ciety, and, upon benches near
the platform, the debaters of the evening were aligned. One of the
fraternal seniors sat with sweltering Ramsey; and the latter, as his
time relentlessly came nearer, made a last miserable squirm.

"Look here, Brother Colburn, I got to get out o' here."

"No, you don't, young fellow."

"Yes, I do!" Ramsey whispered, passionately. "Honest, I do. Honest,
Brother Colburn, I got to get a drink of water. I _got_ to!"

"No. You can't."

"Honest, Colburn, I _got_--"

"Hush!"

Ramsey grunted feebly, and cast his dilating eyes along the rows of
faces. Most of them were but as blurs, swimming, yet he was aware (he
thought) of a formidable and horrible impassive scrutiny of himself, a
glare seeming to pierce through him to the back of the belt round his
waist, so that he began to have fearful doubts about that belt, about
every fastening and adjustment of his garments, about the expression of
his countenance, and about many other things jumbling together in his
consciousness. Over and over he whispered gaspingly to himself the
opening words of the sentence with which Colburn had advised him to
begin his argument. And as the moment of supreme agony drew close, this
whispering became continuous: "In making my first appearance before
this honor'ble membership I feel constrained to say in making my first
appearance before this honor'ble membership I feel constrained to say in
making my first appearance before this honor'ble mem--"

...It had come. The chairman announced the subject of the fourth
freshman twelve-minute debate; and Dora Yocum, hitherto unperceived
by Ramsey, rose and went forward to one of the small desks in the open
space, where she stood composedly, a slim, pretty figure in white.
Members in Ramsey's neighbourhood were aware of a brief and hushed
commotion, and of Colburn's fierce whisper, "You can't! You get up
there!" And the blanched Ramsey came forth and placed himself at the
other desk.

He stood before the silent populace of that morgue, and it seemed to him
that his features had forgotten that he was supposed to be their owner
and in control of them; he felt that they were slipping all over his
face, regardless of his wishes. His head, as a whole, was subject to
an agitation not before known by him; it desired to move rustily in
eccentric ways of its own devising; his legs alternately limbered and
straightened under no direction but their own; and his hands clutched
eac