"Paul's Case" by Willa Cather is, as the subtitle states, "a study in temperament." The story chronicles a few months in the life of Paul, a student at Pittsburgh High School, who would rather be at the opera than in class.
The story begins with Paul's faculty hearing one week after he has been suspended from school. Paul is smiling, and his accusers find his appearance—especially the red carnation in his lapel— "not properly significant of the contrite spirit befitting a boy under the ban of suspension." The teachers, full of ill will, list disorder and impertinence as two of the charges against him, but they feel it "scarcely possible to put into words the real cause of the trouble."
Paul is described as "suave," having eyes with "a certain hysterical.....
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