The Efficiency Expert | Page 4

Drawing to
a close were the nearly four years of his college career--profitable years, Jimmy
considered them, and certainly successful up to this point. In the beginning of his senior
year he had captained the varsity eleven, and in the coming spring he would again sally
forth upon the diamond as the star initial sacker of collegedom.
His football triumphs were in the past, his continued baseball successes a foregone
conclusion--if he won to-night his cup of happiness, and an unassailably dominant
position among his fellows, would be assured, leaving nothing more, in so far as Jimmy
reasoned, to be desired from four years attendance at one of America's oldest and most
famous universities.
The youth who would dispute the right to championship honors with Jimmy was a dark
horse to the extent that he was a freshman, and, therefore, practically unknown. He had
worked hard, however, and given a good account of himself in his preparations for the
battle, and there were rumors, as there always are about every campus, of marvelous
exploits prior to his college days. It was even darkly hinted that he was a professional
pugilist. As a matter of fact, he was the best exponent of the manly art of self-defense that
Jimmy Torrance had ever faced, and in addition thereto he outweighed the senior and
outreached him.

The boxing contest, as the faculty members of the athletic committee preferred to call it,
was, from the tap of the gong, as pretty a two-fisted scrap as ever any aggregation of
low-browed fight fans witnessed. The details of this gory contest, while interesting, have
no particular bearing upon the development of this tale. What interests us is the outcome,
which occurred in the middle of a very bloody fourth round, in which Jimmy Torrance
scored a clean knock-out.
It was a battered but happy Jimmy who sat in his room the following Monday afternoon,
striving to concentrate his mind upon a college text-book which should, by all the laws of
fiction, have been 'well thumbed,' but in reality, possessed unruffled freshness which
belied its real age.
"I wish," mused Jimmy, "that I could have got to the bird who invented mathematics
before he inflicted all this unnecessary anguish upon an already unhappy world. In about
three rounds I could have saved thousands from the sorrow which I feel every time I open
this blooming book."
He was still deeply engrossed in the futile attempt of accomplishing in an hour that for
which the college curriculum set aside several months when there came sounds of
approaching footsteps rapidly ascending the stairway. His door was unceremoniously
thrown open, and there appeared one of those strange apparitions which is the envy and
despair of the small-town youth--a naturally good-looking young fellow, the sartorial arts
of whose tailor had elevated his waist-line to his arm-pits, dragged down his shoulders,
and caved in his front until he had the appearance of being badly dished from chin to
knees. His trousers appeared to have been made for a man with legs six inches longer
than his, while his hat was evidently several sizes too large, since it would have entirely
extinguished his face had it not been supported by his ears.
"Hello, Kid!" cried Jimmy. "What's new?"
"Whiskers wants you," replied the other. "Faculty meeting. They just got through with
me."
"Hell!" muttered Jimmy feelingly. "I don't know what Whiskers wants with me, but he
never wants to see anybody about anything pleasant."
"I am here," agreed the other, "to announce to the universe that you are right, Jimmy. He
didn't have anything pleasant to say to me. In fact, he insinuated that dear old alma mater
might be able to wiggle along without me if I didn't abjure my criminal life. Made some
nasty comparison between my academic achievements and foxtrotting. I wonder, Jimmy,
how they get that way?"
"That's why they are profs." explained Jimmy. "There are two kinds of people in this
world--human beings and profs. When does he want me?"
"Now."
Jimmy arose and put on his hat and coat. "Good-by, Kid," he said. "Pray for me, and

leave me one cigarette to smoke when I get back." and, grinning, he left the room.
James Torrance, Jr., was not greatly abashed as he faced the dour tribunal of the faculty.
The younger members, among whom were several he knew to be mighty good fellows at
heart, sat at the lower end of the long table, and with owlish gravity attempted to emulate
the appearance and manners of their seniors. At the head of the table sat Whiskers, as the
dignified and venerable president of the university was popularly named. It was generally
believed and solemnly sworn to throughout the large corps of undergraduates that within
the knowledge of any living