XXVIII. THE PROSPECT OF GOING TO COLLEGE.

In the distance, however, beyond this happy holiday-time, there loomed a dark shadow: the time was drawing on when I should have to go to college. Now certain traditions which I had heard at Miss Porquet’s school represented the college as a sort of anticipation of the lower regions; where, from morning to night, the small and weak suffered from the tyranny of the strong. Amongst the Porquets (for so the pupils of Miss Porquet were called) those who were of an adventurous and daring spirit, looked forward calmly, if not eagerly, to their college life—at least so some of them said—and to prepare themselves for it, wore their caps all on one side, and already talked the particular college slang. Others less courageous, waited the fatal moment of their removal from Miss Porquet’s care to the dangers of college life with fear and trembling. I was of that number. Some of the timid young Porquets having left the school, and actually, as it were, standing on the threshold of the college, drew back when on the very edge of the precipice, and obtained their parents’ consent to pass another year under the protecting wing of the amiable Miss Porquet.

Marc was to go to college at the same time as I did. He was not one of those who wore his cap on one side or who talked slang, and he did not boast that he would knock down the first collegian who looked scornfully at him. No, Marc was not that sort of boy at all: but on the other hand he had no fears about his college life. This wonderful courage—as it appeared to me—won my greatest admiration. As for him, it was only natural, he thought, to be fearless. And we made our plans together as follows:—

“We will go to college arm in arm,” Marc would say to me sometimes; “we will never be rude or provoke anyone, then it is most likely that nobody will provoke us. But if they touch us, well, we will defend ourselves, that is all.”