occasions I was often able to remove from my aunt's big Bible a five- or
ten-dollar note, which otherwise would have been long useless.

Now and then I utilized my opportunities at Princeton. I very much
desired certain things like well-made clothes, and for these I had to
run in debt to a tailor. When he wanted pay, and threatened to send the
bill to my father, I borrowed from two or three young Southerners; but
at last, when they became hard up, my aunt's uncounted hoard proved a
last resource, or some rare chance in a neighboring room helped me out.
I never did look on this method as of permanent usefulness, and it was
only the temporary folly of youth.

Whatever else the pirate necessity appropriated, I took no large amount
of education, although I was fond of reading, and especially of novels,
which are, I think, very instructive to the young, especially the novels
of Smollett and Fielding.

There is, however, little need to dwell on this part of my life.
College students in those days were only boys, and boys are very strange
animals. They have instincts. They somehow get to know if a fellow does
not relate facts as they took place. I like to put it that way, because,
after all, the mode of putting things is only one of the forms of
self-defense, and is less silly than the ordinary wriggling methods
which boys employ, and which are generally useless. I was rather given
to telling large stories just for the fun of it and, I think, told them
well. But somehow I got the reputation of not being strictly definite,
and when it was meant to indicate this belief they had an ill-mannered
way of informing you. This consisted in two or three fellows standing up
and shuffling noisily with their feet on the floor. When first I heard
this I asked innocently what it meant, and was told it was the noise