Page:Samuel F. Batchelder - Bits of Harvard History (1924).pdf/378

 lege circle—not so lovable as the rest, but not without an occasional warm welcome. We refer to the Old Clo’ Man, attracted to the field of University labors by the increasing number of well-provided and easy-going students who in spite of “great expectations” occasionally find themselves short of ready cash. He has always been known, through a long line of operators, by the generic title of “Poco.” His philanthropic activities, especially in the negotiation of unsecured loans, are too well-known to particularize, as is the mass of folk-lore and ballads of which he is the hero and superman. In one respect only does he display an almost childish inability to grasp the great facts of existence: his estimate of the value of male habiliments is invariably far under their true worth. It was once said of him that, if he cast his eye upon a suit of clothes, and like Melancholy marked it for his own, the marking always attained a figure ruinously low. There is a legend that Mr. Levi, one of the best-remembered representatives of the tribe, did so far forget himself as to pay five dollars for a dress suit whose owner died before putting it on; but it is understood that the fraternity of to-day utterly refuses to admit the precedent.

There may be interest in noting that the term Poco, now in use (as we suppose) wherever the bifurcated por-