But my triumph and eminence were not to last long.
To be looked up to at Mt. Hebron you had to lead a distasteful, colourless life of hypocrisy and piety such as I have seldom seen anywhere before. Under cover of their primitive Christianity I never found more pettiness. First, you prayed and hymn-sung yourself into favour, and then indulged in sanctimonious intrigue to keep yourself where you had arrived.
I could not stand my half self-hypnotised hypocrisy any longer. A spirit of mischief and horseplay awoke in me. I perpetrated a hundred misdemeanours, most of them unpunishable elsewhere, but of serious import in schools and barracks, where discipline is to be maintained. I stayed out of bounds late at night ... I cut classes continually. I visited Fairfield ... and a factory town further south, where I lounged about the streets all day, talking with people.
Professor Stanton, not to my surprise, sent for me again.
Yet I was amazed at what he knew about me, amazed, too, to discover the extent of the school's complicated system of pious espionage that checked up the least move of every student.
Stanton brought out a sheet of paper with dates and facts of my misbehaviour that could not be controverted....
"So we will have to ask you to withdraw from the school, unless you right-about-face ... otherwise, we have had enough of you ... in fact, if it had not been for your great promise—your talents!—"
I waved the compliment aside rather wearily.
"I think that if this school has had enough of me, I have had about enough of the school."
I expressed, in plain terms, my opinion of their espionage system.