OUR SECTION.

IT is a remarkably fine section, this of ours, but it has its peculiarities. There is a little saying, -which I hope you have never heard, -that it takes all kinds of people to make up a world. So it is with that part of the world which consists of our section. There are men in it that I thought -before I came to college -only existed in the uncivilized "universities" of the far West.

First, and perhaps the most despicable of all, is the man who takes notes. Of course we all take some notes, just to have the appearance of paying attention; but this man takes them preeminently; he is always taking them; during every lull in the recitation you may hear the steady scratching of his pencil. When the instructor said, "Mr. De Browne, will you please close the door?" I looked at the scribbler, and lo! he was jotting that down, too! Who is he? O, you would n't care to know him; but entre nous, you may recognize him by his poetical hair.

Then there is the man who asks questions. Why does he do it? It is not for information surely, for he asks questions when he already knows their answers. I think it must be because he wants to give the instructor opportunities to enlighten the rest of us. I know the fellow knows a good deal, for, when we were reading the other day about Hannibal's blasting rocks with fire and vinegar, he asked why he did not use nitro-glycerine.

But I don't so much object to him, because he uses up the time. The man who is most incomprehensible to me is he who laughs, -laughs at all the instructor says, all that he says himself, and all that I say. How he can so break decorum as to appear enthusiastic about anything, I cannot understand; it is so unfashionable.

All these men are Bohemians, but they are mild compared to him who sits sub iisdem trabibus and even super eadem trabe -I shall elect Latin -with me in U. 13. University! cheerful as the Catacombs! I always enter it with much the same feeling that I would a great mausoleum. The gloom which comes over me deepens as I take my seat, for I know that my dexter companion will give me no repose. My Plutonic melancholy, the heated room, the dull Livy, -all are conducive to slumber; the very instructor seems admirably chosen to that end: but my naps are broken by my active neighbor, who says, "The French Left Centre don't care for the status quo, and the Pope's legs are horribly swollen." Now I don't know what a status quo is, and I don't believe he does. Why will he talk so? I was secretly glad yesterday when the instructor opened the window to keep the men awake, for I knew my neighbor did n't wear any overcoat.

Such are the eccentrics of the section. Its hero I have still in store. He is the dropped man. How we all envy the abandon with which he leans back in his seat and chuckles over a French novel! He always has the French novel, and he never has the lesson. When he is called upon, we fresher Freshmen know that the clever answer will be, "I have no books, sir, -am quite unprepared, -really. know nothing whatever about the subject.'

This, then, must be the "Harvard indifference" about which I have heard so much. I am trying for it now, and I hope to be expert when I go home at Christmas. What though my father will murmur "Snobling"! I respect him because he is a relative of mine; but he is too much of a fogy to appreciate the finesse in being Harvardly indifferent!

ION.