would be a
pleasure to arrange a deciding competition for them. The elaborate care
with which the boys and girls ignore one another as they pass in the
halls was highly delightful, and reminded me of exactly the same thing
at Oxford. But I saw the possible beginning of true romance in the
following notice on one of the boards:

WANTED: Names and addresses of ten nice American university
students who must remain in Philadelphia over Christmas, away
from home, to be invited to a Christmas Eve party to help
entertain some Bryn Mawr College girls in one of the nicest homes
in a suburb of Philadelphia.

Certainly there is the stage set for a short story. Perhaps not such a
short one, either.

Naturally I could not resist a visit to the library, where most of the
readers seemed wholly absorbed, though one student was gaping forlornly
over a volume of Tennyson. I found an intensely amusing book, "Who's Who
in Japan," a copy of which would be a valuable standby to a newspaper
paragrapher in his bad moments. For instance:

SASAKI, TETSUTARO: One of the highest taxpayers of Fukushima-ken,
President of the Hongu Reeling Partnership, Director of the Dai
Nippon Radium Water Co.; brewer, reeler; born Aug., 1860.

SAKURAI, ICHISAKU: Member of the Niigata City Council; Director
of the Niigata Gas Co., Niigata Savings Bank. Born June, 1872,
Studied Japanese and Chinese classics and arithmetic. At present
also he connects with the Niigata Orphanage and various other
philanthropic bodies. Was imprisoned by acting contrary to the
act of explosive compound for seven years. Recreations: reading,
Western wine.

Relying on my apparent similarity to the average undergrad, I
plunged into the sancta of Houston Hall and bought a copy of the
_Punch Bowl_. What that sprightly journal calls "A little group
of Syria's thinkers" was shooting pool. The big fireplaces, like
most fireplaces in American colleges, don't seem to be used. They
don't even show any traces of ever having been used, a curious
contrast to the always blazing hearths of English colleges. The
latter, however, are more necessary, as in England there is
usually no other source of warmth. A bitter skirmish of winds,
carrying powdered snow dust, nipped round the gateways of the
dormitories and Tait McKenzie's fine statue of Whitefield stood
sharply outlined against a cold blue sky. I lunched at a varsity