The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1914-06-14


but 1t needs to he kerosened. 1t
has become badly infested with
men. I'm one Of them, not much worse
than the rest--pretty ordinarily decent
in fact-and what did | do this morn
ing?
In rushes Mangler. whom | haven't
seen for five years. He was one of my
most loyal followers in college--voted
for me for president of the freshman
class, got nine hash club votes for me
for treasurer of the athletic associa-
ton and wanted to send me to Con-
gress. He admired me- Mangler did.
He was always following me around.
wanting to do things for me. And yes
terday he rushed In with his hands
out and | grabbed them and yelled,
suffering cats, who left the barn door
open?" and Hello. you google eyed
pirate" and other pet names. and was
as glad to see him as II he had had
cholera. because there was "A directors
meeting in seven minutes and | had a
luncheon date with "A big customer and
four days work to pack into the after
noon, and my wife had at last made
me promise by the holes in ole SkJars-
sens sweater-my most sacred oath
to harness up that evening and go over
to the Van Bumptiouses for dinner
Why couldn't he have come any other
day in the year? But he couldn't. and
he was going out that evening and was
never coming back as far as he knew
and while | gabbled along feverishly
and tried to tell him what national
calamity 1t was that everything had
stacked up that day and couldn't he stay
over and wouldn't he have five cigars
any way and smoke them all at once,
and by Jove that directors meeting was
due and could he drop around for half
an hour from l:32 to 5:02-while |
was spiling all this old Mangler kept
getting quieter and quieter and more
uneasy and lonely around the eyes.
He was perfectly polite and pleasant,
but he didn't come back in the after
noon and I know what he thinks Of me.
Thank heaven he's not as imaginative as
1 am. He doesn't think half as badly
of me as do of myself
err! This day tastes like ASA
f9tida. We're all miserable, ungrateful
mollusks. Man Is made OF forgetful-
ness. with little hide stretched around
II. Why even back at school when We
manufactured a man once and he rose
to fame and became the leading scholar
OF the college. what did he do? Just
what any real man would have done.
He forgot us.
He threw us'down. He pretty near
ruined u.s. He was our greatest calam-
ity. We didn't use any ungratefulness
when we made him. but he had a streak
Of 1t in him as broad as a boulevard
Grabbenheim his name was, curse
him! We didn't intend To make him.
1t was Just another Of those fool,
tpl Inf coll 10
boys heads and grow like fungus.
Grabbenheim was joke to begin with.
Most all the roads to the gallows begin
with a joke. But he shouldn't have
been ungrateful for all that. Lord. what
we did for that man!
Allie Bangs invented Grabbenheim.
But 1t wasn't his fault. He didn't mean
anything by 1t. He couldn't possibly
have foreseen that the fellow would
grow up and shame us. 1t was just
q thoughtlesS piece of deviltry, and II
Prof. Wogg, our mathematics professor.
hodn't been so near sighted and gem
orally oblivious To life and Its little I'M
important details nothing would have
come of II. Allie just did 1t To amuse
the class anyway. And goodness knows
we needed amusement in Wogg's classes.
1t was in our sophomore year and
twelve of us were preparing to wade
nervously through calculus under
wogg. We didn't take calculus because
we loved 1t. We had no more use for
II than 1t had for us. The class was
sort of little baCkwater eddy into which
most of us had drfted through conflicts
In our class schedules. We had to take
calculus to get our hours in.
We would rather have taken quinine.
but the faculty wouldn't give US credits
for it. And so we took calculus and
resigned ourselves To the fact that with
our natural talents We would probably
be able to amuse ourselves during the
year with fair success.
Prof Wogg had had most Of us the
year before, and my heart aches for
him now. though at the time | was
selfish and never thought of his suf-
ferings while trying To alleviate my own,
Prof. Wogg was about as exciting as
two million square miles Of sand, but
there was no monOtony about us. Life
was always one narrowing nightmare Of
uncertainty for him.
Well ! remember the day when Will
bur Hogboom broke up n few chairs
In the back row one morning and made
q bonfire it being cold, and how Prof.
WOSs Td\tu Nnllt ne lTltu 10 remember
Hogbooms name in order to fire him out
beyond the solar system and tell him
never to come back.
Remembering names and faces was
Woggs greatest trial. No, that Is "A
mistake. He didn't try at all. He'd
given up long ago. He was so near
sighted that he, could hardly see TO
put on his glasses, ana all students
looked alike To him. When he made up
his roll in the fall he would ask for
all the As and then all the BIS and
take our names alphabetically. Then
he would call on us from his roll book,
and the man who was reciting meant
no more to him than IA dim, misty shape
with name To it-any old name. And
IL he got "A good mark opposite the
wrong name or funk opposite the
star scholars name that was all rub
OF the green" as we say now.
On the first day of the winter
semester that year Wogg made us up
into "A roll and when he had finished
he peered out through those bullseye
glass = OF his and asked Have | over
looked any one?" And quick as a flash