The Plastic Age - Percy Marks (i have read the book .TXT) 📗

getting into little groups and covering each other with filth? College men are supposed to be gentlemen, and we talk like a lot of gutter-pups.” Winsor was a sophomore, a fine student, and thoroughly popular. He looked like an unkempt Airedale. His clothes, even when new, never looked neat, and his rusty hair refused to lie flat. He had an eager, quick way about him, and his brown eyes were very bright and lively.

“Yes, that’s what I want to know,” Hugh chimed in, forgetting all about his desire to leave. “I’m always sitting in on bull sessions, but I think they’re rotten. About every so often I make up my mind that I won’t take part in another one, and before I know it somebody’s telling me the latest and I’m listening for all I’m worth.”

“That’s easy,” ’ Melville Burbank answered. He was a junior with a brilliant record. “You’re merely sublimating your sex instincts, that’s all. If you played around with cheap women more, you wouldn’t be thinking about sex all the time and talking smut.”

“You’re crazy!” It was Keith Nutter talking, a sophomore notorious for his dissipations. “Hell, I’m out with bags all the time, as you damn well know. My sex instincts don’t need sublimating, or whatever you call it, and I talk smut as much as anybody⁠—more than some.”

“Perhaps you’re just naturally dirty,” Burbank said, his voice edged with sarcasm. He didn’t like Nutter. The boy seemed gross to him.

“Go to hell! I’m no dirtier than anybody else.” Nutter was not only angry but frankly hurt. “The only difference between me and the rest of you guys is that I admit that I chase around with rats, and the rest of you do it on the sly. I’m no hypocrite.”

“Oh, come off, Keith,” Gordon Ross said quietly; “you’re not fair. I admit that lots of the fellows are chasing around with rats on the sly, but lots of them aren’t, too. More fellows go straight around this college than you think. I know a number that have never touched a woman. They just hate to admit they’re pure, that’s all; and you take their bluff for the real thing.”

“You’ve got to show me.” Nutter was almost sullen. “I admit that I’m no angel, but I don’t believe that I’m a damn bit worse than the average. Besides, what’s wrong about it, anyhow? It’s just as natural as eating, and I don’t see where there is anything worse about it.”

George Winsor stood up and leaned against the mantel. He ran his fingers through his hair until it stood grotesquely on end. “Oh, that’s the old argument. I’ve heard it debated in a hundred bull sessions. One fellow says it’s all wrong, and another fellow says it’s all right, and you never get anywhere. I want somebody to tell me what’s wrong about it and what’s right. God knows you don’t find out in your classes. They have Doc Conners give those smut talks to us in our freshman year, and a devil of a lot of good they do. A bunch of fellows faint and have to be lugged out, and the Doc gives you some sickening details about venereal diseases, and that’s as far as you get. Now, I’m all messed up about this sex business, and I’ll admit that I’m thinking about it all the time, too. Some fellows say it’s all right to have a woman, and some fellows say it’s all wrong, but I notice none of them have any use for a woman who isn’t straight.”

All of the boys were sitting in easy-chairs except Donald Ferguson, who was lying on the couch and listening in silence. He was a handsome youth with Scotch blue eyes and sandy hair. Women were instantly attracted by his good looks, splendid physique, slow smile, and quiet drawl.

He spoke for the first time. “The old single-standard fight,” he said, propping his head on his hand. “I don’t see any sense in scrapping about that any more. We’ve got a single standard now. The girls go just as fast as the fellows.”

“Oh, that’s not so,” Hugh exclaimed. “Girls don’t go as far as fellows.”

Ferguson smiled pleasantly at Hugh and drawled; “Shut up, innocent; you don’t know anything about it. I tell you the old double standard has gone all to hell.”

“You’re exaggerating, Don, just to get Hugh excited,” Ross said in his quiet way. “There are plenty of decent girls. Just because a lot of them pet on all occasions isn’t any reason to say that they aren’t straight. I’m older than you fellows, and I guess I’ve had a lot more experience than most of you. I’ve had to make my own way since I was a kid, and I’ve bumped up against a lot of rough customers. I worked in a lumber camp for a year, and after you’ve been with a gang like that for a while, you’ll understand the difference between them and college fellows. Those boys are bad eggs. They just haven’t any morals, that’s all. They turn into beasts every pay night; and bad as some of our college parties are, they aren’t a circumstance to a lumber town on pay night.”

“That’s no argument,” George Winsor said excitedly, taking his pipe out of his mouth and gesticulating with it. “Just because a lumberjack is a beast is no reason that a college man is all right because he’s less of a beast. I tell you I get sick of my own thoughts, and I get sick of the college when I hear about some things that are done. I keep straight, and I don’t know why I do, I despise about half the fellows that chase around with rats, and sometimes I envy them like hell. Well, what’s the sense in me keeping straight? What’s the sense in anybody keeping straight? Fellows that don’t seem to get along just as well as those that do. What do you think, Mel? You’ve been reading