CASUS BELLI
THEREhas long been current in New Haven what is sure to be an apocryphal story of college loyalty, told at the expense of Anson Phelps Stokes, the popular secretary of Yale. Secretary Stokes is an ordained clergyman in the Episcopal Church, and, so the story goes, as he was once journeying west on the train in non-clerical garb, a man of the self-appointed missionary type approached, and asked him solemnly:
“I beg your pardon, sir, but are you a Christian man?”
Startled, Dr. Stokes looked up and said:
“Oh, d—— it, no.”
The man turned to go, saying in a deeply offended tone:
“Well, I only asked you if you were a Christian man. I don’t see—”
Impulsively, Dr. Stokes caught him by the arm.
“Oh, I beg your pardon,” he said. “I beg your pardon. I thought you asked me if I was a Princeton man!”