Then I rose shakily to my feet, and, flinging myself loose from those
who offered to help me, I ran at a good clip, in my sneakers, dangling
my running shoes affectionately--to my solitary room ... with a bearing
that boasted, "why, I could run all those three races over again, one
right after the other, right now ... no, I'm not tired ... not the least
bit tired!"

That night, in the crowded dining hall, the ovation for me was
tremendous.

"I'll smash life just like those races," I boasted, in my heart.

But my triumph and eminence were not to last long.

To be looked up to at Mt. Hebron you had to lead a distasteful,
colourless life of hypocrisy and piety such as I have seldom seen
anywhere before. Under cover of their primitive Christianity I never
found more pettiness. First, you prayed and hymn-sung yourself into
favour, and then indulged in sanctimonious intrigue to keep yourself
where you had arrived.

I could not stand my half self-hypnotised hypocrisy any longer. A spirit
of mischief and horseplay awoke in me. I perpetrated a hundred
misdemeanours, most of them unpunishable elsewhere, but of serious
import in schools and barracks, where discipline is to be maintained. I
stayed out of bounds late at night ... I cut classes continually. I
visited Fairfield ... and a factory town further south, where I lounged
about the streets all day, talking with people.