My career at college promised at one time after that to be almost creditable, but it ended in nothing. I was not a good student, because, I flattered myself, I was too good a fellow. I loved pleasure too much to apply myself to work, and was too self-indulgent to deny myself anything. I despised the plodding ways of cold-blooded creatures like Peck even more than I did the dullness of John Marvel. Why should I delve at Latin and Greek and Mathematics when I had all the poets and novelists. I was sure that when the time came I could read up and easily overtake and surpass the tortoise-like monotony of Peck's plodding. I now and then had an uneasy realization that Peck was developing, and that John Marvel, to whom I used to read Latin, had somehow come to understand the language better than I. However, this was only an occasional awakening, and the idea was too unpleasant for me to harbor it long. Meantime, I would enjoy myself and prepare to bear off the more shining honors of the orator and society-medalist.
At the very end I did, indeed, arouse myself, for I had a new incentive. I fell in love. Toward the mid-session holiday the place always filled up with pretty girls. Usually they came just after "the exams"; but occasionally some of them came a little in advance: those who were bent on conquest. At such times, only cold anchorites like Marvel, or calculating machines like Peck, stuck to their books. Among the fair visitants this year was one whose reputation for beauty had already preceded her: Miss Lilian Poole. She was the daughter of a banker in the capital of the State, and by all accounts was a tearing belle. She had created a sensation at the Mardi Gras the year before, and one who could do that must be a beauty. She was reported more beautiful than Isabelle Henderson, the noted beauty of the Crescent city, whom she was said to resemble. Certainly, she was not lacking in either looks or intelligence; for those who had caught a glimpse of her, declared her a Goddess. I immediately determined that I would become her cavalier for the occasion. And I so announced to the dozen or more fellows who composed our set. They laughed at me.
"Why, you do not know her."
"But I shall know her."
"You are not on speaking terms with Professor Sterner"—the Professor of Mathematics at whose house she was stopping. The Professor, a logarithmic machine, and I had had a falling out not long before. He had called on me for a recitation, one morning after a dance, and I had said, "I am not prepared, sir."
"You never are prepared," he said, which the class appeared to think amusing. He glanced over the room.
"Mr. Peck."
Peck, also, had been at the dance the night before, though he said he had a headache, and caused much amusement by his gambols and antics, which, were like those of a cow; I therefore expected him to say, "unprepared" also. But not so.
"I was unwell last night, sir."
"Ah! Well, I am glad, at least, that you have some sort of a legitimate excuse."