"What a perfectly excruciating smell! It's like overshoes on a hot register, only much worse. What on earth is it?" At this the rest of us at the table began to sniff the air, and I confess it was pretty bad. Bertie Stockbridge had finished his luncheon while we were still eating, and had taken his chair over to the window, where he was reading something for a half-past one recitation and smoking one of Amadéo's cigars. He was too absorbed in his book to hear the rest of us, but all at once he looked up with a very pained expression and exclaimed,—
"What a beastly cigar! I was reading and did n't notice how queer it was; it 's made me very sick." Then of course we all discovered at once where the hot rubbery fumes came from,—all but Berri and Hemington, that is to say; they refused to believe it. So everybody began to light cigars, and in a minute or two the room was simply unendurable. Stockbridge said they were like the trick cigars you see advertised sometimes; the kind that "explode with a red light,—killing the smoker and amusing the spectators." We dissected several of them; they seemed to contain a little of everything except tobacco. The fellows insisted on knowing all the details of the colossal sell, and although Berri and Hemington felt awfully cheap about their part in it, they finally told. Duggie says an Amadéo or a Manuele or a Luigi or an Anselmo appears in Cambridge every year at about this time, and invariably returns to Santa Bawthawthawthoth laden with Freshman gold.
1.25 P.M. Rushed home; got a shirt and took it to a Chinese laundry just off Mt. Auburn Street and implored the proprietor to wash it and have it ready for me by five o'clock. He seemed to think me somewhat insane, and said in a soothing, fatherly kind of way,—
"You come back day aftle to-mollel." Then I explained the situation and told him I would give him anything he asked if he would do me this favor. He made strange Oriental sounds, at which sleepy, gibbering things tumbled out of a shelf behind a green calico curtain, and from a black hole in the partition at the end of the shelf there began a tremendous grunting and snuffling, pierced by squeaks of rage and anguish. Then five Chinamen swarmed about my shirt, gesticulating murderously, and uttering raucous cries like impossible birds. I wanted to stay and see how it all turned out; but the bell had rung for my half-past one o'clock, and I hurried away.
The Oriental temperament is an impassive, deliberative, sphinx-like, inscrutable thing.
1.40-2.30 P.M. This hour I spent in class listening to a lecture on narration. I enjoyed it very much, and the hour went by so quickly that when the instructor dismissed us, I thought he had made a mistake. He gave us short scenes from various famous books in illustration of his points; and ended, as usual, by reading a lot of daily themes written by the class. Two of them were mine. He said they were good, but pointed out how they could have been better. One of his suggestions I agree with perfectly, but I think he 's all off in regard to the other. I 'll talk it over with him at his next consultation hour. Some of the fellows thought the whole thing perfect drool; but I confess it interested me very much. I never feel like cutting this course, somehow.
2.30. Went to my room with the intention of reading history until it was time to go for my shirt, and—if it was done up—get ready for the tea. I had read only part of a chapter when some fellows, passing by, yelled at my windows. I had made up my mind, when I began to read, not to answer any one, as it 's impossible to accomplish anything if you do. But of course I forgot and yelled back, and in a minute three fellows clattered up the stairs and I realized that they were good for the rest of the afternoon.
It's a queer thing about going to see people here. I don't think that any one ever goes with the intention of staying any length of time, or even of sitting down; you merely drop in as you 're passing by and happen to think of it. You would n't believe it if somebody told you you were destined to stay for several hours. But that's what usually happens. Another queer thing is that very few fellows admit that they 're studying when you come in, unless of course it's in the midst of the exams. If you find a man at a desk with a note-book and several large open volumes spread out before him, and you say to him, "Don't mind me—go on with your grinding," nine times out of ten he'll answer, "Oh, I wasn't grinding; I was just glancing over these notes." The tenth man fixes you with a determined eye and replies: "You get out of here, or take a book and go into a corner and shut up."
3.45. We all took a walk up Brattle Street past the Longfellow house as far as James Russell Lowell's place and back. It's a great old street, even with the leaves all gone—which makes ordinary places so dreary. Duggie pointed out the most famous houses to me one day and told me who had lived in them. I tried to do it this afternoon, but the fellows said they did n't care.
5. Got my shirt at the Chinaman's. It looked all right, but it was still damp in spots—wet, in fact. I went prepared to pay almost any price after all the excitement I had caused; but the proprietor was surprisingly moderate in his demands. I gave him something more than he asked, but he would n't take it until I accepted some poisonous-looking dried berries done up in a piece of oiled paper. He seemed to have grasped the idea of a tea, for he kept saying over and over again with a delighted smile: "You go see girl—you go see girl."