Kansas University Weekly.
27
THERE is an eastern firm whose entire business is the writing to order of college themes, forensics, commencement orations, exercises, stories and poems. Twice or three times a year its circulars are spread throughout the colleges and academies, and the inducements offered therein are in many cases effectual. No complication of circumstances can justify the patronage of such a concern. There
is no species of dishonesty more disgusting, culpable and demeaning than the passing of counterfeit composition. We ought to be averse to appropriating even the thought or motive of another's work; and, as for the bodily theft or the unacknowledged use of patent literature, we ought to be quite beyond temptation.
Litqraquy.
A Park Study.
Not that he noticed me particularly—for he didn't. He glanced at me, to be sure, in a sort of cataloguing, half weary, half inquiring way, and then his gaze wandered on to something on the other side of me and I was aware that, as far as he was concerned, I had no existence whatsoever. But as far as I was concerned he was most certainly alive. I was immediately attracted by his appearance, for to tell the truth, he was a perfect specimen of the man that Gibson draws for Mr. Davis' stories.
I followed him eagerly with my eyes from my little corner in the park as he strolled slowly along and watched the passers-by with lazy, half-shut eyes.
"Now," I thought to myself, "That is probably Van Bibber, or Travis, or Morton Carelton before he set out in chase of Princess Aline. He surely must be one of those delightful old friends of ours, and I certainly am charmed to meet him."
He was straight and he was immaculate, he was evidently well-bred and he was not in the least interested in anything around him. Therefore he must as surely be a Davis man by these characteristics as he was a Gibson one by token of his square chin, his straight nose, his broad forehead, and straight, heavy eyebrows. He was clearly what both story-writer and artist would call a "modern type." But no sooner had I recognized him than I began to feel very
sorry for him. For he was manifestly having such a stupid time. In fact he was intensely bored, and he dropped down on one of the benches in a mood which would have caused little Ortheris to explode with "Wot's the bloomin' use of all this blarsted show anyhow!" But Mr. Van Bibber-Travis-Carleton didn't explode; which I couldn't help thinking was all the worse for him. He simply sat and poked holes in the gravel walk with his walking-stick and grew more and more bored as the momenst passed.
It was quite warm for the time in September and one persistent sunbeam seemed intent on parching the back of my neck. I turned my parasol to ward it off and settled comfortably down to study the fin-de-siecle product before me.
I have seen a good many blase men but this was certainly the most highly developed specimen I ever encountered. The downward turn of the mouth and the little unpleasant curves around its corners, the cynical line from nostril to lips, the indifferent droop of the eyes—all the characteristics were there. And yet I was not wholly disgusted with him, for he had an indefinable air of having done something.
"It must be Morton Carleton," I decided; "Morton Carleton in an irritable mood when somebody has made a scene after one of his experiments with a fair bud of the Four Hundred, to see if she were The One. Poor Morton who was always getting into trouble because he