football, baseball, prize-fighting, and five thousand

dollars in debt. How you got your diploma is beyond me--in

my day you would have got the sack. Well, son, I am not

surprised nor disappointed--it is what I expected. I know

you are clean, though, and that some day you will awaken to

the sterner side of life and an appreciation of your

responsibilities.

To be an entirely orthodox father I should raise merry hell

about your debts and utter inutility, at the same time

disinheriting you, but instead I am going to urge you to

come home and run in debt here where the cost of living is

not so high as in the East--meanwhile praying that your

awakening may come while I am on earth to rejoice.

Your affectionate

FATHER,

Am enclosing check to cover your debts and present needs.

For a long time the boy sat looking at the letter before him. He reread

it once, twice, three times, and with each reading the film of

unconscious egotism that had blinded him to his own shortcomings

gradually became less opaque, until finally he saw himself as his father

must see him. He had come to college for the purpose of fitting himself

to succeed in some particular way in the stern battle of life which

must follow his graduation; for, though his father had ample means to

support him in insolence, Jimmy had never even momentarily considered

such an eventuality.

In weighing his assets now he discovered that he had probably as

excellent a conception of gridiron strategy and tactics as any man in

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