The Crime

There was one night when a socially prominent undergraduate had drowned his carefreeness with much potent liquid and was speeding merrily, if not somewhat like a May Pole dance along a suburban turnpike. Unluckily an innocent automobile blocked his way; he did not hit it hard, but hard enough to excite the driver, arouse hot words, and attract a state policeman who was parked nearby.

No sooner did the officer place a hand on his shoulder than the drink in our hero came up for the fourth time. The policeman, as a matter of routine, asked him if he had been drinking. "No," he said, "I always get sick when I see an officer of the law."

That wasn't all. By this time a sizable crowd had collected about the setting and the players in the evening's melodrama. The undergraduate turned to look at this group of staring faces and, with fervor and a clarity of diction reminiscent of Randolph or Gonverneur Morris, cried: "Ah, the peasants!"