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Show i RamSrMilSIlaii .CPyHghtJ,y DoubleSay. Page &Cbrnpany o , "PEACH OF A PUNCH." SynopsiB. With his grandfather, 3 email Ramsey Milbolland 1b watch- lnff the "Decoration Day Parade" f, In the home town. The old gentleman, gentle-man, a veteran of the Civil war, (endeavors to lmpresa the youngster young-ster with the significance of the great conflict, and many years afterward aft-erward the boy was to remember , his words with startling vividness, i In the schoolroom, a few years v afterward, Ramsey Is not dlstln- gulshed for remarkable ability, r.. though his pronounced dislikes are v. arithmetic, "Recitations" and Ger-1. Ger-1. man. In sharp contrast to Ram-Ej Ram-Ej sey's backwardness Is the precocity of little Dora Yocum, a young lady whom In his bitterness he denominates denomi-nates "Teacher'B Pet" In high school, where he and Dora are classmates, Ramsey continues to feel that the girl delights to manifest mani-fest her superiority, and the vln- dlctlveness he generates becomes alarming, culminating in the resolution reso-lution that some day he will "show" her. At a class picnic Ramsey Ram-sey is captured bag and baggage by Mrlla Rust, the class beauty, and endnres the agonies of his first love. Ramsey's parents object to Milla and wish he'd taken up with Dora Tocum. Ramsey kisses Mllla. . . Then Mllla suddenly leaves town. She marries. Ramsey enters the ' Btate nnlverstty and there Is Dora Yocum again. Ramsey meets Dora in a World War debate and is in- , gloriously vanquished. I 11 1 -a CHAPTER VII. Continued. He was so right, In regard to his own performance, at least, that, thereupon drying up utterly, he proceeded to j stand, a speechless figure In the midst of a multitudinous silence, for an eter-i; eter-i; nlty lasting forty-five seconds. He made . a racking effort, and at the end of this '; epoch found words again. "In making j my argument In this debate, I would state that" "Two minutes I" said the chairman. "Refutation by the negative. Miss D. j Yocum. Two minutes." ' "I wfclve them," said Dora, primly. : "I submit that the affirmative has not refuted the argument of the negative." "Very well." With his gavel the f. chairman sharply tapped the desk be-x be-x fore him. "The question is now before be-fore the house. 'Resolved, that Ger-- Ger-- many is both morally nnd legally Justl-... Justl-... fled in her Invasion of Belgium.' All those In favor of the " ut here there was on Interruption a kind never before witnessed during dur-ing any proceedings of the Lumen eo-"j eo-"j clety. U came from neither of the de-'K de-'K baters, who still remained standing at j: their desks until the vote settling their i; comparative merits In argument -: should be taken. The Interruption 1 was from the rear row of seats along ! the wall, where sat new members of " the society, freshmen not upon the ) program of the evening. A loud nnsal K voice was heard from this quarter, a ' loud but nasal voice, shrill as well as J nasal, and fntl of a strange hot pasta pas-ta lion. "Mr. Chairman !" It cried. "Look-a-here, Mr. Chairman 1 Mr. Chairman, ,: I demand to be heard I You gotta gim- me my say, Mr. Clinlrman! I'm a-: a-: gunna have my say I You look-a-here, l Mr. Chairman 1" Shocked by such a breach of order, and by the unseemly violence ef the speaker, not only the chairman but everyone else looked there. A short, strong figure was on Its feet, gestlcn- latlng fiercely ; and the head belonging to It was a large one with too mnch I curly black hair, a flat swarthy face, shiny and not Immaculately shaves ; there was an Impression of 111-ehosen I clothe;;, too much fat red lip, too much fl! tooth, too much eyeball. Fred Mitchell recognized this violent Interrupter as one Llnskl, a fellow freshman who sat neit Mm In one of his classes. "What's that cuss up tor Fred wondered, and so did others. Llnskl showed them. He pressed forward, shoving himself , through the two rows In front of him p till he emerged upon the green carpet i of the open space, and as he came, he was cyclonic with words. J, "You don't put no snoh stuff as this over, I Ml yout" he shouted In his !J hot, nasal voice. "This here's a free ,p country, and you call yourself a ties' tie-s' D"tlng society, do you? Lemme tell you I belong to a debating society In X Chicago, where I come from, and them '; fl?llns "P there, they'd think they'd oughta be shot fer a fake like what you people are tryln' to put over, here, t fonlKlK. I come down here to git some ,: more education, and pay fer It. too, In good bnrd money I've made swentln' ln a machine shop up there In Chl-'! Chl-'! go;'but If this Is the kind of educa- t'on I'm a-gunna git, I better go on J back ther. Y,ou call this a square de-' de-' bate, do yon?" I He advanced toward the chairman's ' P'atform ehfelng a frantic fist. "Well. f If rou An. yon got another thlDk eomln', my capltalls' frien' ! You went na ST out the question whether It's f right fer Ohoirairny to go throngh Hel-j( Hel-j( ?Ium; and wtrat do you do fer the Chormira sldeT You pick out thla her tig anff fc v(.Bvwj nls pasaiataj hand at the paralyzed Ramsey "you pick out a boob like that fer the Cho-mun Cho-mun side, a poor fish that gits stage-fright stage-fright so bad he don't know whether he's talkln' or dead ; or else he fakes it ; because he's a speaker so bum it looks more to me like he was faking. You git this big stiff to fake the Choi-mun Choi-mun side, and then you go and stick up a goil agains' him that's got brains and makes a paclfls' argument that wins the case agains' the Choimiuis like cuttln' through hog lard ! But you ain't a-gunna git away with it, mister. Lemme tell you right here and now, I may be a mis blood, but I got some Cholrmin ln me with the rest what I got, and before you vote on this hero question you gotta hear a few wolds from somebody that can talk ! This whole war Is a capltalls' war, Belgium as much as Cholmuny, and the United States is sellln' its soul to the capltalls' right now, I tell you. tnkin' sides agains' Cholmuny. Orders fer explosives and ammnnitlon and guns and Red Cross supplies Is comin' Into this country by the millions, and the capltalls' United States Is fat already al-ready on the blood of the workers of Europe I Yes, It is, and I'll have, my say, you boorjaw faker, and you can hammer your ole gavel to pieces at me !" He had begun to shriek ; moisture fell from his brow and his mouth ; the scandalized society was on its feet, moving nervously into groups. Evidently Evi-dently the meeting was about to dls- mr' - "I'll Hav My &ayl" trta Frenated Unskl Screamed. Integrate. "I'll have my say!" the frenaied Llnskl screamed. Tcra try to pHt up this capltalls' trick and work a fake to carry over this debate agnlns' Clinlmuny, but yon can't work It on me, lemme tell you I I'll have my sny I" The outraged chairman was wholry at a loes how to deal with the "unprecedented "un-precedented situation" eo he defined It, quite truthfully ; and he continued to pound upon the desk, while other ciamors began to rival Llnskl's; shouts of "Put him out I" "Order!" "Shut up, Freshman I" "Turn mm over to the sophomores P "This meeting l adjourned!" bellowed bel-lowed the chairman, and there was a thronging toward, the doors, while the frothing Llnskl asseverated: "I'm a-gonna git my say, I tell you ! I'll have my say! 111 have my say!" He had more than that, before the hour was over. A moment after he emerged from the building and came out, still hot, upon tha cool, dark campus, he found himself the center of a group of his own classmntes whom he at first mistook for sophomores, sopho-mores, such was their manner. , . . Ab this group broke np a few minutes later, a youth running to Join It, scenting somewhat of Interest, detained de-tained one of those who were departing. depart-ing. "What's np? What was that squealing?" squeal-ing?" "Oh, nothing. We Just talked to that Llnskl. Nobody else touched him. hut Ramsey MUholInnd gave him a peach of a punch on the snoot." "Whoopee !" Ramsey was laconic ln response to Inquiries upon this subject. When ioid; one remarked : "Yon served him right for calling you a boob and a poor fish and so on before all the society, girls and all," Ramsey only snld: "That wasn't what I hit him for," He declined to explain further. CHAPTER VIII. "The way I look at It. Rani!ev," Fred Mitchell said, when they rencbed j their apartment, whither a benevolent senior, Colburn, accompanied them, j "tn way I loo at It. thla Lluskl Dnd of pld rou a oooapllaxsot, after all, when he called you a fake. He must have thought you anyway looked as If you could make a better speech than you did. Oh, golly!" And as Ramsey groaned, the Jovial Mitchell gave himself up to the divan and the mirth. "Oh, oh, oh, golly I" he sputtered. "Never you mind, Brother Mllhol-land," Mllhol-land," Colburn said gently. "The Lumen Lu-men Is used to nervous beginners. I've seen dozens ln my time, Just like you ; and some of 'em got to be first rate before they quit. Besides, this crazy Llnskl Is all that anybody'1.1 ever remember re-member about tonight's meeting anyhow. any-how. There never was any such outbreak out-break as that in my time, and I guess there never was ln the whole history of the society. We'll probably suspend him until he apologizes to the society I'm on the board, and I'm ln favor of it. Who is the bird, anyhow? He's In your class." "I never saw him before," Ramsey responded from the deep chair, where he had moodily thrown himself; and, returning to his brooding upon his oratory. ora-tory. "Oh, murder !" he moaned. "Well," said the senior, "you'll know him when you see him again. You put your mark on him where you can see It, all right!" He chuckled. "I suppose I really ought to have interfered in-terfered in that, but I decided to do a little astronomical observation, about fifty feet away, for a few minutes. I'm 'way behind ln my astronomy, anyhow. any-how. Do you know this Llnskl, Brother Broth-er Mitchell?" "I've talked to htm a couple o' times on the campus," said Fred. "He's In one of my classes. He's about the oldest in our class, I guess a lot older than us, anyhow. He's kind of an anarchist an-archist or something ; can't talk more'n five minutes any time without gettin' off somei bug stuff about 'capitalism.' He said the course In political economy econo-my was all 'ca-pitallsm' and the prof was bought by Wall Street." "Poor old Prof. Craig!" Co!bu-n laughed. "He gets fifteen hundred a year." "Yes ; I'd heard that myself, and 1 told Llnski, and he said he had an uncle un-cle workln' in a steel mill got twLce that much, but It didn't make any difference, dif-ference, ole Craig was bought by Wall Street. He said 'capitalism' better look out; he and the foreign-born workmen were goln' to take this country some day, and, that was one of the reasons he was after an education. He talked pretty strong pro-German, too about the war ln Europe but I sort of thought that was more because he'd lie pro-anything that he thought would help upset the United States than because be-cause ha cared much about Germany." "Yes," said Colburn, "that's how he sounded tonight. I guess there's plenty plen-ty more like him Ln the cities, too. That reminds me : I'd better arrange a debate on immigration for the Lumen. We'll put Brother Mllholland for the negative, this time." Ramsey smarted violently. "See here " But the senior reassured him. "Just wanted to see you jump," he explained. "Don't fear ; you've done your share." "I should think I have!" Ramsey groaned. "Yes; you won't be called on again this term. By the way," said Colburn. thoughtfully, "that was a clever girl you had against yon tonight. I don't believe In pacifism much, myself, but she user! It very rrlftlly for her argument. argu-ment. Isn't she from your town, this Miss Y'oeum?" Fred nodded. "Well, she's a clever young thing." said the senior, still thoughtful. And he added : "Grneefnl girl, she is." At this, the renominates looked at him with startled attention. Ramsey was so roused as to forget his troubles and sit forward in his chair. "Yes," said the musing Colburn. "she's a mighty pretty girl." "What !" Tills exclamation was a simultaneous simultane-ous one; the astonnded pair stared at him In blnrk Incredulity. "Why, don't you think s7 Colburn mildly Inquired. "She seems to me very unnsual looking." "Well, yes." Fred assented, emphatically. emphat-ically. "We're with yon there !" "Extraordinary eyes," continued Colburn. Col-burn. "Ixively figure, too; altogether a strikingly pretty girl. Handsome, I. should say, perhaps. Yes, 'handsome' rather than 'pretty'." He looked up from a brief reverie. "You fellows known her long?" Tou bet !" said Ramsey. "She made a splendid Impression on the Lumen," Colburn went on. "I don't remember that I ever saw a first appearance there that quite equaled It. She'll probably have a brilliant career In the society, and In the university, too. She must be a very fine sort of a person." He deliberated within himself him-self a few moments longer, then, realizing that his hosts and brethren did not respond with any heartiness or with anything at all to the theme, he changed It. and asked them what they thought about the war In Enrope. They talked of the war drowsily for a while; It was an Interesting ant not an exciting topic: the thing they spoke of was so far away. After a few momenta of fervor, the conversation languished, and Brother Colburn rose to go. "To go over and help hang their 3 d kaiser I" (TO BE CONTINUED.) |