This Side of Paradise

“You an inmate of this asylum?”

Amory nodded.

“Awful barn for the rent we pay.”

Amory had to agree that it was.

“I thought of the campus,” he said, “but they say there’s so few freshmen that they’re lost. Have to sit around and study for something to do.”

The gray-eyed man decided to introduce himself.

“My name’s Holiday.”

“Blaine’s my name.”

They shook hands with the fashionable low swoop. Amory grinned.

“Where’d you prep?”

“Andover – where did you?”

“St. Regis’s.”

“Oh, did you? I had a cousin there.”

They discussed the cousin thoroughly, and then Holiday announced that he was to meet his brother for dinner at six.

“Come along and have a bite with us.”

“All right.”

At the Kenilworth Amory met Burne Holiday – he of the gray eyes was Kerry – and during a limpid meal of thin soup and anaemic vegetables they stared at the other freshmen, who sat either in small groups looking very ill at ease, or in large groups seeming very much at home.

“I hear Commons is pretty bad,” said Amory.

“That’s the rumor. But you’ve got to eat there – or pay anyways.”

“Crime!”

“Imposition!”

“Oh, at Princeton you’ve got to swallow everything the first year. It’s like a damned prep school.”

Amory agreed.

“Lot of pep, though,” he insisted. “I wouldn’t have gone to Yale for a million.”

“Me either.”

“You going out for anything?” inquired Amory of the elder brother.

“Not me – Burne here is going out for the Prince – the Daily Princetonian, you know.”

“Yes, I know.”

“You going out for anything?”

“Why – yes. I’m going to take a whack at freshman football.”

“Play at St. Regis’s?”

“Some,” admitted Amory depreciatingly, “but I’m getting so damned thin.”

“You’re not thin.”

“Well, I used to be stocky last fall.”

“Oh!”

After supper they attended the movies, where Amory was fascinated by the glib comments of a man in front of him, as well as by the wild yelling and shouting.

“Yoho!”

“Oh, honey-baby – you’re so big and strong, but oh, so gentle!”

“Clinch!”

“Oh, Clinch!”

“Kiss her, kiss ‘at lady, quick!”

“Oh-h-h – !”

A group began whistling “By the Sea,” and the audience took it up noisily. This was followed by an indistinguishable song that included much stamping and then by an endless, incoherent dirge.

“Oh-h-h-h-h
She works in a Jam Factoree
And – that-may-be-all-right
But you can’t-fool-me
For I know – DAMN – WELL
That she DON’T-make-jam-all-night!
Oh-h-h-h!”

As they pushed out, giving and receiving curious impersonal glances, Amory decided that he liked the movies, wanted to enjoy them as the row of upper classmen in front had enjoyed them, with their arms along the backs of the seats, their comments Gaelic and caustic, their attitude a mixture of critical wit and tolerant amusement.

“Want a sundae – I mean a jigger?” asked Kerry.

“Sure.”