Each of them accordingly ate four eggs and drank two cups of coffee.

"Oscar called five times," said Billy; and he threw down those cards
which Oscar had so neatly written.

"There's multiplicity of the ego for you!" said Bertie.

Now, inspiration is a strange thing, and less obedient even than love to
the will of man. It will decline to come when you prepare for it with
the loftiest intentions, and, lo! at an accidental word it will suddenly
fill you, as at this moment it filled Billy.

"By gum!" said he, laying his fork down. "Multiplicity of the ego. Look
here. I fall out of a buggy and ask--"

"By gum!" said Bertie, now also visited by inspiration.

"Don't you see?" said Billy.

"I see a whole lot more," said Bertie, with excitement. "I had to tell
you about your singing." And the two burst into a flare of talk. To
hear such words as cognition, attention, retention, entity, and
identity, freely mingled with such other words as silver-fizz and false
hair, brought John, the egg-and-coffee man, as near surprise as his
impregnable nature permitted. Thus they finished their large breakfast,
and hastened to their notes for a last good bout at memorizing
Epicharmos of Kos and his various brethren. The appointed hour found
them crossing the college yard toward a door inside which Philosophy 4
awaited them: three hours of written examination! But they looked more
roseate and healthy than most of the anxious band whose steps were