THE FREE LANCE.
Published Monthly during the College Year by the Students of
The Pennsylvania Slate College.
Vol. X.
He was a young man with the pleasant name of Smith. The
only son of Deacon Peltiah Smith, our most inspiring deacon on
communion Sundays from the very first it seemed natural to ex
pect great things of him. Even from those early days when he
lay in the cradle and cried and kicked his way to a leading place
in the family history he was an object of general remark for the
neighbors. Aunt Polly Ricker, our village oracle, came over in
due season to give the final judgment upon the new Smith baby.
And when on this momentous visit she carefully adjusted her
specs, took a long look at his little red lump of at nose and at last
gave it as her " idee " that " that ere baby was bound to cut a big
figger in the world sonic day," the matter was at once considered
as settled. There was nothing after this but to give him a name
worthy of his brilliant future. After much family debate the
name of Napoleon Bonaparte seemed amply fitted for the condi
tions, and so when he had grown to years of wisdom he came to
be known familiarly as " Our Napoleon."
Yet, for one born to heroic deeds, we could none of us say that
he was a very handsome young man. In spite of our belief in his
coming fame we were forced to admit that his one eye—for by some
mysterious providence he early took leave of the other—did not
add to the symmetry of his features. Then, too, his mouth had
a habit of falling apart in a manner that did not at once suggest
a spirit of great boldness. Besides nature seemed to have been
somewhat too generous in the matter of feet, which fact gave him
as he walked a slightly shuffling gait and led certain of the youth
to wonder if the Bonaparte in his name did not have reference to
this part of his anatomy. But in spite of these trifling drawbacks
MAY, 1896.
OUR NAPOLEON.
No. 2.