Page 212 - Adventures in shadow-land
P. 212
and no one cared to quarrel with him. So they
contented themselves with calling him “ queer,"
and saying that “ oddity ran in the family.”
It was the summer vacation in the sea land. All
the commencements in the mer colleges were just
over. All the presidents of those institutions had
made their speeches in languages dead and alive,
and told all their classes what an enormous respon
sibility rested upon them, how they were bound to
ft go forward,” and “ to conquer," and to ei build
themselves up,” and to “ develop themselves,”
and be “ leaders of their kind,” and, in short, do
something in proportion to the expense bestowed
on their education. This is a way they have in
sea land. But naturally in the sea they take
things cooler than we can on land, and you
wouldn't believe how very little difference the ad
vent of all these expensively got up young mermen
made in the water world if you had not been there
to see. Now the old mer professor hadn’t had a
very comfortable time. His class that year was
rather a stupid one, and with all the pains he
could take and all the “ coachcs" they could use

