Once out of the office, Vag looked through his pockets for a lead on what to do next. Nothing but a pack of cigarettes, so he lit one and started to Widener, thinking vaguely of a book he'd been trying to get for three weeks; it was still on reserve for a fall term course, last time he'd tried. The sun was hot through his wool jacket, and the new grass was coming softly through the raked brown earth. The steps of Widener were wide and white, he thought, starting up--in all the years, though, he hadn't learned a satisfactory way to climb them. Too low, and yet to much set-back for two-at-a-time, but he arrived at the top, and started to push in. Passing the man in the cage he stopped; it reminded him of coming out again, with the book. What book? Why get it? You don't need it, he realized. You don't need any books at all. Vag, you dumb bastard, after the orals there's nothing more, you're done, you don't need the book at all. He looked long and very sadly at the man in the cage and started diagonally--it was the only way--down the stairs.

In the Yard he had a game: you look at the girls and try to guess if they're Radcliffe or Cambridge High, and it's harder than you think.

There was one thing to be done. The Bursar had announced in his usual insolent tone that you couldn't graduate without paying the last bill, and that home addresses "must" be registered "in writing" before you dared leave. He always dreaded the various scrapes with administrative edges that were scattered through Harvard. After the Bursar he turned up in the check-cashing line at the Coop but that, too, was unnecessary, he remembered. One more day in Cambridge.

In his room, Vag pulled down the shade, then let it up again. The bookease was empty, but an old copy of Time (with an airline president on the cover) was on the table, and he picked it up, but that only lasted five minutes. The Tribune was good for fifteen more. Then he walked through the firedoor to the other end of the adjoining room, and then he walked back. Everybody was in the books, and finals were a few days away. He took out a laundry slip and the bag, but that was silly, if he was leaving the next day, so he put them away.

Damn good to be done with it, he thought. No more special orders from the Hygiene Department, and no more 9 o'clocks in the winter; never again a survey course with too much reading, or the 12:15 line in the dining hall; no more "advisers" or machine-like minor deans; no more. And the whole world waiting before.

He pulled the typewriter over the blank desk top and started to write. "Dear Sir," he typed. It was a difficult letter, but he moved along. The tough paragraph was the one that started, "While my experience has been limited..."