"BEDAMN, BEN!"

The caricature of the vintage of 1776 or thereabouts, recently discovered on the walls of Massachusetts Hall, has caused considerable discussion among the intellectuals of the yard. The first word is easy; but who--or what was Ben? Was it a clock which sounded the Chapel bell in days gone by, or was it the original penpetrator of the daily seven o'clock fantasia in Harvard Hall? Possibly Ben was the parent of all modern book agents whose bickering approach was heralded long enough to allow the artist to draw the picture and the message on his locked door. Had the writing been of a blue tint, Ben might well have been the prosequor of those instructors who demand in no uncertain voices that themes be written in black ink. The artist in this case might have been a gentleman, suffering from a suppressed blue desire, taking steps to relieve the complex. Or Ben might have been a tradesman's menial sent shivering into the yard in a heroic attempt to collect a bill. He might even have been a frivolous friend, whose staggering foot-steps led to the locked door of the artist,--where Carnival had ceded to Social Ethics for the evening.

But of couse, the Benjamin Franklin hypothesis is the most reasonable. Someone, no doubt, was annoyed with Benjamin for some reason, and vented his wrath in this lasting fashion. Since the picture was found not far from a mail box, it is safe to assume that the Philadelphia stage had been delayed, and the Saturday Evening Post had not reached Cambridge on Thursday morning.