According to the charter which it had granted itself, the "Lumen Society" was an "Organization of male and female students"--so "advanced" was this university--"for the development of the powers of debate and oratory, intellectual and sociological progress, and the discussion of all matters relating to philosophy, metaphysics, literature, art, and current events." A statement so formidable was not without a hushing effect upon Messrs. Milholland and Mitchell; they went to their first "Lumen" meeting in a state of fear and came away little reassured.
"I couldn't get up there," Ramsey declared, "I couldn't stand up there before all that crowd and make a speech, or debate in a debate, to save my soul and gizzard! Why, I'd just keel right over and haf to be carried out."
"Well, the way I understand it," said Fred, "we can't get out of it. The seniors in the 'frat' said we had to join, and they said we couldn't resign, either, after we had joined. They said we just had to go through it, and after a while we'd get used to it and not mind it much."
"~I~ will!" Ramsey insisted. "I couldn't any more stand up there on my feet and get to spoutin' about sociology and the radical metempsychorus of the metaphysical bazoozum than I could fly a flyin' machine. Why, I--"
"Oh, that wasn't anything," Fred interrupted. "The only one that talked like that, he was that Blickens; he's a tutor, or something, and really a member of the faculty. Most o' the others just kind of blah-blahhed around, and what any of 'em tried to get off their chests hardly amounted to terribly much."
"I don't care. I couldn't do it at ~all!~"
"Well, the way it looks to me," Fred observed, "we simply ~got~ to!
From what they tell me, the freshmen got to do more than anybody.
Every other Friday night, it's all freshmen and nothin' else. You get a postal card on Monday morning in your mail, and it says 'Assignment' on it, and then it's got written underneath what you half to do the next Friday night--oration or debate, or maybe just read from some old book or something. I guess we got to stand up there and ~try~, anyway."
"All right," said Ramsey. "If they want me to commit suicide they can send me one o' their ole 'Assignments.' I won't need to commit suicide, though, I guess. All I'll do, I'll just fall over in a fit, and stay in it."
And, in truth, when he received his first "Assignment," one Monday morning, a month later, he seemed in a fair way to fulfil his prophecy. The attention of his roommate, who sat at a window of their study, was attracted by sounds of strangulation.
"What on earth's the matter, Ramsey?"
"Look! Look at ~this!~"
Fred took the card and examined it with an amazement gradually merging into a pleasure altogether too perceptible:
ASSIGNMENT TWELVE-MINUTE DEBATE, CLASS OF 1918.
~Subject, Resolved:~ That Germany is both legally and morally justified in her invasion of Belgium.
(Debaters are notified that each will be held strictly to the following schedule: Affirmative, 4 min., first. Negative, 4 min., first. Affirm, 2 min., second. Neg., 2 min., second.)
Afirmative Negative R. MILHOLLAND, '18 D. YOCUM, '18 Concluding his reading, which was oral, the volatile Mitchell made use of his voice in a manner of heathenish boisterousness, and presently reclined upon a lounge to laugh the better. His stricken comrade, meanwhile, recovered so far as to pace the floor. "I'm goin' to pack up and light out for home!" he declared, over and over.
And even oftener he read and reread the card to make sure of the actuality of that fatal coincidence, "D. Yocum, '18."
