emetic. Poor Thurlow! Well, Maurice, do the best you can."
I said I would and left the room, very much flattered that
Brooks should have shown so much reliance on me; but not until
Friday noon when about half through my dinner, did the full
force of my promise to produce something new strike me. I
gobbled down my dessert, trying violently all the while to think,
and hurried to my room. Oh, for a thought! But thoughts I
had none. I stared out of the window, first at the trees, then at
the sky. Finally my eyes wander around the room until they
become fixed appealingly on my case of books.
An idea strikes me. I'll write a scientific story. What have
I been here in college all these years for ? Physics ! That's the
stuff 1 Prof. Madison injected us all with such big doses of adora
tion for this subject ! And I take down and hug tenderly my
precious volumes of Carhart. Here goes for a new order of crea
tion, a new world of negatives and positives. Woman is negative,
man positive. Gravity attracts the positive, repels the nega
tive. But when I thought of our big fat cook bristling in and
stamping amongst the cobwebs on the ceiling like an exasperated
gobbler, and hurling her affectionate epithets down like hot sau
sages at some boarder who had dared to think tough steak, I give
up in despair. I never could elaborate such a scheme.
Putting back Carhart, I gaze in a bewildered way at those book
hacks, every one speckled with suggestions; pleasant and other
wise, of class-room troubles. But the afternoon is advancing. I
recall myself and run over the familiar titles. Chemistry ! Why
didn't I think of that before ? It's so much easier than physics.
And I take down my Harris and my Richter, turning over the
pages slowly, while thinking hard, concentrated, viscous thoughts.
have it ! I suddenly cry out in a tone • that startles me fright
fully, and I look around to see if I am really alone. I'll apply
chlorine gas to a murder story. Blood and thunder ! The Stiletto
has been so quiet and insipid of late. I'll stir things up. Let me
see; now, the hero,—no, the heroine, •who shall be pretty and
haye long yellow hair and be a college girl, shall murder a dark,
ugly Italian count, whom her parents are -trying to force her to
marry. I'll have her do it this way: He threatens her, she
stabs him, the blood squirts on her dress, he screams, she runs,
she is caught, accused, and imprisoned.
Now ! oh, yes; she makes allegation in defense (that's good—