Word: vag
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Vag staggered waveringly into his room, his senses dead, his mind a buzzing, clattering chaos of emptiness. Somewhere ahead in the vague, formless distance a chair loomed up, sunk out of sight, bobbed up again, and finally disappeared. As he was subconsciously wondering where it had gone, the Vagabond felt something hard and unyielding below him; looking down, he made out the dim outlines of the chair, its arms surrounding him familiarly. That's where it is, his mind said to itself automatically, and as the walls bowed and nodded and pirrouetted their assent, Vag tried to pull himself together...
...soft light on the dirty sidewalk, the modest little brass sign--"The Crimson." Vag turned in at the door, with a mental prayer that none of the editors would forget to be there. They hadn't: Cleveland, Brookline, Wisconsin, Illinois, Kentucky, Cincinnati and New York--what a joyous progeny of Uncle Sam! And there, hanging from the chandelier grinning inanely was Inchball, good old Feather stone cough, who never failed to wing his way from Shangri-La for this sad, glad occasion. Vag felt a sudden exuberance, even before the punch was made; he was amoosed though confoosed...
Four-thirty on the dot, and they poured into the Sacred Room--many for the last time, Vag thought, with his lip 'trembling. Four eventful years he had known them, or almost, from their first naive appearance in the Square which Recognizes Neither Birth Nor Breed. And now they doffed their childish honors and went forth into a stern intense world. The Vagabond perched himself on the back of the President's chair and listened to the reports. Words, words, words, words, so cheerful, so gallantly smutty, and so terribly inadequate. "To be at home in all lands and ages...
Inchball glided down from the chandelier and settled beside the Vagabond. "I couldn't help overhearing your thoughts, Vag," he squeaked. "You may be right, but I think this is the end. Look at the draft! Look at the decline in advertising! How about paper shortage; how about war-time censorship; how about the drop in enrollment...
Just for a minute, Vag doubted; then he curled his lip and smiled scornfully at Inchball. ""Tis truth, with deference to the college," he quoted, "newspapers are the fount of knowledge. America can't win. America can't survive, without free and adequate reporting. The Crimson will appear tomorrow morning, and the next and the next and the next. We cannot guarantee to print notices received after 7 o'clock. Honeychile--let us join the others at the flowing bowl...