“I called—er—to ask you, sir, if—er—er—you wouldn’t kindly attend a recitation—er—now and then—er—just as a matter of form, you know?”
“Go to hell!” said Anthony coldly, turning again to his liquor.
“Yes, sir. Very good, sir.”
The headmaster faded through the doorway and, doubtless, went as he had been directed.
“Damn his impudence!” muttered Anthony.
Incidental Diversions
He was leading man in all the school plays, editor of the St. Ritz Bartenders’ Guide, quarterback on the eleven, first base on the nine, second bass on the glee club, forward on the hockey team and backward in his studies. He carried off first honors in the hundred-yards, the mile, the hurdles, the hammer-throw, the standing long drink, the debating society and the bacchanalian orgies.
Thus Anthony at eighteen, six feet tall and narrow in proportion, green eyes that shone through a tangled mass of tawny eyelashes, scornful of the bourgeoisie and of the proletariat, entered Princeton.
Spires and Gurgles
From the first he loved Princeton, the pleasantest country club in America. He loved the tall, towering tapestries of trees, infinitely transient, transiently infinite, yearning infinitely with infinite melancholy—the dreamy double chocolate jiggers pleasing the palate, drenching the innards with a joy akin to pleasure—the early moon, mistily mysterious, more mysterious than mystery itself—the deep insidious devotion of the dreaming peaks, in their lofty aspiration toward the empyrean—through it all the melancholy voices, singing “Old Nassau,” blent in a pæan of pain. While over all the two great dreaming towers towered toward the sky, like a gigantic pair of white flannel trousers, reversed.