Joe . . . . Joe! Howya' goin', huh? Done your Reading Period work yet? No. Me neither. It's a laugh. I say It's a laugh. I mean, the Reading Period. They took up the extra chairs today. yeh, the extra chairs. They took 'em up today. That's a fast one. Need them for the line outside the Dean's office.

Ever over there Joe? Sure, I have. I gave him a line. I say I gave him a line. He thinks I'm a great kidder. I tell right up what I think about things. Sure I do. Like the other day. . . . well, tell that guy he can go to some other table if he doesn't like it. Tell him he can go to some. . . .I was telling my friend you can go to some other table if you don't like this.

Don't pay attention to him, Joe. He's got a right to keep on sitting there if he wants to. This is a free country. Don't give him any time at all, Joe. Ignore him. What were you saying? Oh, yeh, the dean. Well he passed me some remark about why don't I live at college. In the Yard he meant or any ways in Cambridge. "Why not?" I says, stalling. Always stall, Joe, when you get into a jam with a dean. He thought I was trying to get control of my emotions. Losing my crack at college life and squash and the clubs and voting. And Reinhart. That stuff.

I let him wait a little. Then. . . .Joe. I toldya never mind that guy. Ignore him. What's a dirty look? Don't soil your hands on him. . . .So I let him wait a little that guy'll be going pretty soon now and then I gave him the old line about I couldn't afford it. And that's right. I can't, and keep the bus too. Sure I have. Oh, I sold the Ford to Louie before Christmas. And the old man asks me if I want to live at college next year or get another.

So that was all right.

Joe, that guy is going up to the desk. No, he's saying something about table twenty-seven. I know, I have see his lips move. How?. . . .I had an Aunt Minna, who used to stay with us. Sit down, Joe. You never could catch him through the Delivery Desk. By now he's halfway down. Next time we will. Tomorrow you sit over near that door and I'll sit at this one and then when he comes you come over and get me or I'll come over and get you and we'll go and sit at his table. Then you ask me something about how's my reading or do I know a good summer job or who's going to win the fight tonight and.

Who sent you over here? How're things at the Main Desk? No. nobody here. I know that guy that tipped you off, though. He's a crank. Writes complaints all the time about you fellows at the Main Desk cracking wise. Sure. Ignore him. Tell the boss me and Joe said Ignore him.

See. Joe? Stall 'em, that's all.

Well, I, guess maybe I oughta be, too.

Joe. Hey. Joe. Do they ever change the bulbs, I wonder? In the lamps, I mean. Two bum out of three. No, there's three up there. You can feel. Pull the chains. One and two and three. Try the chains on the one down that end. Maybe they work in some kind of combination that they don't turn on in the morning. Try two at a time. You didn't pull together. It makes just one noise when you do. Listen.

Try all three, Joe. I gotta study. Quit bothering me. I'll report you to the Desk.

Joe. Try all three.

Finished that book? Pass it over. Lemme see what you wrote this time. You're a funny one, Joe. You just write in the right hand columns. You been missing hundreds of pages since your Freshman year. Me? Why, I bet I write twice as much in margins on left hand pages. I don't know why. I eat and bat righty, too.

You can always tell Louie's courses. He writes straight across both pages. Sometimes he takes the appendix home. I call him Doe when he does that--kidding. He got A in Ec A. That's a guy with imagination Joe. He goes back, he told me, sometimes as long as a year afterward and changes his handwriting and writes answers to his old gags.

You know, Joe I always think what are you and me and Louie and the rest of the boys going to do when we get outta here. Ever think about that, Joe? I often wonder.