“ You seem to forget that I suffer as much, if not more, than any one. Do you ever hear me complain when he wallows in the mud and then snuggles up in my bed? Was there any outcry when he ate my gloves and my patent leather shoes and my Russia leather notebook with hundreds of exhaustive, priceless notes on the first part of 'Paradise Lost'? Did I make a violent scene—the way you and Duggie do every day—when I gave the tea for my sister and found him just before the people came—behind the bathtub in a state of coma from having eaten thirty-six perfectly delicious lettuce sandwiches? ”

“ From the door of the theatre it was impossible to see beyond the curbstone, except when the half-obliterated lights of a cab lurched by over the drifts. The rumor went through the crowd that the wires were down and that all the cars had stopped. No one seemed to know quite what to do. Just as the people nearest the door would make up their minds to start bravely out, a thick hurricane would strike erratically in at them, causing the ladies to shrink back with little exclamations of dismay. ”

“ Not on your life. Bertie just rose Venus-like in a state of hopeless completion from the crystal waters of the Back Bay. He never disappoints."
"But I like Bertie," I protested; "not as much as I do Duggie, of course. But I do like him; he's so—so—sensible."
"Sensible!" Berri screamed. "Why, child, the Stockbridge family is all sense. With trousers bagging at the knee and Adam's apples rising and falling above their abashed collars, Bertie's ancestors came into a lovely foolish world and created sense. That's all they ever do now,—just create one another and sense. ”

“ For the time being (it was a very short time, however) the rest of us were neglected; but as soon as the arms of our fellow neophyte were linked in ours, the irresistible impetus from behind began once more and we continued our perilous way.
At last all ten of us were shoved—a dazed and gasping semicircle—up the steps of Claverly Hall, and our names were cheered in the order of our election. With the exception of Berri, I had n't known before who the others were. In the darkness and excitement it had been impossible to see. ”

“ After a hot shower-bath and then a cold one you feel eight or ten feet high, and walk through the Square to dinner, sticking out your chest. It's queer you don't catch cold, running in the icy wind with literally nothing on but a pair of tennis shoes, loose short cotton drawers, and a thin sleeveless undershirt; but you never seem to. The gym made me stiff all over for a day or two, but I feel fine now, and wonder why we never thought of it before. The muckers on the Avenue bother us a good deal with snowballs when we run. ”

“ The walls were covered with gay frescos of some kind (I could n't make them out, the tobacco smoke was so thick) ; foreign-looking waiters were tearing in and out among the tables; flower girls were wandering up and down with great-armfuls of roses and carnations for sale, and everybody was laughing and gesticulating and having such a good time, apparently,—the music was so shrill and the clatter of dishes so incessant,—that Berri and I turned and gazed at each other, as much as to say, "After all these years we 've found it at last." ”

“ They were just tramping past our house when we leaned out,—a singing, shouting, irresistible mob,—and Berri and I looked down at them in silence. We were both excited, and I felt chilly all over—but that may have been on account of the open window. The crowd did not pass on, as we thought it would, but stopped at a house across the street a few doors down. Once more the song ceased; men formed in a double line that reached from the piazza to the street, and there were hoarse cries of "Pull him out—pull him out!" ”

“ I met lots of fellows I knew on the street, and some of them took me home with them to luncheon or to that curious five-o'clock-sit-around-and-don't-know-what-to-do-with-the-cup meal they call "tea." Meeting their families was very nice, and I felt as if I knew the fellows ever so much better than I did in Cambridge.
One incident might have ended in a tragedy if I hadn't happened to preserve a certain letter of mamma's. ("Never write anything and never burn anything—isn't it Talleyrand who tells us that?" as the friend of Berri's aunt would say.) ”

“ So many great people have, all their lives, floundered uncomplainingly through Cambridge mud that I suppose it's cheeky of me to notice it. But in wet weather the sidewalks are really not nice. In front of a few houses the owners put down temporary wooden walks,—three boards wide, running lengthwise,—but you invariably meet a lady in the middle of them and have to jump gracefully into the nearest puddle, looking as if you considered this the dearest privilege of your young life. ”

“ Then I thought of the way I had talked to Duggie the first evening, away back in September, and positively blushed when I remembered that I had asked him, outright, how one ought to go about getting on clubs. Why, that was enough to sewer me with almost anybody in the world but Duggie. Imagine my doing such a thing now! No one ever thinks of mentioning the clubs in general conversation. ”

“ Berri mused, "that I 'm exceedingly glad to acknowledge my relationship to Bertie and his tribe. They madden me at times; they have such clear, narrow, unelastic, admirable intellects. Their attitude toward all questions, public or private, is so definite and uncompromising; they 're so dog-gonned right. Why, American history is just one glad, sweet testimonial to the fact that they 're never wrong. They 're not always on the popular side, or the successful; they 're merely right. Any other human beings would keep on trying to make use of such a splendid faculty. ”

“ They say that fellows who never look at a book or take a note in class often go to a seminar and, providing they have good memories, are able to answer enough questions on the exam paper the next morning to get through with colors flying. A certain number of questions on almost every paper simply have to deal with cold, isolated facts rather than with the generalities, comparisons, and discussions that necessitate a real knowledge of the subject, and it is with these facts—pounded in at a seminar—that one puts up a successful bluff. ”

“ Just then the fellow next to me murmured: "Will any lady or gentleman in the audience kindly lend me a high hat, three rabbits, and a dozen fresh eggs?" and I laughed. And as I laughed, I leaned over to hide my face—and there on my lap was Geschmitzenmenger's Ancient Art; after Hemington had given it to me I was so interested in whether he would catch his car or not that I had never looked at it at all. ”

“ Then the fellows get together in somebody's room—if they know one another well enough—and talk the thing over.
Oh, I wish spring would come! This seems to be the time of year when nothing much happens. As long as we were all grinding most of the day for the mid-years, I didn't think much about the weather, except that when it was bad there wasn't so much temptation to idle out of doors. Now, however, everybody wants the weather to be good, and it's vile. It always manages to do four or five different things in the course of a day, and the walking is unspeakable. ”

“ What actually happens is that some one pulls the dummy rapidly from one post to the other, and while the creature is spinning through the air you hurl yourself at it, cling to it desperately with your finger-nails and teeth for about the tenth of a second, and are then flicked off—like a drop of water from a grindstone—into the next lot. ”

“ Every day some little thing would happen that almost made you jump, as it suddenly brought the question into your mind, "Who is going to make the First Ten?" things, for instance, like seeing some one in our class walking through the Square with a Dickey man who was in the Sophomore class. ”

“ Berri has exceedingly definite ideas about things, but he "aims to please;" he finds it hard to express himself and at the same time to make everything come out pleasantly in the end.
"What you say is no doubt important and true," I answered; "but I don't know what it means."
"Why, I simply mean that in thinking the matter over one can't get around the fact that ever since college opened you 've been—what shall I say? People have been more aware of you than your size would seem to justify; you 've been, as it were, a cinder in the public eye." ”

“ Much is a Boston architect who comes out from town twice a week to lecture on ancient art. They think a great deal of him in Boston. He stands at the head of his profession there, because, as he's never built anything, even the most critical have no grounds for complaint. Berri says there are lots of people like that in Boston,—painters and writers and musicians who are really very great, but think it more refined just to "live" their works. He meets them at his aunt's house, where they often gather to talk it all over. ”

“ Mamma overheard an old woman on a piazza say that she made the "young men" change their shoes when it was "snow-in'"—and that was all there was to it. That chance remark led to my living in the same house with Duggie and Berri; and what a difference it has made! Without Berri I never in the world should have known such a lot of people in so short a time; and without Duggie—well, I think I understand what my adviser meant when he said he was glad I knew Duggie. ”

“ That day, however, he hurried through his luncheon and slipped away alone.
Oh dear! (How silly those two words look written down, and yet it was what was passing through my mind as I wrote them.) I suppose that what I really mean is, How tiresome it is that a person's acts don't begin and end with himself! There doesn't seem to be any limit to the reach of their influence. It would be so much more simple and easy if you knew just where the consequences of a mistake or an indiscretion, or whatever you choose to call it, began and ended. Now, for instance, take Berri and the thesis. ”