played hell with me.
I came here four years ago a darned nice kid, if I do say so myself. I
was chock-full of ideals and illusions. Well, college has smashed most
of those ideals and knocked the illusions plumb to hell. I thought, for
example, that all college men were gentlemen; well, most of them aren't.
I thought that all of them were intelligent and hard students."

The group broke into loud laughter. "Me, too," said George Winsor when
the noise had abated. "I thought that I was coming to a regular
educational heaven, halls of learning and all that sort of thing. Why,
it's a farce. Here I am sporting a Phi Bete key, an honor student if you
please, and all that I really know as a result of my college 'education'
is the fine points of football and how to play poker. I don't really
know one damn thing about anything."

The other men were Jack Lawrence and Pudge Jamieson. Jack was an earnest
chap, serious and hard working but without a trace of brilliance. He,
too, wore a Phi Beta Kappa key, and so did Pudge. Hugh was the only one
of the group who had not won that honor; the fact that he was the only
one who had won a letter was hardly, he felt, complete justification.
His legs no longer seemed more important than his brains; in fact, when
he had sprained a tendon and been forced to drop track, he had been
genuinely pleased.

Pudge was quite as plump as he had been as a freshman and quite as
jovial, but he did not tell so many smutty stories. He still persisted
in crossing his knees in spite of the difficulties involved. When
Winsor finished speaking, Pudge forced his legs into his favorite
position for them and then twinkled at Winsor through his glasses.

"Right you are, George," he said in his quick way. "I wear a Phi Bete
key, too. We both belong to the world's greatest intellectual
fraternity, but what in hell do we know? We've all majored in English
except Jack, and I'll bet any one of us can give the others an exam
offhand that they can't pass. I'm going to law school. I hope to God
that I learn something there. I certainly don't feel that I know
anything now as a result of my four years of 'higher education.'"

"Well, if you fellows feel that way," said Hugh mournfully, "how do you
suppose I feel? I made my first really good record last term, and that
wasn't any world beater. I've learned how to gamble and smoke and drink
and pet in college, but that's about all that I have learned. I'm not as
fine as I was