heap jests that they had to carry.

A few weeks later there was another such celebration. There were
speeches to be made. The class wits--and what class is without
them?--were to have their turn.

And their wit--what did it consist of? One after another, they made
blunt, exaggerated references to the "invasion of the Huns," to the
"Jews coming unto Jordan," to "the lost Ten Tribes ..." and hoots of
applause went up to the night sky like the roar of a Philistine army!

One of the men who spoke was a classmate of mine--a fellow-member of
the joke paper's board. I knew him well, for he had been to see me
often. It was only a few nights ago that he had told me he was chosen to
speak at this celebration, and had promised me he would make no
reference to the Jewish influx.

"I don't agree with you about it," he had said. "You're too sensitive,
all you Jews--and anyhow, you know perfectly well we're not aiming this
campaign at you personally. It's against this big bunch of them in the
freshman class."

"So it's a regular campaign, is it?" I demanded.

He evaded the question--but satisfied me with his promise.

But when I heard him break it--heard him, more than any other speaker,
launch one smiling epithet after another against the "sons of Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob," I lost all the gnawing consciousness that I had had as
to the justice of this remark about Jewish sensitiveness--and I went
forward to the cart-end from which he was speaking. I meant to pull him
down and get up there in his place, and to speak hotly, straight from
the shoulder--I didn't care what I said so long as I put them all to
disgrace!

But when I was within a few feet of him in the jostling, laughing crowd,
I could go no further. I tried to cry out, but that was denied me. My
courage gave me only the power to glare and sneer at him--and once, as
he spoke, he looked down and saw my face, I think. For his own grew
paler in the light of the gas lantern which flared windily beside him,
and he faltered in his speech.

Later on he came over to my room and asked to speak to me. I heard him
through; listened to his smooth explanation about the committee of
arrangements demanding that he put something into his speech about the
Jews--and he was sorry he had broken his word to me--only, of course, I
was to consider myself an exception to all this sort of thing. Everybody
knew I was a good fellow and was doing bully work for the name of the
college--and wha