24 WALL STREET AND THE WILDS 



For a time I shared a room in the Latin Com- 

 mons with Flavius Josephus Cook of Ticon- 

 deroga, New York. Later he cut down his pon- 

 derous name, and became the Rev. Joseph Cook 

 of Boston, but his ponderous mind stayed by 

 him. He was the pride and the puzzle of the 

 school, and I could to-day repeat much of his fa- 

 mous oration, "The Truth Teller," the delivery 

 of which so prolonged a session of the Philoma- 

 thean Society that Uncle Sam rose from his bed 

 and came over to the old stone academy to ad- 

 journ the meeting with invective. 



With Wm. P. Alcott, Cook founded the Eu- 

 reka, or Hygeian, popularly known as the Hy- 

 ena Club. Of this my mother wrote to me, "I 

 don't like your new club. Peanuts and prunes 

 are not proper food for growing boys." 



Alcott wrote in my autograph book, "Let us 

 live for eternity, Wm. P. Alcott," and if the club 

 had lasted a few weeks longer he would have had 

 us all there. 



Cook covered a page in that autograph book 

 with, 



