Page:Discipline and the Derelict (1921).pdf/192

 ing the quiz hours and stealthily cribs your ideas which he rephrases so that they seem his own. More's the pity, sometimes he does it so well that he gets a better grade than you do who have gone through the assigned reading with puritanic conscientiousness.

The loafer is usually a very charming fellow; he is selfish, but diplomatic and well-mannered. "How does it happen," I asked one of the clan not long ago, "that you do so little work about the fraternity house while Moore is always at it?"

"Moore has no diplomacy," was the reply. "I saw at the start that if I didn't talk back and was always polite and courteous to the fellows, they seldom 'fagged' me; Moore is impudent, and he has to do all the work while the fellows sit around and are amused at my line of talk."

He loves to talk and he generally talks well and knows it. He is usually popular in any crowd, for he has never brought on brain fag through overwork or. He can be found at every fraternity house sitting before the grate fire spinning his yarns to any hour of the night. He dislikes going to bed even more than he dislikes getting up in the morning, and will never think of going so long as he can get some one to keep him company. Not infrequently he has in him some touch of the genius. He has talent without motive power. As I write this sentence my mind drifts back to Jim Watson. "Why don't you stir up Jim?" I asked the president of his fraternity one day, "he might amount to something if he would work."