THE UNIVERSITY COURIER.
11
COURIER KODAKS.
They had just seated themselves to a thanksgiving dinner, whose very magnificence would have pleased the most cynical epicure. The jolly little Chancellor, whose name is Snow, had said a remarkably short grace over such a feast, the very perfume from which would have given a street arab the colic a week, it was so rich. All the guests with anticipatory looks toward a turkey, browned to a nicety, and, like a king, surrounded with hosts of red bedecked sir cranberries who seemed only to exist to minister to his Lordship's ease and welfare; kept up a buzz of conversation over the impending foot ball game. Their interest in foot ball was soon overcome by that more absorbing topic, a good dinner, but the Chancellor was as easily seen was quite nervous. He kept looking at his watch and at the turkey which still remained uncarved. At last in desperation he arose and addressed his host: "I am indeed very sorry to leave you; but you see our boys play at 2:30. Why the boys wouldn't allow me to remain at the head of the institution if I didn't go out to see the foot ball game."
In the COURIER Office: A seedy looking student, clothed in raiment that would have shamed a tramp, enters and with a wistful look addresses the editor who is trying to compress ten pages of matter into a four page paper.
"I've something here I'd like to have you run in your paper."
"Spring poetry, eh? There's the door. See? Now you perambulate."
“Its not poetry. Its——”
"Jam full, dont want it."
"Its good."
"Dont want it any how. Frat and barb wailings don't run at less than five cents per line. Close the door—from the outside please."
"Its not that. I have a theory of how we may be able to get our new athletic grounds in shape for use by spring."
The editor shouts out to the foreman, "Hold that last form! knock out report of last foot ball game! Important news! Must go!" Climbs over table and embraces the seedy looking student while large tears of joy run races down the backs of both coats.
The boys had been loafing in his room all evening and had talked of all the college topics. And when talking of home and vacation, there had come a spell of musing upon them. The silence was then broke by C___ who, leaning back in his chair and watching with half closed eyes the smoke from his cigarette curve and weave itself into fantastic forms, said in slow and measured tones: "I died long years ago but still my soul had its affections and its yearnings. It longed for that which was now no more. The memory of the U. still lingered in my shadowy breast. Impelled to visit earlier scenes, I glided on a ray of mellow moonshine to the summit of a hill where mouldering
ruins, decked with moss and purple ivy, betrayed that once there stood a school far famed and well renowned. My shadow walked those cavernous ways, which once were halls. It longed, it hoped, yet almost fear'd to meet, within those harsh and rugged ruins, a friendly face to welcome back a weary soul. My shade starts back afright as from the gloom there stalks a form, a film it almost seemed, but yet it seemed to tower and reach the skies. I knew it, in that on earth I knew it not, it was the spirit of the U. It passed my trembling spirit by. Another form, a smaller one, came close behind. It was an old familiar face and one I longed to greet. With cold and chilling look, a stony stare, it knew me as a stranger and onward passed. It was the spirit of my class and from the ocean of its memory, I, poor drop, had quite evaporated. With heart that slowly beat with numbing pain, I left the hallowed hollow halls and turned my hesitating steps toward a well known haunt. With eager longing, yet half doubting, I peer thro' the deepening darkness, and see a light that comes to meet me. I hesitate no more for there I see a shade that knows me yet as it knew in days of old, and my soul sobs forth a cry of exultation as it nestles close within the bosom of the spirit of my frat." He gave his cigarette a fillip, watched the ashes fall, and probably would have immortalized himself as a poet in prose by continuing, had not F—— the rogue of the crowd said with preternaturals solemn phiz: "Charley I have often warned you that pie is productive of nightmare, please spare us in the future—I'll eat your pie for you."
This glass of fashion, the cynosure of every eye, advanced with the shouting crimson throng into the field. The crowd watched him with eager attention as the foot ball, tossed by sportive "little Willy," come bounding toward him. He, like all great men rose to the occasion, catching the ball he took a dainty little run and prepared to give a drop kick. The ball would have been lost if he had kicked it, but he didn't. He sat down so hard that it caused an earthquake—among the crowd.
He had been promenading up and down the grounds all during the first half. He was glad and happy to be there, glad to see our boys win and happy because he could show to an admiring public, a suit of clothes that was perfect in every detail and which probably had cost him, or more likely his tailor, a sum well up in the hundreds. He was spick and span and from the shining surface of his patent leathers to the top of his glossy silk hat, there beamed a radiant good humour.
He was a frowsy little urchin and his ebony countenance shown with delight as he watched two dogs attempt to throttle each other. A benevolent, Y. M. C. A. looking K. S. U. student who was passing took an interest in the progress of the fight and stopped to inquire. The ebony-hue sent him up the street with "what youse's a doin hyar? You're git a muve on yourse. Drag yourse along off now, you monkey roun hyar I make you lose yourse, boy."