| 2:19a |
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And as for being a doctor, well, that's
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And as for being a doctor, well, that's okay, we got lots of friends here, we can set you up in a decent practice, buy into some old quack who's ready to retire
I want to do researchListen, Bobbo, there isn't a man you know, not one of our acquaintances who can't buy and sell a carload of research men, that's just some damn fool idea you picked up somewhere, and you're gonna change your mind, I can tell you that right nowThe way I really look at it, your mother and me, is that you'll end up in the business, which is where you belong anyway
Well, I ain't gonna argue with you, you're just a damn fool kid anyway, you'll change your mind
He flounders through the first weeks of freshman year, walks in bewilderment through the YardEveryone knows so much more than he does here -- there is an instinctive resistance to them -- the left-handed remnant of the humus around the mushroom stem -- everyone talks flippantly of things he had thought about in the privacy of his own room, his own head
His roommate cozens him, product of another midwestern city, another Country Day schoolYou know when Ralph Chestley comes around, isn't he a swell fellow, you ought to get to meet him, Delphic, which is pretty damn good, better than we'll ever get I can tell you, but of course we've got that thing against us, if I knew then what I know now, I would have come east to Exeter or Andover, although they're not nearly good enough that's what I've been learning, but if we can get to meet the right fellows, we ought to make Speakers anyway, that's not so hard, and we can certainly make Hasty Pudding, but to get into a Final Club that's the trick, although I've heard they're getting more democratic lately
I haven't thought about it
Well, you ought to, you've got to go at it carefully
His first self-assertion
Well, now look, Hearn, we get along pretty well, so don't cream it for me, I mean a fellow's chances can be hurt by his roommate, so don't do anything excessive, you know what I mean
For the first year Hearn has little chance to do anything excessiveThe skids are not greased that smoothlyHe bogs down, sees his roommate seldom, spends nearly all his afternoons in lab and his nights studyingHe makes himself a schedule which charts everything down to the fifteen minutes he can allow himself to read the comic pages on Sunday morning, and the movie he can see on Saturday nightHe drifts through the long afternoons, copying the changes on the thermometer in his flask, and marking beside it the variations in the hydrometerThere is a nerve in the head of the frog which he is always severingOn the fourth attempt he nibbles successfully with his scalpel at the desiccated preserved flesh of the frog head until the nerve glistens thinly, freed like a tenuous wire of spittleIn his triumph, he feels depressedDo I really want to do this?
In the lecture rooms, despite himself, he drowses through classThe voice of the assistant professor with the steel-rimmed glasses and the bony scientist's face laps fuzzily at his ear
Gentlemen, I would like you to consider the phenomenon of the kelpNereocystis lütkeana, macrocystis pyrifera, pelagophycus porra, he writes on the blackboard |
| 2:26a |
@@@@@We need somebody who knows the score
"What
@@@@@We need somebody who knows the score
"What do you think of the patrol?" Croft asked softlyHe ducked as some spray washed over them
Stanley guessed that Croft would be pleased if he accepted the patrol without resentmentBut he knew he would have to answer cautiouslyIf he was enthusiastic, Croft would distrust him, for none of the other men were eagerStanley fingered his mustache, which was still thin and uneven despite the care he gave it"I don't know, somebody's got to do it, and it might as well be usTo tell you the truth, Sam," he ventured, "this may sound like bullshit coming from me, but I ain't sorry we caught itYou get tired of hanging around, you want to do something
Croft fingered his chin"That's what you think, huh?"
"Well, I wouldn't tell it to everybody, but, yes, that's what I do think Half purposefully, Stanley had stroked one of Croft's basic passionsAfter a month of labor details and unimportant security patrols, Croft's senses had become raw waiting for activityAny big patrol would have appealed to himthe conception of it was more impressive to himAlthough he did not show it, he was impatient; the chore was to get through the hours on board this boatAll afternoon he had been debating possible routes, reviewing the terrain in his mindThere had been only an aerial map of the back country, but he had memorized that
And once again he felt an unpleasant shock, reminded himself that the platoon and the patrol would not be directed by him
"Yeah, it's all right," Croft said"I'll tell you, that General Cummings is a smart man to have figgered it all out"All the guys bitch all the time about how they could do it better, but he's got a hard job
"Reckon so," Croft saidHe stared away for a moment, and then nudged Sta |