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363 I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It's awful. If I'm on my way to
364 the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I'm going, I'm liable to
365 say I'm going to the opera. It's terrible. So when I told old Spencer I had to go to the gym
366 and get my equipment and stuff, that was a sheer lie. I don't even keep my goddam
367 equipment in the gym.
368 Where I lived at Pencey, I lived in the Ossenburger Memorial Wing of the new
369 dorms. It was only for juniors and seniors. I was a junior. My roommate was a senior. It
370 was named after this guy Ossenburger that went to Pencey. He made a pot of dough in
371 the undertaking business after he got out of Pencey. What he did, he started these
372 undertaking parlors all over the country that you could get members of your family
373 buried for about five bucks apiece. You should see old Ossenburger. He probably just
374 shoves them in a sack and dumps them in the river. Anyway, he gave Pencey a pile of
375 dough, and they named our wing alter him. The first football game of the year, he came
376 up to school in this big goddam Cadillac, and we all had to stand up in the grandstand and
377 give him a locomotive--that's a cheer. Then, the next morning, in chapel, be made a
378 speech that lasted about ten hours. He started off with about fifty corny jokes, just to
379 show us what a regular guy he was. Very big deal. Then he started telling us how he was
380 never ashamed, when he was in some kind of trouble or something, to get right down his
381 knees and pray to God. He told us we should always pray to God--talk to Him and all--
382 wherever we were. He told us we ought to think of Jesus as our buddy and all. He said he
383 talked to Jesus all the time. Even when he was driving his car. That killed me. I just see
384 the big phony bastard shifting into first gear and asking Jesus to send him a few more
385 stiffs. The only good part of his speech was right in the middle of it. He was telling us all
386 about what a swell guy he was, what a hot-shot and all, then all of a sudden this guy
387 sitting in the row in front of me, Edgar Marsalla, laid this terrific fart. It was a very crude
388 thing to do, in chapel and all, but it was also quite amusing. Old Marsalla. He damn near
389 blew the roof off. Hardly anybody laughed out loud, and old Ossenburger made out like
390 he didn't even hear it, but old Thurmer, the headmaster, was sitting right next to him on
391 the rostrum and all, and you could tell he heard it. Boy, was he sore. He didn't say
392 anything then, but the next night he made us have compulsory study hall in the academic
393 building and he came up and made a speech. He said that the boy that had created the
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