Page:Discipline and the Derelict (1921).pdf/211

 agement of social functions, since by being on the managing committee of a party he thereby secures free admission and so cuts down his expenses. If this graft includes free cabs and free candy for the girl, so much the better; he is just that much ahead.

The fusser, stretching his legs before the grate fire in his lodging house, lying in the barber's chair getting a face massage, or sitting on the front porch watching the crowd go by, has but one topic of conversation. He is not interested in the supremacy of a democratic government in Russia, or in athletics, or in food conservation; he is not interested in labor agitations, or in his studies; or in anything that makes for the betterment of the community or the state; his only topic of thought and conversation is girls, singly and in groups, individually and collectively. What he doesn't know about girls has not been written or thought of or talked about. He knows them all absolutely, and he has them all tabulated and cataloged and properly estimated. He usually does not agree with you at all in your own personal estimate of any individual young woman in question and is sure that if you had had his experience you would know a deal sight more than you do. He knows a lemon from a peach in any garden of girls in which he may be wandering, and he is eagerly willing to give you the benefit of his skilled judgment. You may be bored by his talk after you have listened to him for a half hour, but you could not in reason doubt his taste or his conclusions.

I have seen a healthy, enthusiastic freshman come home from a pleasant happy evening with a sensible normal girl have all the joy and enthusiasm taken