Page:Lynch Williams--The girl and the game.djvu/340

 Of course, it must be fine to be "godlike" and to have a "lofty intelligence." but so few of us are and have, that this sort of thing puts false ideals into young people's heads which jar them when they flop down to plain earth. Unless you can manage to live among stars it's rather futile to hitch your wagon to one of them.

However that may be, I knew of one case where the hifalutin, girly-girly gush about capital-F friendship as depicted in novels produced not merely an absurd but a pathetic result.

Once there were two "Friends" here in college—roommates; and they both wanted the same thing. One of them got it by being a blackguard. To be specific, it was a prize they were after and the essays which they handed in—anonymously, of course—were written on their common typewriter. They were the only two competitors. One of the essays was a plagiarism. The judges discovered it, summoned the two contestants and confronted them with the fact. Being terribly rattled and at bay, the cribber lied,