Page:The plastic age, (IA plasticage00mark).pdf/310

286 flowered plain—and then the abyss. He felt pr pared to do nothing at all, and he was not swept l an overpowering desire to do anything in particula Writing had the greatest appeal for him, bi he doubted his ability. Teach? Perhaps. Bi teaching meant graduate work. Well, he woul see what the next year at college would show. E was going to take a course in composition wil Professor Henley, and if Henley thought his gif warranted it, he would ask his father for a year < two of graduate work at Harvard.

College was pleasant that last year. It w; pleasant to wear a blue sweater with an orange S c it; it was pleasant, too, to wear a small white h that had a blue B on the crown, the insignia of tl Boule and a sign that he was a person to be r spected and obeyed; it was pleasant to be spok< to by the professors as one who had reach< something approaching manhood; life gene ally was pleasant, not so exciting as the thr preceding years but fuller and richer. Eai in the first term he was elected to Helmet, „an hon< society that possessed a granite “tomb,” a snu windowless building in which the members we supposed to discuss questions of great importan and practise secret rites of awe-inspiring wonde As a matter of fact, the monthly meetings we nothing but “bull fests,” or as one cynical memb put it, “We wear a gold helmet on our sweate