THE VAGABOND

Vag finished the beer, but the page was still empty. Now he would get down to work. No more horsing around. This is important, Vag old man. You're leaving Cambridge, for good. This is the end. Now don't get maudlin, but tell them what you feel. Everybody else did, and now its your turn. A self-inflicted pep talk was occasionaly effective, but the Vagabond just didn't seem to obe in the mood. Lots to say, but not in the mood. On the ball, boy. You get the big stripe tomorrow, and then it will be too late. It will all be over then.

Now, with the memory of the last exam still making your fingers tired, and that crick in the back you get from bending over a Mem Hall desk. Now is the time. But no mood. You've got to feel debonair, and sentimental in a sophisticated sort of way, to write your farewell. Vag could think of a lot of things he wanted to talk about: the first date at Radcliffe; the first date at Wellesley; the difference. None of that. Stick to the subject. That sort of thing happens all over the world. This is Harvard. This is different. And now you're leaving.

Talk of the Sanctum. Of the wonderful evening two years ago, to the day, when you first climbed the stairs. Vag liked that idea. The others hadn't been so impressed, but he thought the place looked like a little piece of all that he had expected Harvard to be. Now the need for a new paint job was even greater, but Vag still thought of the Sanctum that way. It was home to him, far more than D-21 had ever been. He thought of the Ivy Leaguer's ode to upstairs and he was still. That should not be imitated, should remain the final tribute of the crimed to the Sanctum.

But that's not all. More than anything else, Harvard meant people. All sorts characters, to use the idiom. And now they were gone. He thought of the five who joined the happy company with him. One was at Fort Sill; one was at Princeton; two were lost in the middle west; another was en route to Murmansk, probably. Everybody else was the same way, and soon it would be a destroyer and godknowswhere for the Vag. They had wept when they left, but Vag was happy. With the index finger gone, the other four were meaningless. Soon he would escape the ghost, and would not have to see the teddy-bear in the window of the yellow frame building. That teddy bear would be Harvard, if only he had gold markings. Vag didn't mind leaving.