ater than yesterday,--the chill of the unknown. They had not attended
the lectures on the "Greek bucks." Indeed, profiting by their privilege
of voluntary recitations, they had dropped in but seldom on Philosophy
4. These blithe grasshoppers had danced and sung away the precious
storing season, and now that the bleak hour of examinations was upon
them, their waked-up hearts had felt aghast at the sudden vision of
their ignorance. It was on a Monday noon that this feeling came fully
upon them, as they read over the names of the philosophers. Thursday was
the day of the examination. "Who's Anaxagoras?" Billy had inquired of
Bertie. "I'll tell you," said Bertie, "if you'll tell me who Epicharmos
of Kos was." And upon this they embraced with helpless laughter. Then
they reckoned up the hours left for them to learn Epicharmos of Kos
in,--between Monday noon and Thursday morning at nine,--and their
quailing chill increased. A tutor must be called in at once. So the
grasshoppers, having money, sought out and quickly purchased the ant.

Closeted with Oscar and his notes, they had, as Bertie put it, salted
down the early Greek bucks by seven on Monday evening. By the same
midnight they had, as Billy expressed it, called the turn on Plato.
Tuesday was a second day of concentrated swallowing. Oscar had taken
them through the thought of many centuries. There had been intermissions
for lunch and dinner only; and the weather was exceedingly hot. The
pale-skinned Oscar stood this strain better than the unaccustomed Bertie
and Billy. Their jovial eyes had grown hollow to-night, although
their minds were going gallantly, as you have probably noticed.
Their criticisms, slangy and abrupt, struck the scholastic Oscar as
flippancies which he must indulge, since the pay was handsome. That
these idlers should jump in with doubts and questions not contained
in his sacred notes raised in him feelings betrayed just once in that
remark about "orriginal rresearch."

"Nine--ten--eleven--twelve," went the little timepiece; and Oscar rose.

"Gentlemen," he said, closing the sacred notes, "we have finished the
causal law."

"That's the whole business except the ego racket, isn't it?" said Billy.

"The duality, or multiplicity of the ego remains," Oscar replied.

"Oh, I know its name. It ought to be a soft snap after what we've had."

"Unless it's full of dates and names you've got to know," said Bertie.

"Don't believe it is," Billy answered. "