The dean had a very sober face, but his eyes were twinkling. It relieved me to know, he was not taking this principal's bad judgment too seriously.
"So you think it would be wiser if there weren't so many Jewish boys in next year's entering class?"
"Precise—oh, no, I shouldn't dare say that, even if I thought so. Remember, I am in an official capacity here. But come around to my house tonight, when I've doffed my scholastic robe and am in my shirt sleeves—and perhaps I'll tell you, then, the name of that principal."
I did not even bother to do this. Without waiting for further advice, I went down to this school to beard the foolish principal in his den.
It was a hard matter to work my way into his presence. He had an office and inner office, and stenographers to guard them both. I wrote on my card, however, that I wished to speak to him regarding affairs at my college, and evidently piqued his curiosity to the extent of his giving me the interview.
In that inner office I found a youngish man whose face was adorned with a heavy black beard. He seemed strangely familiar, but I could not place him.
"Come in," he said, looking hard at me. His restless eyes did not leave my face all the while I was talking.
"What is it you want me to do?" he asked me when I had given him some stumbling hint of my mission.
"I think you ought to keep Jewish boys out of my college," I told him. "It—it isn't altogether fair, and it would only provoke a renewal of the prejudice, if there should be as many freshmen next year as there were this."
"You are a Jew yourself," he said accusingly.