The morning journal-courier., 1908-06-17

sstant secretary of the dinner com mttee, with a worried expression and pouring inanites into the ears of late arrivals, which ears were closer to their heads than his own. What an abysmal ass the fellow Is. He gob- bled my name in introducing me around the table and called me "Hcl- livet" Peterkin, deaf in one ear and poor in remembering names for a pol itican. got It as "Olivet" and SO [ remained all the evening I, Eliphet, as "Olivet"
 My customary alumni "enthusasm fades away at these affairs. am bored by the speeches. l pine for my Hene and my briar pipe and my cobblestone fireplace with the oil- painting of my wife's rascally great uncle over the mantel. ] am consum- ed with homesickness as the clock advances. I suddenly discover at odd moments during the evening, that can catch the crosstown to the so and so ferry If l try. l have only to rush unostentatiously to the coat room jam my overeoat check at the sable attendant, and gallop across the ave nue to the car corner l do not feel comfortable. l realize that as Eli phet. l have distinct existence apart from that silent, unresponsivo uncomfortable idiot. curiously in spected at intervals between the courses by his neighhors and known to them as "Olivet" The only amuse. ment I have is the idle pursuit of the notion that 1t is quite true that l am a kind of Dr ,Tekyll and MT. Hyde and that I nm "Olivet' besides beine Ellphet. The Eliphet of my own eX. perience Is for the time being shovcc off the stage for "Olivet." And tho Olivet who sits stupidly at table ant whose rare observations of merit out side of the small table talk, fall light ly on minds unprepared to come back as a personality that is strange ever to myself and for whom, as the even ing advances, l get an increasing ant curious repugnance. { have ofter specuated on the Protean lnfelicity-- this swamping of the individuality on' one knows as oneself by various othc' individualities that occasion seems {, create At every class reunion in Nev { Haven l have felt my own self---th, self l am accustomed to--drop away before another self that Is strange tt me, that makes me feel uncomfort | able, and that only leaves mo whe1 | the reunion is over. For that matte | ] am inclined to the notion that mans sensate existence is a success sion of personality eXistences, l an one man in my homeland l hope tn
 best man At my office l am anothe ---J feel the moment l pass througl the counting room of my office tn slipping off of my normal inactiv character and the slipping on of an other character, somewhat more as sertive, much more aggressive, yer
 much more mentally energetic. M
 office personality is the MT Eliphet
 painted on the door. ] go to the clu
 for lunch. Another Individuality ap pears. An unconscious stiffening o the ego ensues. ] tramp heavily, hol
 up my chin, look blandly at the othe men, consider byself sort of civi character, talk my best, am q differ ent person, a more bland, importan person that ] was five hours before shoveling ashes out of my furnace.
 And then l go to my alumni dinner Another personality slowly steals owe my spirits and grips me, It, too i startlingly alien. l wander disconso lately through the gilt and tinsel room alone and unheeded, I leave the jabber ing mob in the reception room and s