Late yesterday afternoon the managing editor came into the Sanctum, where we were lying on the couch, busily doing nothing. "Are you asleep?" he asked.

"Yes," we said.

He tiptoed out softly, so as not to wake us, and we began to wonder what he would have done if we had said, "No." Presently we found out, as he came back an asked us again. And we said we weren't. Beside being the truth, this was a bad guess, because he believed us.

"Will you," he whispered in a sinister manner, "commit a Crime?."

"What?" we shouted, hardly believing our ears. It is getting so, these days, with the baseball scandal and the biographies of George Washington, that you can't believe anything. Our ears are not as righteous as some cars we know. Our incorruptibility, on the other hand, is a by word--or should we say, perhaps, not a buy-word?

"No, no," he hastened to assure us, noting with compassion our blanched cheek and trembling cigarette, "I mean write a Crime Column."

We considered a minute, and then said, "Why, yes, my son, we'll do our best, and folks don't have to read the rest." And then it came to us that that rhymed, and it helped tremendously.

The Plaint of The Stag

The stag at eve had drunk his fill

Of gin and Scotch and what you will,

And reeling home down Boylston Street,

A portly cop he chanced to meet.

"Avast!" the cop in wonder cried,

"Why reel from side to side?"

The figure paused and tried to drape

About a post his manly shape.

One post was there quite plain in view,

But in his vision there were two,

And with the most especial care,

He leaned upon the post of air.

The cop looked down in deep disgust

As there he wallowed in the dust.

Said he, "This bird is soaking wet,

A pickled Harvard lad, I'll bet."

At that the stewed gent sobered up

Said he, "You little, knock-kneed pup,

No son of Harvard could wine

And Scotch and gin as I hold mine;

I don't drink mine from flasks and cups

Like all these Johnny Harvard pups:

In fact, it's no exaggeration,

I get mine at a filling station,

But how can man his sorrows drown

In this old run-down sleepy town

Where they extinguish lights at ten,

And lamp-posts don't support he-men

I'm going back where life is bright,

Where joy flows free and night ain't night,--

I'll pick my bones from off this pavin'

And hie me back to old New Haven."

Such Popularity Must be Deserved

Along about now, we have heard, there come the mid-year examinations. Every columnist and editorial writer is expected to mention these. Well, we have. . . . So there.

It has also been said that one who is absolutely ignorant of a subject is best fitted to write about that subject. According to this, we are supremely qualified to write about mid-years. But we have to show off.

It must have been the beef. We've never been this way before. It's all a pack of lies. But tonight the waiter brought us some red, red beef. It looked quite angry or embarrassed, two conditions which induce rudd' ness. But the white-coated Ganymede quieted our fears. "It's rare, not very well done," he vowed.

The time is up. Gentlemen, like the beef, this is a rare column.