The Blue and The Grey

They knew it was going to be an important interview, because they all came in grey-flannel suits--even the ones from Columbia and Manhattan Colleges. There were twenty-five of them, five from Harvard, crowded into a small room, and the room was painted grey and altogether it was a gloomy atmosphere. Every half-hour an older man in a blue pin-striped suit came in and called off a name. The name adjusted the knot of his tie and went into a room down the hall where five other men in pin-striped suits sat around a table deciding who was to get the Big Scholarship. Each time someone was summoned the other flannels wished him luck. After he had left someone who knew him would tell of what a great guy he was and how intelligent and how much he had done at the school. They could do that, because there were two Scholarships to be given out.

This had been going on since ten in the morning, and it was now seven at night and the flannels were beginning to lose their press. The office building had long since closed, so whenever footsteps were heard everybody tensed, because it might be the man with the decision. Usually it was just a scrubwoman. Once all the pin-stripes passed by, and everyone tensed just a little more but they were only going to the men's room. None of the flannels went to the men's room while the pin-stripes were in there.

The fellow from Yale who was Varsity tennis and Bones was worried because they had asked him why he had dropped out of the ROTC. He was talking to the one from Yeshiva who seemed more worried about missing his fencing meet that night. The Cornell people had cancelled their plane reservations three times already and everyone was complaining that this thing was really dragging out. But no one left.

When someone came back from the interview room he was besieged with questions: What did they ask you? Wasn't the guy on the right a bastard, Did they try to draw you into an argument, Did they ask you about the Ike speech? What did you say?

It turned out that they were asking everyone the same questions, but getting different answers, and one flannel wondered why another had answered as well as he had thought maybe another had answered in that way and thought. But anyway, there are two scholarships to be given out.

And while they were waiting for the next man to come back they played Do You Know and the fellow from Columbia cracked jokes and a pair from Harvard acted sufficiently intellectual for the others to tell one another that they thought those Harvard guys had the Scholarship sewed up.

At eleven at night, just as someone was calculating how many man hours had been spent waiting, a lookout reported that the pin-stripes were coming. the twenty-five grey flannels jumped to their feet, smoothed their wrinkles and stood erect, wearing the same bright grins they had worn in the interview room. The chief pinstripe said something about what a hard choice it was. Then he announced the winners, and the others shook their hands and murmured congratulations. Then, with a final, faded smile in he direction of the pin-stripes, they walked quickly out the door and into the rainy street. They knew they would feel much better as soon as they got back to the Frat, to the Bones, to classes, and to the fencing team.