Letters from a Son to His Self-Made FatherBeing the Replies to Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son
Cambridge well enough daytimes, but the most interesting thing in it is the electric car that runs to Boston.

I realize that my expenses grow heavier each month, but money not only has wings, but swims like a duck, and the fashionable[Pg 23] fluid to float it is costly. I'm really beginning to believe that a man who can read, write and speak seven or eight languages may be an utter failure unless he's able to say "No" in at least one of them.

[Pg 23]

The problem of how to get rich has not yet been reached in the Higher Mathematics course and so it's not worrying me, as you seem to think. But of course I don't want to cast reflections on the solvency of the house of Graham & Co., so I try to keep my end up. It's expensive, for there are fellows here who've got bigger fools than I have for—but this wasn't what I started to say. All men may be born equal, but they get over it a good sight easier than they do the measles; and while some of the fellows have to study in cold rooms, others have money to burn. Poverty may not be a crime, but it's a grave misdemeanor in Cambridge.

I am grieved, my dear father, to have you say that you haven't noticed any signs of my taking honors here at Cambridge. You cannot have read the society columns of the Boston papers, or you would have seen that I have already a degree from the Cotillion Society, as being a proficient[Pg 24] student of the German; am entitled to the letters B.A.A. after my name—a privilege granted by a learned Boston organization after very severe tests, and have been extended the freedom of Boston Common by the aldermen of the city. If these things don't justify the inking up of a few pink slips, you can souse my knuckles. It grieves me to have you fail to appreciate what I've accomplished. I am trying to do your credit,—what a foolish little slip; rub the "r" from "your" and you'll see my meaning.

[Pg 24]

Another thing that proves my high standing in college is the fact that I've been admitted to the D.K.E., playfully known here as the "Dicky," a very exclusive and high-toned literary and debating society, specially patronized by the Faculty. The initiation ceremonies are very curious, and I really believe you would laugh to see some of the innocent little pranks the new men cut up. They are sent around town and over into Boston dressed in quaint garb and instructed to ask roguish questions of any they meet. This is to give them self-possession in debate and calmness in facing the battles of life. It would meet with your hearty approval, 
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