ON THE BEAT

There are few sounds as ominously suggestive of the passing of time as the regular tramp of feet. Guilty men hear in it the approaching minions of the law and in their terror rush to confess. The imaginative are reminded of tortured spirits to whom death has not meant peace The nervous fidget. Proctors who are in the habit of taking their morning constitutional in the aisles of the examination room ought to be reminded that many men are faced by a blue book and a set of questions are apt to be somewhat anxious, are often feverishly imaginative, and are even inclined on occasion to feel a distinct sensation of guilt. No doubt these apostles of individual meditation have the friendliest of intentions. But they forget that even a smile under some circumstances may drive a man to madness and that their innocent promenade could possibly have any associations with water dripping with fatal regularity from an Inquisition tank to the head of a victim condemned to die by slow torture.

Of course the barons of the bluebook deserve a lot of sympathy. It really can't be much fun sitting at any desk for three hours in a row even with nothing but police duties for occupation. And the pleasure of watching other people work must pall after a while. Perhaps the college could print a cross word puzzle with each set of examinations to keep its representatives from restlessness, one that would take just a hundred and seventy-five minutes to solve so that there would still be time before the close of the examination for the traditional remark concerning the lateness of the hour. For it is doubtful whether even those with the steadiest of nerves would object to the passing of peripatetic proctors.