was slack. We discussed what we intended to do after graduation.
"I am going to try to help the cause of better government in New
York City; I don't know exactly how," said Theodore.

I recall, still, looking hard at him with an eager, inquisitive
look and saying to myself, "I wonder whether he is the real
thing, or only the bundle of eccentricities which he appears."
There was in me then, as there has always been, a mingling of
skepticism and of deep reverence for those who dealt with
reality, and I had not had sufficient opportunity to determine
whether Roosevelt was real or not. One at least of his
classmates, however, saw portents of greatness in Theodore, from
their Freshman year, and most of us, even when we were amused and
puzzled by his " queerness," were very sure that the man from
whom they sprang was not commonplace.

So far as I remember, Roosevelt was the first undergraduate to
own and drive a dog-cart. This excited various comments; so did
the reddish, powder-puff side whiskers which no chaffing could
make him cut. There was never the slightest suggestion of the
gilded youth about him; though dog-carts, especially when owned
by young men, implied the habits and standards of the gilded
rich. How explain the paradox? On the other hand, Theodore taught
Sunday School at Christ Church, but he was so muscular a
Christian that the decorous vestrymen thought him an unwise guide
in piety. For one day a boy came to class with a black eye which
he had got in fighting a larger boy for pinching his sister.
Theodore told him that he did perfectly right--that every boy
ought to defend any girl from insult--and he gave him a dollar as
a reward. The vestrymen decided that this was too flagrant