From his undergraduate days as editor of The Harvard Crimson¹ Richard Caramel had desired to write. But as a senior he had picked up the glorified² illusion that certain men were set aside for "service" and, going into the world, were to accomplish a vague yearnful something which would react either in eternal reward or, at the least, in the personal satisfaction of having striven for the greatest good of the greatest number.

This spirit has long rocked the colleges in America. It begins, as a rule, during the immaturities and facile impressions of freshman³ year--sometimes back in preparatory school. Prosperous apostles known for their emotional acting⁵ go the rounds of the universities and, by frightening the amiable⁶ sheep and dulling the quickening of interest and intellectual curiosity which is the purpose of all education, distil⁷ a mysterious conviction of sin, harking back to childhood crimes and to the ever-present menace of "women." To these lectures go the wicked youths to cheer and joke and the timid to swallow the tasty pills, which would be harmless if administered to farmers' wives and pious⁸ drug-clerks but are rather dangerous medicine for these "future leaders of men."

This octopus⁹ was strong enough to wind a sinuous¹⁰ tentacle¹¹ about Richard Caramel. The year after his graduation it called him into the slums of New York to muck about with bewildered Italians as secretary to an "Alien Young Men's Rescue Association." He