CHAPTER III


THE CONNOISSEUR OF KISSES

From his undergraduate days as editor of The Harvard Crimson Richard
Caramel had desired to write. But as a senior he had picked up the
glorified illusion that certain men were set aside for "service" and,
going into the world, were to accomplish a vague yearnful something
which would react either in eternal reward or, at the least, in the
personal satisfaction of having striven for the greatest good of the
greatest number.

This spirit has long rocked the colleges in America. It begins, as a
rule, during the immaturities and facile impressions of freshman
year--sometimes back in preparatory school. Prosperous apostles known
for their emotional acting go the rounds of the universities and, by
frightening the amiable sheep and dulling the quickening of interest and
intellectual curiosity which is the purpose of all education, distil a
mysterious conviction of sin, harking back to childhood crimes and to
the ever-present menace of "women." To these lectures go the wicked
youths to cheer and joke and the timid to swallow the tasty pills, which
would be harmless if administered to farmers' wives and pious
drug-clerks but are rather dangerous medicine for these "future
leaders of men."

This octopus was strong enough to wind a sinuous tentacle about Richard
Caramel. The year after his graduation it called him into the slums of
New York to muck about with bewildered Italians as secretary to an