With
waitresses at wayside inns, _et id genus omne_, they were tolerably
self-possessed and reliant; though even there "a thousand might well be
stopped by three," and I would have backed an intelligent barmaid
against the field at odds; indeed, I think I have seen a security nearly
allied to contempt on the fine features of a certain "lone _star_" as
she parried--so easily!--the compliments and repartees of a dozen
assailants at once, accounted, in their own quadrangles, Millamours of
the darkest dye.
Guy accounted for this unfortunate peculiarity by saying that a cigar
in the mouth was the normal state of many of these men; so that, when
circumstances debarred them from the Havana courage, they lost all
presence of mind, and, being unable to retreat under cover of the smoke,
lapsed instantly into a sullen despair, suffering themselves to be shot
down unresistingly. Perhaps some future philosopher will favor us with a
better solution to this important problem in physics; I know of none.
After all, the reading men did best, though we did not think so then,
when we saw them creeping into morning chapel jaded and heavy-eyed,
after a debauch over Herodotus or the Stagyrite. They had a purpose in
view, at all events, and, I believe, were placidly content during the
progress of its attainment--in the seventh heaven when their hopes were
crowned by a First, or even a Second.
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