We were a jolly set; most of us poor as church mice, and caring little. Making rather a boast of it, indeed. John Burke's roommate, Jim Reeder, cooked his own meals--mostly oatmeal--in his room and lived on less than a dollar a week until fairly starved. I suppose they'll call him "old Hoss" to his dying day. Until his mother moved to town, John was almost as ill- fed. He was just completing his law course when I was a Freshman, and used to make brave jests at poverty, even after his admission to the bar.
Of course I was glad to meet him again, and, though I was puzzled just at first, to see how little older than I my former teacher was, yet afterwards--why, I haven't answered his last--I don't know how many letters; I simply must remember to write to him!
I think the best part of the teaching wasn't in the books. Some of the students were queer and uncouth when they came, the boys eating with their knives in the fashion of the farm; some of the brightest girls in ill- fitting clothes--perfect guys they'd be thought in the city. But there were others of quite different manner, and from them and from professors who had seen the world, we learned a little--a very little--of its ways. And perhaps we were not unfavourable specimens of young republicanism, with our merry, hopeful outlook upon life, and our future governors and senators all in the raw--yes, and our countesses and vice-reines!