The names of the streets, with the things advertised,
are almost as good as seeing the signs; and while
Reading "Boy lost!"
one can almost hear the bell and well-known voice of "Old Wilson,"
crying the boy as "strayed, stolen, or mislaid!" Then there was
the Commencement at Cambridge, and the full account of the
exercises at the graduating of my own class. A list of all
those familiar names, (beginning as usual with Abbot, and ending
with W., ) which, as I read them over, one by one, brought up their
faces and characters as I had known them in the various scenes of
college life. Then I imagined them upon the stage, speaking their
orations, dissertations, colloquies, etc., with the gestures and
tones of each, and tried to fancy the manner in which each would
handle his subject, *****, handsome, showy, and superficial; *****,
with his strong head, clear brain, cool self-possession; *****,
modest, sensitive, and underrated; *****, the mouth-piece of the
debating clubs, noisy, vaporous, and democratic; and so following.
Then I could see them receiving their A. Bs. from the dignified,
feudal-looking President, with his "auctoritate mihi commissâ,"
and walking off the stage with their diplomas in their hands;
while upon the very same day, their classmate was walking up
and down California beach with a hide upon his head.
Every watch below, for a week, I pored over these papers, until I was
sure there could be nothing in them that had escaped my attention,
and was ashamed to keep them any longer.
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