The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; Read or Listen the Short Story

December 13, 2009 by storybus

to the door. "Get out," he said. "Get
out of college and get out of town. You are a dangerous lunatic."

"I am eighteen."

Mr. Hart opened the door. "The idea!" he shouted. "A man of your age
trying to enter here as a freshman. Eighteen years old, are you? Well,
I'll give you eighteen minutes to get out of town."

Benjamin Button walked with dignity from the room, and half a dozen
undergraduates, who were waiting in the hall, followed him curiously
with their eyes. When he had gone a little way he turned around, faced
the infuriated registrar, who was still standing in the door-way, and
repeated in a firm voice: "I am eighteen years old."

To a chorus of titters which went up from the group of undergraduates,
Benjamin walked away.

But he was not fated to escape so easily. On _his melancholy walk to
the railroad station he found that he was being followed by a group,
then by a swarm, and finally by a dense mass of undergraduates. The
word had gone around that a lunatic had passed the entrance
examinations for Yale and attempted to palm himself off as a youth of
eighteen. A fever of excitement permeated the college. Men ran hatless
out of classes, the football team abandoned its practice and joined
the mob, professors' wives with bonnets awry and bustles out of
position, ran shouting after the procession, from which proceeded a
continual succession of remarks aimed at the tender sensibilities of
Benjamin Button.

"He must be the wandering Jew!"

"He ought to go to prep school at _his age!"

"Look at the infant prodigy!" "He thought t_his was the old men's
home."

"Go up to Harvard!"

Benjamin increased _his gait, and soon he was running. He would show
them! He would go to Harvard, and then they would regret these
ill-considered taunts!

Safely on board the train for Baltimore, he put _his head from the
window. "You'll regret t_his!" he shouted.

"Ha-ha!" the undergraduates laughed. "Ha-ha-ha!" It was the biggest
mistake that Yale College had ever made....

In 1880 Benjamin Button was twenty years old, and he signalized _his
birthday by going to work for _his father in Roger Button & Co.,
Wholesale Hardware. It was in that same year that he began "going out
socially"--that is, _his father insisted on taking him to several
fashionable dances. Roger Button was now fifty, and he and _his son
were more and more companionable--in fact, since Benjamin had ceased
to dye _his hair (which was still grayish) they appeared about the same
age, and could have passed for brothers.

One night in August they got into the phaeton attired in their
full-dress suits and drove out to a dance at the Shevlins' country
house, situated just outside of Baltimore. It was a gorgeous evening.
A full moon drenched the road to the lusterless color of

Author:

F Scott Fitzgerald