed, in plain terms, my opinion of their espionage system. "Your omnipotent God must be hard put to it when He has to rely on the help of such sneakiness to keep His Book (and I couldn't help laughing at the literary turn I gave to my denunciation) before the public!" Stanton's eyes flamed behind their glasses. "Gregory, I shall have to ask you to leave the Hill as soon as you can get your things together," he shouted. "--which can hardly be soon enough for me," I replied.