The previous spring, one of the most popular men in the English department had resigned to devote himself to literary work, and his place had been nominally filled by a young man with good credentials but no experience. He had proved a great disappointment, for whatever his attainments, he lacked the ability to impart; while in contrast to the enthusiasm which Professor Baer's lectures had aroused, his classes seemed veritable refrigerating plants. Peggy knew that the seniors who had taken his courses were complaining bitterly that they had been "stung," and had congratulated herself that her own work in English had been continued with another member of the faculty.
In the verses before her, all the resentment of the students toward an incompetent teacher, following an able and popular one, was expressed with diabolical cleverness. The fact that the present incumbent was named Fox, and that he followed Professor Baer, had already been the theme of innumerable jokes, and the author of the verses had used it as the motive of her lines, so that there was no chance that even the outsider would remain ignorant of the instructor satirized.
Peggy read the verses over more than once in order to gain time. She was sorely tempted to say nothing. Peggy was under no illusions regarding the path of the reformer. It was vastly easier, vastly pleasanter, to let things go. It was not that she had any cowardly shrinking from hard knocks, but now, almost at the close of her college life, she was not in the mood to antagonize any one. She loved everything about the college, its gray stone buildings draped in ivy, its campus dotted with stately trees, the class-rooms and the laboratories, the dignified president, the professors and the girls—oh, most of all, the girls. She loved to believe in their affection, their admiration. Never in her life had popularity meant as much to her as now. And yet in spite of her distaste, she knew she had no choice. She must disagree, antagonize, anger.
When she lifted her eyes, the room was very quiet, almost as if every one knew what she was going to say. "Awfully clever, aren't they?" Peggy spoke very deliberately. "What are they for?"
A dark-eyed girl across the room took it on herself to answer, and as soon as her lips parted, Peggy knew her for the author.
"I'd intended it for the Atlantic Monthly," she smiled with frank sarcasm. "But I think perhaps it's better suited to the Annual. What do you say?"
"I'm afraid I don't think it's at all suited to the Annual."
There was a little chorus of protests. "You never were in his classes, Peggy," cried some one from the rear seat. "If you'd endured what we have at the hands of that man, you'd love every line."
A burst of approving laughter showed how completely the sympathies of this group of girls were with the speaker. Half-whispered comments were being exchanged. "The stupidest lectures!" "The greatest waste of time!" Peggy was perfectly able to understand this point of view. She struggled to make the girls see hers.
"Of course that's not right. If I had been in his class I'd have been perfectly ready to go to President Eaton, and tell him how unsatisfactory everything was. But to take this way of doing it—" she looked down at the mocking lines and said with a visible effort, "Don't you think it seems a little bit cowardly—and cruel, too?"