Spring had slipped
into Jonathan Swift’s world overnight.
It had dusted the greenness of Ireland with an
overlay of omnipotent yellow, which colored the very air
outside.
Jonathan, now a
sixteen-year-old Trinity College student, ripe for a
rites of passage adventure, sat in his hard oak desk in
Room 26 in a semi-stupor of boredom.
But before he could devise a plot for
overthrowing the tardy instructor, Provost Marsh strode
purposefully into the room and commandeered the
students’ attention.
“St. George Ashe is ill today and I’m standing in
for him,” he explained, looking around the room as if to
impale any student who might be considering delinquency.
Jonathan did not share
his classmates’ awe of the Provost.
In fact, he disliked him and his pompousness.
But he perked up.
Maybe some mischief would save the day.
“I understand that Mr.
Willoughby is to give a report today on the women in
Homer’s work,” the Provost began, glancing around the
room in search of the student.
Twenty pairs of eyes focused on the hapless
Willoughby, where he sat in the middle desk on the front
row. Every
student there was prepared to place his hand on the
Bible and swear that Willoughby had had a heart attack
and gone to heaven.
Jonathan was eager to
join the conspiracy.
He considered creating a distraction, such as
staging an epileptic fit, to allow Willoughby to flee.
But it was too late.
The man of the hour, who was not strong
intellectually, raised his hand timidly and heroically
admitted his identity.
“Come forward, Sir,
and use the podium.
I will take your seat.”
And to the delight of the students, he squeezed
his considerable bulk first one way and then another,
wheezing and grunting.
Jonathan was no longer bored.
“My cup runneth over,” he thought, waiting for
Willoughby to take center stage.
In the grip of an archetypal creative
impulse, Jonathan flashed a
signal to Skinny Ivers, sitting two desks behind the
Provost, who had no clue he was in jeopardy.
Skinny had a heart of gold,
feet of clay, and a torso like an
exclamation point.
He groaned silently at the pleasure of having the
popular Jonathan Swift involve him in his mischief.
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