as a lamb.

He looked daggers at me. "See that sandy-haired man in glasses?" he

asked, as if to change the subject. "That's Billson, our most prominent

undergraduate. We build confidently on Billson's future. You could not

do better, Dodd, than follow Billson."

Presently after, in the midst of a still growing tumult, the figures

coming and going more busily than ever on the board, and the hall

resounding like Pandemonium with the howls of operators, the assistant

teacher left me to my own resources at my desk. The next boy was posting

up his ledger, figuring his morning's loss, as I discovered later on;

and from this ungenial task he was readily diverted by the sight of a

new face.

"Say, Freshman," he said, "what's your name? What? Son of Big Head Dodd?

What's your figure? Ten thousand? O, you're away up! What a soft-headed

clam you must be to touch your books!"

I asked him what else I could do, since the books were to be examined

once a month.

"Why, you galoot, you get a clerk!" cries he. "One of our dead

beats--that's all they're here for. If you're a successful operator, you

need never do a stroke of work in this old college."

The noise had now become deafening; and my new friend, telling me that

some one had certainly "gone down," that he must know the news, and

that he would bring me a clerk when he returned, buttoned his coat and

plunged into the tossing throng. It proved that he was right: some one

had gone down; a prince had fallen in Israel; the corner in lard had

proved fatal to the mighty; and the clerk who was brought back to keep

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