JACK was a queer fellow. His rooms up in one of the buildings were always open to the •‘gang’' aud a • more generous, good hearted fellow in college was hard to find. Jack’s rooms always had a good supply of reading material on hand, as their owner was a pronounced book worm, and that is one of the reasons why the gang always congregated in “West 44. ” But Jack had one fail ing, and that was talking to himself—a thing he invariably did when busily engaged in some study or thinking over something in his mind; and the boys had lots of fun with Jack’s “secrets.” College had not yet opened, few of the boys were back, and time hung heavily on my hands. Consequently I soon found myself in the neighborhood of the “den” —a place where more than one scheme had been born and put in mo tion by “our gcing” when we were sophomores. The door was wide open and I found Jack, in a sweater and white ducks, his hair in all directions, a pipe in his mouth and hands in his pockets, standing in the middle of the room, surrounded by a cloud of smoke and gazing aimlessly around at the walls. “Hello, old fellow! I-low are you?”. I greeted him. “Busy—make yourself miserable,” grumbled the in dividual, still deep in his meditation. Being used to such capers, I curled myself up on a win dow seat, picked up a new book and was soon deep in its contents. In a few minutes I became conscious that there was trouble in the wind, as Jack was hard at work talking to himself. He was standing in front of his trunk, scratching his head and puffing at liis pipe. “Well ! Well!! Well!!!” —puff—“where in the”—puff—“did I put my keys—con founded nuisance anyhow—think I will abolish keys—l cer tainly brought them along, as Mother gave them to me as I JACK’S TROUBLES.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers