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Amory rather scornfully avoided the popular professors who dispensed easy epigrams and thimblefuls of Chartreuse to groups of admirers every night. He was disappointed, too, at the air of general uncertainty on every subject that seemed linked with the pedantic temperament; his opinions took shape in a miniature satire called “In a Lecture-Room,” which he persuaded Tom to print in the Nassau Litt.

“Good-morning, Fool …

Three times a week

You hold us helpless while you speak,

Teasing our thirsty souls with the

Sleek ‘yeas’ of your philosophy …

Well, here we are, your hundred sheep,

Tune up, play on, pour forth … we sleep …

You are a student, so they say;

You hammered out the other day

A syllabus, from what we know

Of some forgotten folio;

You’d sniffled through an era’s must,

Filling your nostrils up with dust,

And then, arising from your knees,

Published, in one gigantic sneeze …

But here’s a neighbor on my right,

An Eager Ass, considered bright;

Asker of questions…. How he’ll stand,

With earnest air and fidgy hand,