Page:Discipline and the Derelict (1921).pdf/209

 accomplished much worth while. The social enthusiast who thinks he is in love is not amenable to reason; such a disease as his must usually run its course, must wear itself out; there is very little that either medicine or advice can accomplish, and yet if anything could be done for him it would be by a physician or by a psychologist.

The game in which the fusser is sitting is not a cheap one; if a fellow is to stay with it long he will need to have a good income. There are parties and cabs and flowers to be considered; there are automobile rides and all sorts of excitements to be paid for, and refections and confections innumerable to be provided. He must constantly be on the alert for fear some other more adroit or more generous suitor should get ahead of him. It will not seem surprising, then, that the fusser is an easy borrower, constantly behind in his bills, and regularly overhead in debt. Not even poker played by a man of bad judgment, inept at the game, is more disastrous to an undergraduate's monthly allowance than is the game which the fusser is trying to play. I was talking not long ago to a father who has two sons in college to each of whom he gives the same monthly allowance, and this allowance is not an ungenerous one. His elder son was always in debt, always complaining of the stringency of the money market; the younger boy was satisfied, solvent, and could always show a respectable balance in the bank. The father was disturbed and unable to explain the trouble. I assured him that the explanation was a very simple one; his elder son was playing the social game; he had joined the sentimental army of fussers. When