Page:The plastic age, (IA plasticage00mark).pdf/115

 sleekly, fine teeth, and rich coloring: a “smooth” boy who prided himself on his conquests and the fact that he never got a grade above a C in his courses. There was no man in the freshman class with a finer mind, but he declined to study, declaring firmly that he could not waste his time acquiring impractical tastes for useless arts.

“Now everybody shut up,” said Pudge, seating himself in a big chair and laboriously crossing one leg over the other. “Put some more wood on the fire, Hugh, will you?”

Hugh stirred up the fire, piled on a log or so, and then returned to his chair, hoping against belief that something really would be accomplished in the seminar. All the boys, he excepted, were smoking, and all of them were lolling back in dangerously comfortable attitudes.

“We’ve got to get going,” Pudge continued, “and we aren’t going to get anything done if we just sit around and bull. I’m the prof, and I’m going to ask questions. Now, don’t bull. If you don’t know, just say, ‘No soap,’ and if you do know, shoot your dope.” He grinned. “How’s that for a rime?”

“Atta boy!” Carl exclaimed enthusiastically.

“Shut up! Now, the stuff we want to get at tonight is the poetry. No use spending any time on the composition. My prof said that we would