th Bertie and Billy--with all Berties and Billies. He may
have been. Who shall say? But I will say at once that chewing the cud of
one's own virtue gives a sour stomach.

Bertie's and Billy's parents owned town and country houses in New York.
The parents of Oscar had come over in the steerage. Money filled the
pockets of Bertie and Billy; therefore were their heads empty of money
and full of less cramping thoughts. Oscar had fallen upon the reverse of
this fate. Calculation was his second nature. He had given his education
to himself; he had for its sake toiled, traded, outwitted, and saved.
He had sent himself to college, where most of the hours not given to
education and more education, went to toiling and more toiling, that
he might pay his meagre way through the college world. He had a cheaper
room and ate cheaper meals than was necessary. He tutored, and he wrote
college specials for several newspapers. His chief relaxation was the
praise of the ladies in Newbury Street. These told him of the future
which awaited him, and when they gazed upon his features were put in
mind of the dying Keats. Not that Oscar was going to die in the least.
Life burned strong in him. There were sly times when he took what he had
saved by his cheap meals and room and went to Boston with it, and for
a few hours thoroughly ceased being ascetic. Yet Oscar felt meritorious
when he considered Bertie and Billy; for, like the socialists, merit
with him meant not being able to live as well as your neighbor. You will
think that I have given to Oscar what is familiarly termed a black eye.
But I was once inclined to applaud his struggle for knowledge, until I
studied him close and perceived that his love was not for the education
he was getting. Bertie and Billy loved play for play's own sake, and
in play forgot themselves, like the wholesome young creatures that they
were. Oscar had one love only: through all his days whatever he might
forget, he would remember himself; through all his days he would make
knowledge show that self off. Thank heaven, all the poor students in
Harvard College were not Oscars! I loved some of them as much as I loved
Bertie and Billy. So there is no black eye about it. Pity Oscar, if you
like; but don't be so mushy as to admire him as he stepped along in the
night, holding his notes, full of his knowledge, thinking of Bertie
and Billy, conscious of virtue, and smiling his smile. They were not
conscious of any virtue, wer