"advanced" was this university--"for the development of the powers of
debate and oratory, intellectual and sociological progress, and
the discussion of all matters relating to philosophy, metaphysics,
literature, art, and current events." A statement so formidable was not
without a hushing effect upon Messrs. Milholland and Mitchell; they went
to their first "Lumen" meeting in a state of fear and came away little
reassured.

"I couldn't get up there," Ramsey declared, "I couldn't stand up there
before all that crowd and make a speech, or debate in a debate, to save
my soul and gizzard! Why, I'd just keel right over and haf to be carried
out."

"Well, the way I understand it," said Fred, "we can't get out of it.
The seniors in the 'frat' said we had to join, and they said we couldn't
resign, either, after we had joined. They said we just had to go through
it, and after a while we'd get used to it and not mind it much."

"_I_ will!" Ramsey insisted. "I couldn't any more stand up there on my
feet and get to spoutin' about sociology and the radical metempsychorus
of the metaphysical bazoozum than I could fly a flyin' machine. Why,
I--"

"Oh, that wasn't anything," Fred interrupted. "The only one that talked
like that, he was that Blickens; he's a tutor, or something, and really
a member of the faculty. Most o' the others just kind of blah-blahhed
around, and what any of 'em tried to get off their chests hardly
amounted to terribly much."

"I don't care. I couldn't do it at _all!_"