Semanticate

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 			<p>Studious seniors began to reap a harvest out of tutoring sections. The meetings were a dollar “a throw,” and for another dollar a student could get a mimeographed outline of a course. But the tutoring sections were only for the “plutes” or the athletes, many of whom were subsidized by fraternities or alumni. Most of the students had to learn their own lessons; so they often banded together in small groups to make the task less arduous, finding some relief in sociability.</p>
 			<p>The study groups, quite properly called seminars, would have shocked many a worthy professor had he been able to attend one; but they were truly educative, and to many students inspiring. The professor had planted the seed of wisdom with them; it was at the seminars that they tried honestly, if somewhat hysterically and irreverently, to make it grow.</p>
 			<p>Hugh did most of his studying alone, fearing that the seminars would degenerate into bull sessions, as many of them did; but Carl insisted that he join one group that was going “to wipe up that goddamned English course tonight.”</p>
-			<p>There were only five men at the seminar, which met in Surrey 19, because Pudge Jamieson, who was “rating” an A in the course and was therefore an authority, said that he wouldn’t come if there were any more. Pudge, as his nickname suggests, was plump. He was a round-faced, jovial youngster who learned everything with consummate ease, wrote with great fluency and sometimes real beauty, peered through his horn-rimmed spectacles amusedly at the world, and read every “smut” book that he could lay his hands on. His library of erotica was already famous throughout the college, his volumes of Balzac’s “Droll Stories,” Rabelais complete, “<abbr>Mlle.</abbr> de Maupin,” Burton’s “Arabian Nights,” and the “Decameron” being in constant demand. He could tell literally hundreds of dirty stories, always having a new one on tap, always looking when he told it like a complacent cherub.</p>
+			<p>There were only five men at the seminar, which met in Surrey 19, because Pudge Jamieson, who was “rating” an A in the course and was therefore an authority, said that he wouldn’t come if there were any more. Pudge, as his nickname suggests, was plump. He was a round-faced, jovial youngster who learned everything with consummate ease, wrote with great fluency and sometimes real beauty, peered through his horn-rimmed spectacles amusedly at the world, and read every “smut” book that he could lay his hands on. His library of erotica was already famous throughout the college, his volumes of Balzac’s “Droll Stories,” Rabelais complete, “<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mlle.</abbr> de Maupin,” Burton’s “Arabian Nights,” and the “Decameron” being in constant demand. He could tell literally hundreds of dirty stories, always having a new one on tap, always looking when he told it like a complacent cherub.</p>
 			<p>There were two other men in the seminar. Freddy Dickson, an earnest, anemic youth, seemed to be always striving for greater acceleration and never gaining it; or as Pudge put it, “The trouble with Freddy is that he’s always shifting gears.” Larry Stillwell, the last man, was a dark, handsome youth with exceedingly regular features, pomaded hair parted in the center and shining sleekly, fine teeth, and rich coloring: a “smooth” boy who prided himself on his conquests and the fact that he never got a grade above a C in his courses. There was no man in the freshman class with a finer mind, but he declined to study, declaring firmly that he could not waste his time acquiring impractical tastes for useless arts.</p>
 			<p>“Now everybody shut up,” said Pudge, seating himself in a big chair and laboriously crossing one leg over the other. “Put some more wood on the fire, Hugh, will you?”</p>
 			<p>Hugh stirred up the fire, piled on a log or so, and then returned to his chair, hoping against belief that something really would be accomplished in the seminar. All the boys, he excepted, were smoking, and all of them were lolling back in dangerously comfortable attitudes.</p>

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 			<p>“Aw, go to hell.”</p>
 			<hr/>
 			<p>The initiation season lasted two weeks, and the neophytes found that the dormitory initiations had been merely child’s play. They had to account for every hour, and except for a brief time allowed every day for studying, they were kept busy making asses of themselves for the delectation of the upper-classmen.</p>
-			<p>In the Nu Delta house a freshman had to be on guard every hour of the day up to midnight. He was forced to dress himself in some outlandish costume, the more outlandish the better, and announce everyone who entered or left the house. “<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Standish entering,” he would bawl, or, “<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Kerwin leaving.” If he bawled too loudly, he was paddled; if he didn’t bawl loudly enough, he was paddled; and if there was no fault to be found with his bawling; he was paddled anyway. Every freshman had to supply his own paddle, a broad, stout oak affair sold at the cooperative store at a handsome profit.</p>
+			<p>In the Nu Delta house a freshman had to be on guard every hour of the day up to midnight. He was forced to dress himself in some outlandish costume, the more outlandish the better, and announce everyone who entered or left the house. “<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Standish entering,” he would bawl, or, “<abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Kerwin leaving.” If he bawled too loudly, he was paddled; if he didn’t bawl loudly enough, he was paddled; and if there was no fault to be found with his bawling; he was paddled anyway. Every freshman had to supply his own paddle, a broad, stout oak affair sold at the cooperative store at a handsome profit.</p>
 			<p>If a freshman reported for duty one minute late, he was paddled; if he reported one minute early, he was paddled. There was no end to the paddling. “Assume the angle,” an upper-classman would roar. The unfortunate freshman then humbly bent forward, gripped his ankles with his hands⁠—and waited. The worst always happened. The upper-classman brought the paddle down with a resounding whack on the seat of the freshman’s trousers.</p>
 			<p>“Does it hurt?”</p>
 			<p>“Yes, sir.”</p>

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 			<p>Ferguson smiled pleasantly at Hugh and drawled; “Shut up, innocent; you don’t know anything about it. I tell you the old double standard has gone all to hell.”</p>
 			<p>“You’re exaggerating, Don, just to get Hugh excited,” Ross said in his quiet way. “There are plenty of decent girls. Just because a lot of them pet on all occasions isn’t any reason to say that they aren’t straight. I’m older than you fellows, and I guess I’ve had a lot more experience than most of you. I’ve had to make my own way since I was a kid, and I’ve bumped up against a lot of rough customers. I worked in a lumber camp for a year, and after you’ve been with a gang like that for a while, you’ll understand the difference between them and college fellows. Those boys are bad eggs. They just haven’t any morals, that’s all. They turn into beasts every pay night; and bad as some of our college parties are, they aren’t a circumstance to a lumber town on pay night.”</p>
 			<p>“That’s no argument,” George Winsor said excitedly, taking his pipe out of his mouth and gesticulating with it. “Just because a lumberjack is a beast is no reason that a college man is all right because he’s less of a beast. I tell you I get sick of my own thoughts, and I get sick of the college when I hear about some things that are done. I keep straight, and I don’t know why I do, I despise about half the fellows that chase around with rats, and sometimes I envy them like hell. Well, what’s the sense in me keeping straight? What’s the sense in anybody keeping straight? Fellows that don’t seem to get along just as well as those that do. What do you think, Mel? You’ve been reading Havelock Ellis and a lot of ducks like that.”</p>
-			<p>Burbank tossed a cigarette butt into the fire and gazed into the flames for a minute before speaking, his homely face serious and troubled. “I don’t know what to think,” he replied slowly. “Ellis tells about some things that make you fairly sick. So does Forel. The human race can be awfully rotten. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I’m all mixed up. Sometimes life just doesn’t seem worth living to me, what with the filth and the slums and the greed and everything. I’ve been taking a course in sociology, and some of the things that <abbr>Prof.</abbr> Davis has been telling us make you wonder why the world goes on at all. Some poet has a line somewhere about man’s inhumanity to man, and I find myself thinking about that all the time. The world’s rotten as hell, and I don’t see how anything can be done about it. I don’t think sometimes that it’s worth living in. I can understand why people commit suicide.” He spoke softly, gazing into the fire.</p>
+			<p>Burbank tossed a cigarette butt into the fire and gazed into the flames for a minute before speaking, his homely face serious and troubled. “I don’t know what to think,” he replied slowly. “Ellis tells about some things that make you fairly sick. So does Forel. The human race can be awfully rotten. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I’m all mixed up. Sometimes life just doesn’t seem worth living to me, what with the filth and the slums and the greed and everything. I’ve been taking a course in sociology, and some of the things that <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Prof.</abbr> Davis has been telling us make you wonder why the world goes on at all. Some poet has a line somewhere about man’s inhumanity to man, and I find myself thinking about that all the time. The world’s rotten as hell, and I don’t see how anything can be done about it. I don’t think sometimes that it’s worth living in. I can understand why people commit suicide.” He spoke softly, gazing into the fire.</p>
 			<p>Hugh had given him rapt attention. Suddenly he spoke up, forgetting his resolve not to say anything more after Ferguson had called him “innocent.” “I think you’re wrong, Mel,” he said positively. “I was reading a book the other day called <i epub:type="se:name.publication.book">Lavengro</i>. It’s all about Gipsies. Well, this fellow Lavengro was all busted up and depressed; he’s just about made up his mind to commit suicide when he meets a friend of his, a Gipsy. He tells the Gipsy that he’s going to bump himself off, that he doesn’t see anything in life to live for. Then the Gipsy answers him. Gee, it hit me square in the eye, and I memorized it on the spot. I think I can say it. He says: ‘There’s night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there’s likewise a wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother; who would wish to die?’ I think that’s beautiful,” he added simply, “and I think it’s true, too.”</p>
 			<p>“Good for you, Hugh,” Ross said quietly.</p>
 			<p>Hugh blushed with pleasure, but he was taken back by Nutter’s vigorous rejoinder. “Bunk!” he exclaimed. “Hooey! The sun, moon, and stars, and all that stuff sounds pretty, but it isn’t life. Life’s earning a living, and working like hell, and women, and pleasure. The <i epub:type="se:name.publication.poem">Rubaiyat</i>’s the only poem⁠—if you’re going to quote poetry. That’s the only poem I ever saw that had any sense to it.</p>
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 			<p class="continued">You bet. You never can tell when you’re going to be bumped off, and so you might just as well have a good time while you can. You damn well don’t know what’s coming after you kick the bucket.”</p>
 			<p>“Good stuff, the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.poem">Rubaiyat</i>,” said Ferguson lazily. He was lying on his back staring at the ceiling. “I bet I’ve read it a hundred times. When they turn down an empty glass for me, it’s going to be <em>empty</em>. I don’t know what I’m here for or where I’m going or why. ‘Into this world and why not knowing,’ and so on. My folks sent me to Sunday-school and brought me up to be a good little boy. I believed just about everything they told me until I came to college. Now I know they told me a lot of damned lies. And I’ve talked with a lot of fellows who’ve had the same experience.⁠ ⁠… Anybody got a butt?”</p>
 			<p>Burbank, who was nearest to him, passed him a package of cigarettes. Ferguson extracted one, lighted it, blew smoke at the ceiling, and then quietly continued, drawling lazily: “Most fellows don’t tell their folks anything, and there’s no reason why they should, either. Our folks lie to us from the time we are babies. They lie to us about birth and God and life. My folks never told me the truth about anything. When I came to college I wasn’t very innocent about women, but I was about everything else. I believed that God made the world in six days the way the Bible says, and that some day the world was coming to an end and that we’d all be pulled up to heaven where Christ would give us the once-over. Then he’d ship some of us to hell and give the good ones harps. Well, since I’ve found out that all that’s hooey I don’t believe in much of anything.”</p>
-			<p>“I suppose you are talking about evolution,” said Ross. “Well, <abbr>Prof.</abbr> Humbert says that evolutions hasn’t anything to do with the Bible⁠—He says that science is science and that religion is religion and that the two don’t mix. He says that he holds by evolution but that that doesn’t make Christ’s philosophy bad.”</p>
+			<p>“I suppose you are talking about evolution,” said Ross. “Well, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Prof.</abbr> Humbert says that evolutions hasn’t anything to do with the Bible⁠—He says that science is science and that religion is religion and that the two don’t mix. He says that he holds by evolution but that that doesn’t make Christ’s philosophy bad.”</p>
 			<p>“No,” Burbank agreed, “it doesn’t make it bad; but that isn’t the point. I’ve read the Bible, which I bet is more than the rest of you can say, and I’ve read the Sermon on the Mount a dozen times. It’s darn good sense, but what good does it do? The world will never practice Christ’s philosophy. The Bible says, ‘Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward,’ and, believe me, that’s damn true. If people would be pure and good, then Christ’s philosophy would work, but they aren’t pure and good; they aren’t made pure and good, they’re made selfish, and bad: they’re made, mind you, made full of evil and lust. I tell you it’s all wrong. I’ve been reading and reading, and the more I read the more I’m convinced that we’re all rotten⁠—and that if there is a god he made us rotten.”</p>
 			<p>“You’re wrong!” They all turned toward Winsor, who was still standing by the fireplace; even Ferguson rolled over and looked at the excited boy. “You’re wrong,” he repeated, “all wrong. I admit all that’s been said about parents. They do cheat us just as Don said. I never tell my folks anything that really matters, and I don’t know any other fellows that do, either. I suppose there are some, but I don’t know them. And I admit that there is sin and vice, but I don’t admit that Christ’s philosophy is useless. I’ve read the Sermon on the Mount, too. That’s about all of the Bible that I have read, but I’ve read that; and I tell you you’re all wrong. There is enough good in man to make that philosophy practical. Why, there is more kindness and goodness around than we know about. We see the evil, and we know we have lusts and⁠—and things, but we do good, too. And Hugh was right when he talked a while ago about the beauty in the world. There’s lots of it, lots and lots of it. There’s beautiful poetry and beautiful music and beautiful scenery; and there are people who appreciate all of it. I tell you that in spite of everything life is worth living. And I believe in Christ’s philosophy, too. I don’t know whether He is the son of God or not⁠—I think that He must be⁠—but that doesn’t make any difference. Look at the wonderful influence He has had.”</p>
 			<p>“Rot,” said Burbank calmly, “absolute rot. There has never been a good deed done in His name; just the Inquisition and the what-do-you-call-’ems in Russia. Oh, yes, pogroms⁠—and wars and robbing people. Christianity is just a name; there isn’t any such thing. And most of the professional Christians that I’ve seen are damn fools. I tell you, George, it’s all wrong. We’re all in the dark, and I don’t believe the profs know any more about it than we do.”</p>

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 			<p>“Jim Pearson’s outside with his car,” Carl said excitedly, “and he’ll take us down. He’s got to come right back⁠—he’s only going for some booze⁠—but we needn’t come back if we don’t want to. We’ll have a drink and give Hastings the once-over. How’s to come along?”</p>
 			<p>“All right,” Hugh agreed indifferently and began to pull on his baa-baa coat. “I’m with you. A shot of gin might jazz me up a little.”</p>
 			<p>Once in Hastings, Pearson drove to a private residence at the edge of the town. The boys got out of the car and filed around to the back door, which was opened to their knock by a young man with a hatchet face and hard blue eyes.</p>
-			<p>“Hello, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Pearson,” he said with an effort to be pleasant. “Want some gin?”</p>
+			<p>“Hello, <abbr epub:type="z3998:name-title">Mr.</abbr> Pearson,” he said with an effort to be pleasant. “Want some gin?”</p>
 			<p>“Yes, and some Scotch, too, Pete⁠—if you have it. I’ll take two quarts of Scotch and one of gin.”</p>
 			<p>“All right.” Pete led the way down into the cellar, switching on an electric light when he reached the foot of the stairs. There was a small bar in the rear of the dingy, underground room, a table or two, and dozens of small boxes stacked against the wall.</p>
 			<p>It was Hugh’s first visit to a bootlegger’s den, and he was keenly interested. He had a highball along with Carl and Pearson; then took another when Carl offered to stand treat. Pearson bought his three quarts of liquor, paid Pete, and departed alone, Carl and Hugh having decided to have another drink or two before they returned to Haydensville. After a second highball Hugh did not care how many he drank and was rather peevish when Carl insisted that he stop with a third. Pete charged them eight dollars for their drinks, which they cheerfully paid, and then warily climbed the stairs and stumbled out into the cold winter air.</p>