Page:A Princetonian.djvu/95

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
A Retrospection and an Interruption.
77

out," said Bliss. "Anyhow, I am glad to hear you are coming."

When the junior had left, Hart leaned back and rattled his pencil against his teeth and fell into what Terence Golatly might have called a "trance."

It was a fine night. The windows of the college rooms were open. The tinkle of a banjo and a snatch of a song occasionally wafted out on the air. Young men stopped before the buildings and hulloed up at the buildings. There was a constant chorus of this from all over the campus.

"Hull-l-l-o o, Charlie Jackson!" would come a shout; then "stick—your—head—out—of—the—window," in one long word.

This generally resulted in a conversation (in which any one was entitled to join) between the occupants of a second- or third-story room and some one on the ground.

Hart listened to it all with a sense of unreality. A year ago the idea that he could adapt himself to such a life as this would have seemed impossible. His thoughts travelled back to Oakland. He could smell the ham and combined odors of Van Clees & Jackson's store.