Seated in front of these establishments, taking their ease as if beer sampling constituted the only real interest in their lives, were hundreds of students, reckless and dare-devil, and suggesting almost anything except serious study.

They all wore frock coats and tall silk hats, and some of the latter were wonderful specimens of the hatter's art.

A few of the more eccentric students had long hair down to their shoulders, and wore baggy peg-top trousers of extravagant cut, which hung in loose folds over their sharp-pointed boots.

On their heads were queer plug hats with flat brims.
Shirley laughed outright and regretted that she did not have her kodak to take back to America some idea of their grotesque appearance, and she listened with amused interest as Jefferson explained that these men were notorious _poseurs_, aping the dress and manners of the old-time student as he flourished in the days of Randolph and Mimi and the other immortal characters of Murger's Bohemia.

Nobody took them seriously except themselves, and for the most part they were bad rhymesters of decadent verse.