FIRE FLIES

Many amusements are offered the tired college student as a relief from the constant round of toll. In the autumn there are the big games, in the winter debutante balls, and in the spring there is rowing and Revere. All such sports, indoor and outdoor, have their uses. But like many other things, they are temporary. The Crescent Garden will not suffice the ingenuous student's soul in January; nor the Somerset in June.

One sport that endures through the year is fires. Nowhere north of Halifax on the best authority of seasoned travelers, do such glorious fires take place as in Cambridge, In the dark of the night or the glare of the morn, while the midnight oil is theoretically burning, the deep bell of the fire alarm sounds. And forth from the Yard and the Gold Coast, from Widener and Phillips Brooks, from every shanty, dormitory or palace between Persis smith and Perkins, the rejoicing students rush.

In pajamas or fur coats at night, or in less picturesque garb at day, the pleasure seekers follow the clanging engine. The light of the fire is in their eyes. Their minds are joyous for the sight of great building crashing, and brave firemen being overcome, and fair heroines on eleventh stories jumping into their anticipating arms. True, such luxuries are seldom realized. The end of the fire-seeking trail is generally a wood-shed or a chicken-house which some urchin has se alight. Fair heroines are scarce; and tall sky-scrapers refuse to burn except at uncertain intervals. Yet there is always hope of some great catastrophe, a second Chicago or Baltimore blaze; or perhaps even such a scene as the movies show on red films, while the orchestra pounds the bass.

If those who set fires alight are firebugs, then those who run must be fireflies. They are the perennial searchers for amusement. It is to be hoped that they never follow a false alarm, never miss a flaming catastrophe, and never get their wings scorched by the sparks from the engine or the fire. Nero, bring out your fiddle!