Page:The plastic age, (IA plasticage00mark).pdf/339

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THE PLASTIC AGE
313

nan. Sorry I can’t visit you this summer. Can’t Vou spend a month with me on the farm ... ?” Good-by to his fraternity brothers except the few eft in his own delegation. uGood-by, old man, |ood-by . . . Sure, I ’ll see you next year at the re¬ union.” Good-by. . . . Good-by. . . .

Sad, this business of saying good-by, damn sad. Gee, how a fellow would miss all the good old eggs hie had walked with and drunk with and bulled with these past years. Good eggs, all of them— damn good eggs. . . . God! a fellow couldn’t ap¬ preciate college until he was about to leave it. Oh, for a chance to live those four years over again. “Would I live them differently? I ’ll say I would.”

Good-by, boyhood. . . . Commencement was coming. Hugh had n’t thought before of what that word meant. Commencement! The begin¬ ning. What was he going to do with this com¬ mencement of his into life? Old Pudge was going to law school and so was Jack Lawrence. George Winsor was going to medical school. But what was he going to do? He felt so pathetically un¬ prepared. And then there was Cynthia. . . . What was he going to do about her? She rarely left his mind. How could he tackle life when he could n’t solve the problem she presented? It was like trying to run a hundred against fast men when a fellow had only begun to train.

Henley had advised him to take a year or so at