Aunt Clara had been afraid that he might "get in" with a fast college
set and learn to drink and smoke and gamble. It may be admitted that he
wished to do just these things, but he had observed the effects of
drink, his one experience with tobacco remained all too vivid, and
gambling required more capital than the car fare he was usually provided
with. Besides, you came to a bad end if you gambled. It led to other
things.
Nor would he, on the public street, join with any number of his class in
the college yell. He was afraid a policeman would arrest him. Even in
the more mature years of a comparatively blameless life he remained
afraid of policemen, and never passed one without a tremor. All of which
conduced to his efficiency as a student. When others fled to their
questionable pleasures he was as likely as not to remain in his chair
before a typewriter, pounding out again and again, "_The swift brown fox
jumps over the lazy dog--_" a dramatic enough situation ingeniously
worded to utilize nearly all the letters of our alphabet.
At last he was pronounced competent, received a diploma (which Aunt
Clara framed handsomely and hung in her own room beside the pastel
portrait of Boo'ful in his opulent prime) and took up a man's work.
* * * * *
The veil that hangs between mortal eyes and the Infinite had many times
been pierced for him by the able Mrs.
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