56
The University Courier.
LITERARY.
Negatives.
They were two ebony hued little urchins and in the most energetic manner, they were just settling a dispute as to the ownership of some "miggles," when a kind hearted, Y. M. C. A.-looking student came along. "Don't you know it is wrong to fight, boys?" he said, as he stopped to part the combatants. But they sent him up the street with—"You don't know, do you? What do you care! Go 'long there, feller, er you'll git your face pushed." And as he turned the corner a volley of mud-balls was all that he got for his pains.
In one of the alcoves of the library, I was tilted back in my chair, with my feet up on the third shelf, trying to grasp the full import of the "Philosophy of the Unconscious," when the following bit of whispered conversation fell upon my ears:
"Why weren't you at the Kappa party the other night, Fan? I was just wild to see you."
"Oh! Maud, don't mention it. I never was so disappointed in my life. You know that elegant pink gown I just had made? Well, the stockings to match were ordered from Kansas City and they didn't come in time. Of course no others would go with that dress and as I had already worn all my other party dresses before, I just couldn't go. I was just sick about it, for I was dying to be there."
And as I changed my position and again sought my book, I indistinctly heard the adjectives "awful" and "horrible" several times repeated.
The boys had been making a great deal over him, as they always do an old alumnus, and he had been entertaining them at length with a few ambitious jovial lies about the "good old days" when he was a sophomore and the way the fellows ran things then. As was but natural, the conversation turned on foot-ball. A few of the recent games had been "played over," and
he was just telling what a great player he used to be, when I came in. O, yes! he knew all about foot-ball—many was the time he had carried the whole twenty-one men over the goal line. He had laid out several men and broken the legs of two or three; but that was when they played foot-ball that was worth talking about. I said nothing, but I suddenly remembered that the first game ever played at the University occurred only four years ago, and that he graduated in '81!
He was one of the finest looking men I ever saw, and I watched him intently for some time as he sat there under the gas light. He had a remarkably strong face. His wavy black hair surmounted a high and noble forehead, while his deep-set, penetrating eyes, his slightly Grecian nose and his firm set mouth made up a countenance well worth studying. Then there was an air of experience and a slightly blasé look about him that set me conjecturing over his history and present employment, for I knew he was an exceedingly important and influential man. I could not decide, however, whether he was a high railroad official, a learned professor or a great statesman. Finally my curiosity so got possession of me that I was emboldened to speak to him. By way of answer he handed me his card, while he dumfounded me with the remark, that he had been "on the road" for five years. He was now selling hair-pins and garters for a Chicago house.
A cold February rain was slowly falling on the quiet college town, as Robertson Wilson left his room and, wrapped in his storm-coat, hurried along the deserted streets. He had that day received from the officials of the college, notice that he had been expelled, and disheartened, disconsolate and without a mother or sister to whom to go for that love and sympathy which only a woman can give to a man when in trouble and misfortune, was hastening to the girl he loved—the girl who for two years had been his confidant and companion. As he walked hastily along the lonely street, his spirits rose a little as he thought of the pleasure and