Page:Dorothy Canfield - Rough-hewn.djvu/232

 up. Four of them had suit-cases or books on them to show occupancy. Over by the window he saw Billings, last year's full-back, sitting at a table with a thin, slight upper classman. Neale thought he recognized him,—Grant his name was—one of the college leaders, debating team. Spec. Managing Board, Phi Beta Kappa; that sort of chap. Billings' big body was hunched miserably forward over a book, his forehead wrinkled. As Neale looked at them, Grant reached forward, shut up the book and pulled it towards him.

"No use, Billings. It'd only ball you up to keep on with that math. Not a chance! Don't try the exam. Anyway they can't keep you off the team with only one condition. But, God, how did you manage to flunk Comp. Lit.? Any child of three ought to pass Comp. Lit. But don't you worry! We'll get you through. Have you learned those pieces I gave you?"

Billings straightened up and recited in a stumbling singsong, "As Shelley beautifully says, 'I could lie down like a sick child and weep … and weep … and weep!…

Away this life of woe, prompted Grant. "And it's like a 'tired child.' … No, don't change it! It'll look less as if you were copying a crib if you don't get it quite right. All right for that. Now, let's have the other ones."

At this point, Billings said violently in very forcible language, that poems were all such damn silly rot he couldn't learn them. And Grant, unsurprised and peremptory, answered that it didn't make a damned bit of difference how silly and rotten they were, they could be learned. "You've got brains enough to get a racing-dope sheet by heart, you can memorize poetry too. Now, your time's up. Beat it over to the Library where you can't talk and learn all three pieces! Remember you're to work 'em in, no matter what he asks. And if you have a chance, praise Shelley and knock Matthew Arnold. That's his line."

He turned to Neale, "You're Greenway, aren't you, with two years' conditions in French B?"

"No," said Neale, "I'm Crittenden."

"Oh, are you? Not on my list. You ought to have