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Ab Initio.
29

ing up at the campus. "Can you tell me where I would find the college officers?"

"Yes, indeed," was the answer, "we are all going over that way. Have you come to pay our honored college a visit, or do you intend to enroll your name as an applicant for the degree of A.S.S.?"

"I don't know," replied the broad-shouldered young man, who towered above the crowd around him, "I've come to try for the examinations."

A fox terrier with a roguish black eye had been sniffing around his trousers. He bent down and patted the dog as he picked up his bag.

"You had a very narrow escape with your life," said another young man, who had drawn back with an assumption of horror, "that dog likes fresh meat."

"Pooh! He looks good-natured," said the "Hoosier," tweaking the dog's ear. He did not seem to be at all overcome by his surroundings.

The party crossed a desert of cinders and loose gravel and climbed some worn stone steps up to the campus.