"I can't do it, 'fresh,'" he confessed, with a grin. "I'm not the scrapper I thought I could be. I just want to go through college lazily, happily, respectably—and all that. I wouldn't know how to make a rumpus if I wanted to. But listen here." He pointed his finger at me sternly. "If I were you, I wouldn't rest until I had made the fight and won it. Fight it not only for yourself but for the hundred other Jewish fellows in college. See that they get a square deal. See that they don't lose out on all the things that make college worth while. A Jew is just as good as anyone else, isn't he?"
"Yes," I answered him only faintly.
"Well, then, go ahead and prove that fact to the whole college world."
But, though I did not answer him, I knew that I was not any more able to make the fight than he. Less able, perhaps, because I was more handicapped. I made myself a thousand excuses as I sat there thinking it over—I was not brave enough, that was all.
But one thing my acquaintanceship with Trevelyan did bring me. He was a dabbler in light verse, and had been elected to the college funny paper. He also contributed to the undergraduate literary magazine at times—though he was a bit ashamed of being taken seriously. At any rate, he encouraged me to go into these two activities.
Whether or not it was due entirely to his influence, or whether these two college publications were broader and less exacting as to the ancestry of contributors, my work for them was welcomed. Before the year was over I had been elected an associate editor of the funny paper, and had four articles accepted by the literary magazine—enough to put me among the list of "probables" for election, next winter.
At the same time I went through a successful trial for membership in the college dramatic association. I was not given a part in the annual play, however. I made up my mind to consider this a just decision, and that I had no right to impute it to anything other than my lack of talent. The president of the association, however, met me at lunch hour one day and made some rather lame remarks about the embarrassment to which the "dramatics" would be put if I were in the cast.
"Yer see," he said, "we go on an annual tour. And we get entertained a lot, yer see. And it's big social stunts in every city. And it's the cream of society wherever we go—so, it'd be funny if—well don'tcher see?"
"Yes," I admitted, "I do see. I see further than you do."
I was beginning to wonder if that fight that Trevelyan planned wouldn't be worth while, after all.