shuffled my feet about on the stone pavement, not knowing what to
say--then I stammered out the foolish excuses young men make when
they find themselves in an awkward corner. He listened to my
stammering remarks about 'the other fellows' with attentive
patience,--then he took his hand from my shoulder with a quick,
decisive movement. 'Look here, Harland'--he said--'You are taking up
all the conventions and traditions with which our poor old Alma
Mater is encrusted, and sticking them over you like burrs. They'll
cling, remember! It's a pity you choose this way of going,--I'm
starting at the farther end--where Oxford leaves off and Life
begins!' I suppose I stared--for he went on--'I mean Life that goes
forward,--not Life that goes backward, picking up the stale crumbs
fallen from centuries that have finished their banquet and passed
on. There!--I won't detain you! We shall not meet often--but don't
forget what I have said,--that if you are afraid of me, or of any
other man, or of any existing thing,--the fault is in yourself, not
in the persons or objects you fear.' 'I don't see it,' I blurted
out, angrily--'What of the other fellows? They think you're queer!'
He laughed. 'Bless the other fellows!' he said--'They're with you in
the same boat! They think me queer because THEY are queer--that is,-
-out of line--themselves.' I was irritated by his easy indifference
and asked him what he meant by 'out of line.' 'Suppose you see a
beautiful garden harmoniously planned,' he said, still smiling, 'and
some clumsy fellow comes along and puts a crooked pigstye up among
the flower beds, you would call that "out of line," wouldn't you?
Unsuitable, to say the least of it?' 'Oh!' I said, hotly--'So you
consider me and my friends crooked pigstyes in your landscape?' He
made me a gay, half apologetic gesture. 'Something of the type, dear
boy!' he said--'But don't worry! The crooked pigstye is always a
most popular kind of building in the world you will live in!' With