but after many applications of oil and
dirt assumed their mature color, a dirty, greenish brown; he wore a gray
plaid mackinaw coat, and a red toboggan cap. His dog, Count Del Monte,
ate the red cap, so his uncle gave him a gray one that pulled down over
his face. The trouble with this one was that you breathed into it and
your breath froze; one day the darn thing froze his cheek. He rubbed
snow on his cheek, but it turned bluish-black just the same.

*****

The Count Del Monte ate a box of bluing once, but it didn't hurt him.
Later, however, he lost his mind and ran madly up the street, bumping
into fences, rolling in gutters, and pursuing his eccentric course out
of Amory's life. Amory cried on his bed.

"Poor little Count," he cried. "Oh, _poor_ little _Count!_"

After several months he suspected Count of a fine piece of emotional
acting.

*****

Amory and Frog Parker considered that the greatest line in literature
occurred in Act III of "Arsene Lupin."

They sat in the first row at the Wednesday and Saturday matinees. The
line was:

"If one can't be a great artist or a great soldier, the next best thing
is to be a great criminal."

*****

Amory fell in love again, and wrote a poem. This was it:

"Marylyn and Sallee,
Those are the girls for me.
Marylyn stands above
Sallee in that sweet, deep love."

He was interested in whether McGovern of Minnesota would make the
first or second All-American, how to do the card-pass, how to do
the coin-pass, chameleon ties, how babies were born, and whether
Three-fingered Brown was really a better pitcher than Christie
Mathewson.

Among other things he read: "For the Honor of the School," "Little
Women" (twice), "The Common Law," "Sapho," "Dangerous Dan McGrew," "The
Broad Highway" (three times), "The Fall of the House of Usher," "Three
Weeks," "Mary Ware, the Little Colonel's Chum," "Gunga Din," The Police
Gazette, and Jim-Jam Jems.

He had all the Henty biasses in history, and was particularly fond of
the cheerful murder stories of Mary Roberts Rinehart.

*****

School ruined his French and gave him a distaste for standard authors.
His masters considered him idle, unreliable and superficially clever.

*****

He collected locks of hair from many girls. He wore the rings of
several. Finally he could borrow no more rings, owing to his nervous
habit of chewing them out of shape. This, it seeme