Why George Dowlin Entered College.
I sat long after Tige had finished, thinking over the story that
he had told me, and my heart went out in pity to the dead man
down stairs.
WHY GEORGE DOWLIN ENTERED COLLEGE.
I was lying half awake on the bank of the Mystic during one of
those hot afternoons last summer, when 'was suddenly thoroughly
aroused by George Dowling, who was as much startled at seeing
me as I was at seing him. We soon, however, overcame our sur
prise and it did not take my friend long to lead the conversation
into a channel in which he seemed especially interested.
"Say, Jack, do you know why I entered college ?" George sud
denly blurted out at me, as he sat up with his hands crossed on his
knees and looked at me with those dark eyeS in a way that made
me wonder what was to be expected next.
"I haven't the slightest idea," I replied.
"Well, I'm having another spell of the blues brought on by my
seeing the very person whom I desired to see the least go gaily by
on a tandem with that stuck up chap from Chicago. It was break
ing the last straw which had before been bent almost double.
"You remember the state of my mind when I graduated from the
high school, how I disliked to have any boy speak to Nellie Car
bery, don't you ?"
I answered that he had told me the whole story not far from
that very spot at the time, and that he need not go into details as
to the state of affairs then existing between them.
"Do you remember the night we returned from the camping
trip, and the party at Carbery's that very evening?" he asked.
"Only too well," I answered.
"Then you remember how I was cut at that time, how I
never had an invitation for that evening, although Nellie knew
that I would be at home. Well, to make a long story short, I saw
her a few clays later in the village with her sister. She called me
M. W. STERRETT, 'O6.