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Harvard Stories: Sketches of the Undergraduate

by Waldron Kintzing Post · English · Gutenberg #34857 · 355,421 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Harvard Stories: Sketches of the Undergraduate

Author: Waldron Kintzing Post


        
Release date: January 5, 2011 [eBook #34857]

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARVARD STORIES: SKETCHES OF THE UNDERGRADUATE ***




Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan and the Online
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                          HARVARD STORIES

                   SKETCHES OF THE UNDERGRADUATE

                     BY WALDRON KINTZING POST


    G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

    NEW YORK; LONDON
    27 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET; 24 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND

    The Knickerbocker Press

    1895

    COPYRIGHT, 1893
    BY WALDRON KINTZING POST

    Electrotyped, Printed and Bound by
    The Knickerbocker Press, New York
    G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

    TO
    THE CLASS OF '90




PREFACE.


I cannot expect any one to be interested in these stories who is not
interested in the scenes where they are laid. To you, my class-mates and
contemporaries, I need make no apology. We always gave each other freely
the valuable gift Burns asked of the gods; my shortcomings I shall learn
soon enough--especially if I have written anything false or pretentious.
But I feel sure that anything about Harvard, however imperfect, will not
be unwelcome to you--provided it is true. We are scattered far apart and
cannot often meet to talk over old times; perhaps these recollections
may partially serve at times, in the place of an old chum, to bring back
the days when we were all together. They are only yarns and pictures of
us boys; but you will think no worse of them for that. The higher
traditions of the old place I have dared in only one instance to
approach.

    "The great and the good in their beautiful prime
    Through those precincts have musingly trod,"

and for that we reverence, we glory in those precincts; is it
profanation to add that we also love them, because we ourselves have
rollicked through them, with Jack, Ned, and Dick?

One thing, however, I must say to you before you begin to read. You will
quickly see that I can claim little originality in the following
stories. They are almost all founded on actual occurrences of either our
own college life, or that of undergrads. before us. Some of the
incidents came under my own notice, others happened to men of whom I do
not even know the names, but who, I trust, will forgive my use of their
experiences. But let no one imagine that, in any of the characters, he
recognizes either himself or any one else. No one of us enters into
these pages,--though I have tried to draw parts of all.

Among you also, my older brothers, I hope to find readers. There have
been changes and developments since you were in college; many old
institutions have passed away and new ones taken their places; there may
be features in these sketches that you will not recognize; but in the
main, Alma Mater is still the same. Holworthy, with all its memories,
still gazes contemplatively down the green leafy Yard; the same old
buildings flank it on either hand. The white walls of University still
look across to the aged pair, Massachusetts and her partner, the head of
the family. The latter still rears his sonorous crest (in spite of all
your historic efforts to silence it); and is it not Jones who rings the
bell? The river is there, the elms are there; above all, the
undergraduate is there, and oh, reverend grads., from the tales I have
heard ye tell, I opine that the undergraduate is still the same. If I
can recall him to you in these sketches, if I can make one of you say,
"That is like old times," I shall have done all that I hope.




HARVARD STORIES.




JACK RATTLETON GOES TO SPRINGFIELD AND BACK.


The shadow of Massachusetts had reached across the Yard almost to
University Hall, which fact, ye who are ignorant of Harvard topography,
means that it was late in the afternoon. Hollis Holworthy was stretched
in his window seat with a book, of which, however, he was not reading
much, as his room was just then in use as a temporary club. It was the
month of November, but Holworthy kept the window open to let out the
volume of pipe smoke kindled by his gregarious friends. He and his chum
Rivers had an attractive room on the Yard, up only one flight of stairs,
and these little gatherings were apt to come upon them frequently. The
eleven was going to Springfield next day, so the foot-ball practice on
that afternoon had been short, and several of Holworthy's "gang" who had
been watching it had dropped into the room on their way back from Jarvis
Field. They were a typical set of Harvard men, hailing from various and
distant parts of the nation, and of various characters; yet all very
much alike in certain respects, after three years together around that
Yard. Rivers, part owner of the room, who had been playing foot-ball,
came in after the rest and announced joyfully that he had been
definitely assigned to the position of guard on the team.

"Sorry to hear it," growled Billy Bender, who was captain of the
University crew. "You are sure to get a bad knee or something, and be
spoiled for the boat. I lost two good men by foot-ball last year. If I
had my way I wouldn't let any of the rowing men play the confounded
game."

"If you had your way, you old crank," said Holworthy, "you'd strap every
man in college fast to an oar. Then you would stand over them and crack
a whip and have a bully time. You would have made a first-rate galley
master."

"I am tired to death of talking and hearing nothing but the game,"
declared Hudson. "I move to lay it on the table. There is nothing new to
guess about it. I don't see how we can lose, and you don't see how we
can lose, and no one sees how we can lose."

"That is apt to be the case at just this time," remarked Holworthy. "Two
days from now our vision may be woefully cleared up."

"Shut up, you old croaker," cried Burleigh, throwing a sofa cushion at
his host. The cushion knocked the book from Holworthy's hand and out of
the window.

"You go down and get that now, you pretty, playful child," said
Holworthy, indignantly. "Oh, thank you, yes, throw it up, please," he
continued to someone outside. "Much obliged. No, Rattleton isn't here. I
believe he went out for a ride."

"Who's that?" asked Randolph, as Holworthy drew in his head, having
caught the book.

"Varnum, the coxswain."

"What the deuce does he want with Jack Rattleton?" queried Burleigh.

"I am sure I don't know," answered Holworthy, "but he and Jack are great
pals, you know."

"What!" exclaimed Bender, who was not one of Rattleton's intimate
friends, "Varnum and Rattleton? That is the funniest combination I ever
heard of. The quietest, hardest worker in college, and the worst
loafer."

"You are wrong there," said Holworthy. "If you knew Jack as well as the
rest of us do, you'd know he was the best loafer in college."

"I believe that good-for-nothing chap would get up in the middle of the
night to be hanged for any one of us," added Rivers.

"I am not sure about the middle of the night," said Hudson, doubtfully.
"At any rate if he was to be hanged for it himself, he wouldn't get up
before nine in the morning."

"How did he happen to get thick with Varnum?" inquired Bender.

"First they sat next to each other in some course," explained Holworthy.
"One day Jack was out in his dog-cart, I believe, and met Varnum walking
and picked him up. Jack was a Sophomore then, but a pretty good sort of
a Soph., and I think he was rather surprised and interested at
discovering that there were men in this University outside of his own
little set, and of a new kind."

"That fellow Varnum is a rattler," said Rivers. "Hardly anyone knows him
except the crew men, and, I suppose, some of his Y. M. C. A. pals. He
has been making an awfully sandy fight of it, I can tell you, working
his way all through college. Why, do you know, that chap came up with
just two dollars and forty cents in his pocket!"

"There are lots of men doing just that sort of thing," declared Ernest
Gray, a sympathetic, enthusiastic little man. "Some day we'll be proud
of having been in the same class with some of those fellows. It's a
shame that we don't know all about all of 'em."

"Oh, well," said Burleigh, consolingly, "we can always let people think
we were hand in glove with the great men. 'Know him? Why he was a
classmate of mine'--all that sort of thing, you know."

"Yes," said Dick Stoughton, "it's a comfort to reflect that we can
always blow about them without taking the trouble to hunt them up now."

"Awful nuisance to chase up incipient and impecunious merit," added
Hudson.

"I suppose that's why you helped Jack Rattleton take care of Varnum when
he was sick. Why do you affected fools always want to cover up the
precious little good you have got in you?" demanded Gray, in a mixture
of sorrow and anger.

"One reason why they do it," said Holworthy, "is to make you flare up,
you little powder keg. Haven't you got used to it yet, after three
years?"

"Varnum is a first-rate coxswain, anyway," said Captain Bender, coming
down to his regular estimate of worth. "I ran across him last year when
I was looking for a light man to steer. It's lucky I did, too; for there
was a great dearth of rudder-men. This little firebrand Gray would have
wrecked the 'Varsity crew to a certainty. I watched him in the class
races last year--he came near grabbing stroke's oar and trying to pull
himself. He nearly killed his men yelling at them in the first mile."

"I should think he did," ejaculated Randolph, who had rowed in his class
crew.

"Well, we won, anyway," said Gray in defence.

"You bet we did," said Randolph, "and we tossed Gray in a blanket during
the celebration just to show there was no hard feeling, and give him all
the honors due to any coxswain."

"I hope Varnum won't be too busy to steer this year," said Bender. "He
has a lot to do always."

While this conversation was going on in Holworthy's room, the subject of
it, the man who "had a lot to do," continued on his way through the
Yard. Varnum's financial struggles had not been exaggerated by Rivers.
He had come up to college with almost nothing, except the clothes that
he wore and a strong heart under them. He had received help at starting
from the loan fund; by means of one of the numerous scholarships,
tutoring, and careful economy he had succeeded in clearing his debt by
his senior year. In the summer vacations he had supported himself and
laid up a little money, by all sorts of employments, from that of a
clerk in a country store to that of foremast hand on a yacht. Though he
worked at his studies hard enough to keep the necessary scholarship, he
was not a very high stand man. He was interested in some of the mission
work in Boston, and gave a great deal of time to "slumming."

During the last year, too, he had made a little spare time for steering
the University crew; for he found this to be a good relaxation from his
work, and, besides, it brought him in contact with men whom he would not
otherwise have met, many of them well worth knowing. He was not the sort
of man to make friends easily, in fact he had no really intimate
companion; but the man to whom he had been most attracted was one of
entirely opposite character, training, and associates. His friendship
with Jack Rattleton, which had been the subject of the conversation in
Holworthy's room, was not an uncommon case of the attraction of
extremes. Rattleton's weak nature was easily drawn to a strong one, and
on the other hand "Lazy Jack Rat" was a source of amusement and interest
to Varnum.

The latter once in telling Rattleton about himself had said laughingly,
"My father was very much opposed to my trying to work through Harvard.
He had terrible ideas about the old place; said it was a rich man's
college, and if I got through it at all I should learn nothing but
extravagance and evil. I have rather changed his notions now, I think;
but, Rattleton, I should be afraid to show you to him, as my nearest
approach to a friend."

"Why," the ingenuous Rattleton had replied, opening his mild eyes as
though a little hurt as well as wondering; "I dare say I am an ass, but
I don't do you any harm, do I?"

"Not a bit," answered Varnum, smiling; "on the contrary, you do me lots
of good. Horrible example, you know; but if my old father ever comes to
see me, don't offer to take him out in that dog-cart of yours."

"Why, it is perfectly safe," Jack had declared; "and I should be very
glad to give him a drive."

As Varnum left the Yard and turned into the Square, he saw a tall thin
figure approaching, astride of a diminutive polo pony, and followed by a
brindled bull-terrier. Why do the men with the longest legs always ride
the smallest horses, while the little men invariably perch up aloft on
the tallest animal they can find? The long-legged rider put his
ill-matched steed into a canter when he saw Varnum, and pulled up
alongside of him.

"Hullo, Varnum," he called with a little drawl; "while I think of it,
here's that five I owe you for tutoring. Why didn't you remind me of it
before?"

"I have just been looking for you to dun you," answered Varnum. "I want
a little cash very much just at present, so I am not going to tell you
to wait until any time that is convenient."

"Fool if you did," said Jack. "No time is ever convenient with me.
Somehow or other I seem to be hard up all the time. Oh, you needn't
laugh. I know I have rather more to spend than most fellows out here,
but that doesn't help me a bit when I've spent it. You needn't grin at
this nag either, you old monk, it hasn't been mine for some time. I had
to give it to that robber Flynn, the livery-man, for his bill. Don't
seem to have made much on the transaction, though, because now I have to
hire the beast. Flynn has my horse, hang him, and somehow I've still got
his bill."

"There is no doubt about it, Rattleton," said the other; "you will be
renowned as a philosopher some day. You keep discovering great truths
all the time."

"Are you going to the game?" asked Rattleton, turning the subject.

"That would be a useless question to ask most men," said Varnum; "it is
equally useless to ask me. Of course I am not."

"Not?" exclaimed Jack. "Nonsense! You're not going to stay all by
yourself here in Cambridge? Come now, old grind, do take a day off."

"No," said Varnum, a little sadly, shaking his head; "I can't do it. I
can't spare either the time or the money. Besides I have something on my
hands that I can't drop just at present."

"Bet I know," said Rattleton. "It is some of your confounded indigent
kid business. Of course, that sort of thing is bully and I admire you
for it, you know, and all that; but I should think you might leave the
indigents alone for one day."

"Well, you see I am one myself," laughed Varnum. "Really I can't afford
it, so I don't deserve any credit for sticking by the other paupers."

"The special rates to Springfield are very low," urged Jack. "I tell you
what you can do;--just what I'm going to do. Bet your expenses on the
game and then it will all be on Yale."

"And if we lose?" queried Varnum.

"Oh, well, if we lose, we'll only be hard up, just as we are now," was
the assuring response.

"I see I have not been tutoring you in Pol. Econ. for nothing," said
Varnum. "No, Rattleton, I'd give anything I could afford to see that
game, but I can't afford anything, so don't stir me up about it."

"All right, have your own way. Come 'round and dine with me to-night."

Varnum assented, and Rattleton, calling out to his dog, "come along,
Blathers," rode off to the stables. On the way to his room to change his
clothes he met the other men of his club table going from Holworthy's
room to dinner. He told them that Varnum was coming to his table, and
warned them not to talk constant foot-ball all through dinner.

"I wish I could help that chap out somehow," he said, discontentedly;
"he has got on to the tutoring dodge. He won't tutor me now, except when
there is an hour exam. coming, and he knows I have got to go to somebody
to be put through if I don't come to him."

On the following day the Harvard forces began to move on Springfield.
The game was to be played on Saturday, but many men went on Friday
afternoon, for there is great joy to be had in Springfield on the eve of
battle. The Glee Club always gives a concert, after which there is a
very fine ball, one of the Springfield Assemblies, I believe. There is
also apt to be another ball, a "sociable" of the something-or-other
coterie. Holworthy and Gray were on the Glee Club, and were going to the
Assembly. The others decided to go to Springfield on that night also,
and attend the other ball.

"Down with the bloated silk-stockings," declared Burleigh. "Let the
kid-gloved dudes dally with the pampered aristocracy. We are the people;
we'll go where we can turn in our waistcoats, stick our sailor-knots in
our shirt fronts, and be right in the top flight!"

The Glee Club men had rooms engaged. Hudson was on the shooting-team,
and therefore also had a room secured, and the two Jacks, Rattleton and
Randolph, were going on one of the club sleeping-cars. Burleigh and
Stoughton had no rooms, but were willing to take their chances of
getting one. Indeed, these two very rarely failed on an expedition of
this sort in getting the best of everything. They were both sons of the
energetic West, besides which Stoughton was famed for his craft, and was
the recognized Ulysses of "the gang." They had a very effective method
of working together in a crowd. Ned Burleigh was six feet three, and his
weight had never been accurately ascertained by his friends. Dick
Stoughton, on the other hand, was of a slight and active build. On
arriving at any town where there was a rush for the hotels, Burleigh
would breast the crowd with all the weight of his broad front.
Stoughton, following close at his back with both the portmanteaus, would
swing them, one on each side of Burleigh's legs, about knee high. Thus
they would cut their way through any crowd, and arriving at its front,
Ned would take the baggage and come along by slow freight, while Dick
dashed for the hotel.

This manoeuvre was successfully executed at Springfield, and Stoughton
secured the last room at the Massasoit House.

The Glee Club concert in the evening was a great success, and after it
was over the respectable element, consisting of Gray and Holworthy,
passed a very delightful evening at the Assembly ball. So, I grieve to
record, did the low-toned members of "the gang" at the other ball. At
the _soiree_ of the Social Club, Ned Burleigh obtained control of the
cotillion early in the evening. With Rattleton and Stoughton as right
hand men, he introduced many new and pleasing figures of his own
invention. In some way these three got unto themselves huge and gorgeous
badges, labelled "Floor Committee," and managed the whole affair with
wild success. Randolph, who came from the Sunny South, and "Colonel"
Dixey, of Kentucky, picked up one or two Yale men from their section of
the country, and organized an extempore Southern Club. If the governors
of the Carolinas had been with them, those celebrated dignitaries, I
suspect, would have experienced none of their proverbial trouble. As the
evening wore on, the Southern Club, in a true brotherly spirit, extended
its privileges to all the states and territories of the Union, and
initiated each new member. Hudson, at first, was disconsolate, for he
was on the shooting-club team that next day was to shoot a clay-pigeon
match against Yale before the game. He had strict orders to go to bed
early, and keep his eye clear for the next morning. At Dick Stoughton's
able suggestion, however, he hunted up a member of the Yale
shooting-team, and agreed to pair off with him. The excellence of this
fair parliamentary procedure forcibly struck all the representative
shots of both universities, except the captains. The captains of both
teams at first stormed, and swore that none of their men who stayed up
late or indulged in other startling innovations on the eve of battle,
should be allowed to shoot on the morrow. When they found, however, that
all their substitutes had "paired" also, they went off arm in arm, and
were found later in a corner with a large earnest bottle between them.
Altogether, as Burleigh said, "it was a very enjoyable occasion."

Next morning the clay-pigeon match came off, as usual, on the grounds of
the Springfield Gun Club. It resulted in a close and glorious victory
for Harvard, as the Yale team shot a little bit worse. It was a rather
costly triumph, however, for both teams with their supporters drove back
in a barge to the Massasoit House, and there had another meeting at the
expense of the victors. Those Harvard-Yale shooting-matches are a very
pleasant sport, and prolific of the best of feeling.

Before it was time to start for the battle-ground at Hampden Park,
certain financial transactions took place at the hotel. The slender
balance at the Cambridge National Bank, standing in the name of John
Rattleton, had been wiped out on the previous day, and most of it was
now deposited at the office of the Massasoit House in the joint names of
J. Rattleton and a man from New Haven, to become later the sole property
of one or the other. As Jack turned away from the clerk's desk, he met
the steady Holworthy face to face, and looked guilty.

"Have you been betting all your quarter's income as usual, you jackass?"
demanded Holworthy.

"No, only what is left of it," said Rattleton. "Might as well. If I
didn't bet it, I should have to lend it all to the rest of the gang, if
we get beaten. And suppose we win, as we are almost sure to, and I
hadn't taken a blue cent out of New Haven, and had to pay for my own
celebration; how should I feel then?" he demanded, triumphantly.

"Will you ever grow up?" asked Holworthy, shaking his head. "Don't come
running to me if we get thrashed, that is all. I hope you have kept your
return ticket to Cambridge."

"Oh, yes, I have that," answered Rattleton, reassuringly; "and I have
twenty-five dollars that I sha'n't put up unless I can get it up even.
These fellows want odds here, but I think I can find even money on the
field."

The Yale men are prudent bettors, however, and Jack did not "find even
money" at Hampden Park. In fact, at the last minute he could not get a
taker at any odds that even he was willing to offer. So he kept his last
twenty-five dollars, and took his seat with his friends, feeling that he
had not done his full duty.

All the morning the trains from New Haven, from Boston, from New York,
from everywhere within a six-hour radius, had been pouring their heavy
loads into Springfield. The north side of Hampden Park was a
crimson-dotted mass, nearly ten thousand strong; the south side was
equally banked up with blue, and the two colors ran into each other at
the ends. It is never weary waiting for the foot-ball game to begin,
when the weather is good. It is amusing to see the grads come swarming
to the standard. Familiar and popular faces turn up, that have been out
of college only a year or two, and their owners are greeted
enthusiastically by their late companions. There, too, come numbers of
faces far more widely known, those of governors, congressmen, judges,
architects, and clergymen. Other faces, not so conspicuous, are
apparently equally interesting over the top of glowing bunches of
Jacqueminots, or of violets, as the case may be. Jack Rattleton's
terrier Blathers, who was rarely separated from his master on any
occasion, took more interest in a big dog with a blue blanket on the
other side of the field, a familiar figure at recent foot-ball games.

At about half past two o'clock a great cheer rolled simultaneously along
both sides of the field, and there trotted into the lists twenty-two
young specimens of this "dyspeptic, ice-water-drinking" nation. It is
sometimes said that Americans are overworked and deteriorated from the
physical standard of the race; but as these youths of the Western branch
pulled off their sweaters and faced each other, they did not look a very
degenerate brood. Harvard had the ball and formed a close "wedge," Yale
deployed in open line of battle. For a moment they stood there, all
crouching forward, their heads well down, their great limbs tense, all
straining for the word to spring at each other. There was not a sound
around the field. "Play!" called the referee, and the Harvard wedge shot
forward, and crashed with a sound of grinding canvas into the mass of
blue-legged bodies that rushed to meet it.

For nearly three quarters of an hour the mimic battle was fought back
and forth along the white-barred field. All the tactics of war were
there employed; the centre was pierced, the flanks were turned, heavy
columns were instantaneously massed against any weak spot. It was even,
very even; but at last a long punt and a fumble gave Harvard the ball,
well in the enemy's territory. A well-supported run around the right end
by Jarvis, the famous flying half-back, two charges by Blake the
terrible line-breaker, and a wedge bang through the centre drove the
ball to Yale's five-yard line. Another gain of his length by the tall
Rivers. Another. Then with their backs on their very line the Yale men
rallied in a way they have. Down, no gain. Now for one good push or a
drop kick! Time. The first half of the game was over and neither side
had scored.

"Everything is lovely," declared Hudson. "We'll have the wind with us
next half. We've had the best of it so far, as it is. It's a sure thing
now." That was the general feeling among the Harvard supporters, and
every one was happy. To the excited spectators the interval was a
grateful relief, almost a necessary one to little Gray, who was nearly
beside himself. He moaned every now and then over his physical inability
to carry the Crimson in the lists.

After fifteen minutes' rest, the giants lined up again. The wind did
seem to make a difference, for the play from the start was in Yale's
ground. Jarvis the runner, who had been saved a good deal in the first
half, was now used with telling effect.

Within fifteen minutes, an exchange of punts brought the ball to Yale's
thirty-yard line. After three downs Spofford dropped back as though for
a kick, and the Yale full-back retreated for the catch. Instead of the
expected kick, Rivers the guard charged for the left end, and the blue
line concentrated on that point to meet him, when suddenly Jarvis, with
the ball tucked under his arm, was seen going like a whirlwind around
the right, well covered by his supports. The Yale left-end was knocked
off his legs, and the whole crimson bank of spectators rose to its feet
with a roar, as it realized that Jarvis had circled the end. The Yale
halfs had been drawn to their right, and every one knew that with Jarvis
once past the forwards, no one could run him down.

On he went at top speed for the longed-for touch-line. The full-back,
however, was heading him off, he had outrun his interferers, and a Yale
'Varsity full-back is not apt to miss a clear tackle in the open. They
came together close to the line. Just as his adversary crouched for his
hips, Jarvis leaped high from the ground, and hurled himself forward,
head first. The Yale man, like a hawk, "nailed" him in the air, but his
weight carried him on, and they both fell with a fearful shock--over the
line! The next minute they were buried under a pile of men.

Then did all the Harvard hosts shout with a mighty shout that made the
air tremble. For five minutes dignified men, old and young, cheered and
hugged each other, and acted as they never do on any other occasion,
except perhaps a college boat-race. The two elevens had grouped around
the spot where the touch-down had been made. Suddenly the pandemonium
ceased as the knot of players opened, and a limp form was carried out
from among them. "It's Jarvis!" ran along the crowd, followed by an
anxious murmur. A substitute ran back to the grand stand and shouted,
"nothing serious, only his collar-bone." Those near the place where the
plucky half-back was borne off the field could see that his face was
pale, but supremely happy, and he smiled faintly as he heard the cheers
of thousands, and his own name coupled with that of his Alma Mater.

The touch-down had been made almost at the corner too far aside for the
try for goal to succeed. Spofford's kick was a splendid attempt, but the
ball struck the goal post.

Then the battle began again. The Harvard team had suffered an
irreparable loss in the fall of the famous Jarvis, but the score was
four to nothing in its favor, and all it needed to do now was to hold
its own. The Crimson was on the crest, and it was for the Blue to come
up hill. Every one on the north side was elated and confident. Then
began a struggle grim and great. The Yale men closed up and went in for
the last chance. There was no punting for them now, the wind was against
them; but they had the heavier weight and well they used every ounce of
it. Steadily, as the Old Guard trod over its slain at Waterloo, did the
Blue wedge drive its way, rod by rod, towards the Harvard line. And as
the fierce red Britons tore at Napoleon's devoted column, so did the
Crimson warriors leap on that earth-stained phalanx. The rushers
strained against it, Blake would plunge into and stagger it, Rivers and
Spofford would throw their great bodies flat under the trampling feet,
and bring the whole mass down over them. At last there would be a waver
in the advance, three forward struggles checked and shattered, and on
the fourth down, the ball would be Harvard's. On the first line up with
the ball in Harvard's possession, would be heard the sound of Spofford's
unerring foot against the leather and the brown oval would go curving
and spinning over the heads of the rushers, far back into Yale's
territory, with the Harvard ends well under it. A great "Oh!" of relief
would go up from the north side. Then those Yale bull-dogs would begin
all over again. Again and again did they fight their way almost to the
Harvard line, only to be driven all the way back by a long Spofford
punt.

"How those Elis do fight!" exclaimed Gray in admiration. "Don't they,"
admitted Burleigh; "and isn't it nice to be able to be magnanimous and
admire them? What a lot of credit you can give a fellow when you are
licking him."

"Those chaps aren't thrashed yet, my boy," said Holworthy. "They won't
be, either, until the game is called, and, by Jove, they may not be
then."

This observation was perfectly true. The Waterloo simile extended no
further than the appearance of battle. A Yale touch-down would tie the
game, and if made near the goal would probably win it. For the fourth
time the New Haven men struggled to the Cantabrigian twenty-yard line.
There had been many delays in the game, and the short November afternoon
had grown dark. A bad pass by the Harvard quarterback, a slip, a fumble
by Spofford, might turn the result. The time was nearly up. The cheering
had died almost entirely; the excitement was too deep for that, and
every one was too breathless. A short gain for Yale.

"Rattleton? Is Mr. Rattleton here?" called a messenger boy walking along
the front of the long stand.

"Hullo, here. What's wanted?" answered Jack.

"Telegram for you, sir," said the boy. Rattleton did not take his eyes
from the game while he tore open the envelope. Having opened it, he
glanced hurriedly at the message, then jumped to his feet with a
whistle. He had read:

     "Come to Massachusetts General Hospital immediately when back
     from game.

     "VARNUM."

"When does the next train leave for Boston?" he asked the boy.

"There is one in a few minutes," was the answer.

"Whoop it up for me, children," he said to the others, "I've got to
leave. Come along, Blathers."

"Why, Jack, what's up?"

"I don't know. Varnum wants me," and he jumped to the ground, pulling
the dog after him. "The poor devil may be dying for all I know," he
added to himself, as he made for the gate; "but there is no need of
spoiling their fun by telling 'em."

He stretched his long legs for the station at a rate that made his
four-footed chum gallop to keep up with him. The train was just
starting. As he jumped aboard, he heard, from the direction of Hampden
Park, the distant roar of ten thousand throats. "Hear that?" he
exclaimed to the brakeman, "either the game is over or Yale has scored."
Not a very enlightening conclusion.

There was a dining-car on the train, and the sight of it reminded Jack
that he had had no lunch. He did not need to be reminded that he was
extremely thirsty also, and actually a little worn by the afternoon's
excitement. He entered the moving restaurant, and with one of his
accustomed happy thoughts at such moments, was about to order an
attractive lunch and a pint of champagne. Suddenly it occurred to him
that if that noise had gone up from the wrong side of Hampden Park, he
had just twenty-five dollars to carry him over the Christmas vacation
and through January. "Furthermore," he reflected, with a knowledge born
of bitter experience, "if that is the Eli yell, there won't be a
mother's son in Cambridge, that I know well enough to borrow from, who
will have any thing to lend,--except perhaps old father Hol. I suppose
he will step into the breach as usual and pay our car-fares, but he
can't support the whole gang. Hang it, I wish I was on an allowance
again; then the governor would pay my bills at Christmas and give me a
blowing up. This being my own paymaster isn't what I expected when I was
a Soph."

He concluded that a sandwich would support life until he got to Boston,
where he could find a precarious credit. He also decided that beer was
an excellent beverage, at any rate until he learned the result of the
game. After this unusually prudent repast he pulled a cigar out of his
pocket, and smoked it carefully in the thought that he might not have
another like it for some time--at his own expense. However, he
remembered consolingly that his half-colored meerschaum needed
attention.

The moment Jack arrived in Boston he jumped into a herdic and drove
straight to the hospital. He inquired for Varnum, and, after a little
red tape had been untied, was shown into one of the public wards.

At the end of a long room on a narrow bed was Varnum, looking very
white, his eyes closed. He opened them as Rattleton and the nurse
approached softly, and his face seemed to light up a little when he saw
Jack.

"How was the game?" he asked, faintly.

"Splendid. Harvard four, Yale nothing," answered Jack, promptly. He did
not think it worth while to mention that he had left before the end.

"Good," murmured Varnum. "Bowled over by a wagon. Awfully sorry to bring
you here, Rattleton, but they thought at first I might be done for, and
I don't know any one----"

"Yes, I know, old man; cut all that," broke in Jack. "Don't tire
yourself talking. Is there anything I can do for you right away?"

"Yes. There is a sick boy at 62 Sloven Street. Tenement house. Jimmy
Haggerty. I promised to see him. There is a can of wine-jelly and a
book. They must have brought them here when they picked me up. Will you
take them to him and tell him that I am laid up? It is not exactly in
your line, Rattleton," he added, with a smile, "but it won't give you
much trouble."

"Not a bit," declared Jack, cheerfully. "Great play for Phil. XI., you
know. I can make a special report on the Sloven Street district, and it
ought to pull me through the course."

"You mustn't talk to him too long, sir," said the nurse.

"All right, I'll go right off. 62 Sloven St.--Haggerty. You make
yourself easy, old man, I'll look after all your indigent kids for you,
and I'll tell the other fellows you are here. I'll be back soon."

In answer to Rattleton's inquiries, the nurse told him how Varnum had
been knocked down and run over by a runaway team in a narrow street. He
had been brought to the hospital, and the doctors had at first thought
his injuries fatal. Subsequent examination, however, had proved that his
condition was not so serious. At his request the telegram had been sent
to Rattleton. Jack left directions to have Varnum put in a private room
when he could be moved, and every comfort given him. "And, by the way,"
he added, "don't let him know that there is any expense about it. If he
objects, tell him the public wards are chuck-full; tell him there is
small-pox in 'em; tell him any good lie that occurs to you. Send the
bill to me."

The jelly and the book had not been brought in the ambulance, and no one
knew anything about them. So Rattleton, stopping at the hospital office
for Blathers, who had been there deposited, went first to a hotel, for
all the shops were closed. From the restaurant he replaced the
wine-jelly, and added some cake and a bottle of champagne. "I don't know
much about what a sick boy ought to have," he thought, "but fizz is
always good."

At the newspaper-stand he bought all the picture papers, and found a
colored edition of nursery rhymes, which he concluded would be just the
thing. "Now we are all right," he said, "come along, Blathers."

Jack had been very ready and cheerful about his mission when talking to
Varnum, but he had misgivings about it as he took his way to Sloven
Street, in the heart of the poorest tenement-house district. "I suppose
it is easy enough just to leave this stuff and come away," he thought;
"but I am sure to make some fool break." He knew there were lots of men
in college who "went in for that sort of thing"; but he had had no
experience of that kind himself, and Varnum was the only man he knew
well, who had. He had a vague idea that Varnum held prayer-meetings
among the poor, and preached as well as ministered, and he feared he
might be called upon to do something of the kind himself.

It was quite dark, so he heard only one or two requests to shoot the
dude, as he was passing lamp-lights, and to his infinite relief nothing
was thrown at Blathers. He had expected certainly to have a row on the
dog's account. In front of 62 Sloven Street he found a small boy smoking
a cigarette, and inquired from him whether Jimmy Haggerty lived within.

"Sure!" assented the youngster, removing the cigarette from his lips and
holding the lighted end for Blathers to smell. "Is you one o' de
Ha'vards?" "Ye-es," acknowledged Jack, doubtfully, feeling that he was
deceiving the little man; for he suspected that he was not exactly the
kind of "a Ha'vard" that was expected in those quarters.

"Well say, how did de game come out? I ain't seen de bulletin-boards."

Jack's heart leaped towards the boy at once; he discovered that there
was a bond of sympathy between them after all.

"I don't know," he answered; "I came away before the end. It was four to
nothing in our favor then."

"Chamesy Haggerty lives on de tird floor. I'll show ye up." Jack
followed his pilot up the dark, smelly stairs, answering questions all
the way as to the foot-ball game.

"A-ah, ye can't do notin' widout Jarvis," commented the youngster, upon
hearing of the half-back's injury.

"Dat's a nice lookin' purp yer got," he said, eyeing Blathers, as they
arrived at the third floor. "Guess he's a good 'un to fight, ain't he?
Le 'me take care of him for yer, while you're inside."

Jack did not accept this kind offer. His guide, pointing to a door,
said: "Well, dat's Chimmie's. I ain't goin' in, 'cause he's got scarlet
fever."

"The devil he has!" exclaimed Jack.

"Yare; leastways dat's what dey all say. Wait till I get down-stairs
'fore yer open de door." And with a vain whistle to Blathers he
disappeared down-stairs.

Rattleton knocked at the door indicated as "Chimmie's," and opened it in
response to a voice within. The small room was pretty well lighted by a
lamp, the first thing that Jack's eye fell on. It was Varnum's
student-lamp; Jack knew it at once from a caricature he had himself
drawn on the shade. A hard-faced, slovenly old woman was sitting near a
stove, and looked at him in surprise as he entered.

"Is this Mrs. Haggerty?" he asked.

"I am," she answered; "what do you want?"

"Mr. Varnum sent these things," replied Rattleton. "He couldn't come
himself because he has been hurt, and is in the hospital."

"Is that so? Sure, I'm sorry to hear that," said the woman with real
regret in her tone. "Mr. Varnum has been kind to us, I tell you. He's
helped me with my boy Jimmy here ever since he's been sick."

"Dat's too bad," complained a thin voice from the corner. On the other
side of the lamp was a bed, from under the dirty quilt of which
protruded a little pale face. "Ain't he coming to read to me? What's de
matter wid him?"

Jack explained, with an accompaniment of sympathetic "tut-tuts" from the
woman and more forcible expressions from the sick boy.

"I'm obliged to him for the things," said the former, as Rattleton
handed her his burden. She looked at the bottle with a puzzled and
half-frightened air.

"That's the first time ever Mr. Varnum give us anythin' like that. The
poor young feller must be dizzed, by the hurt of him. I'll hide that."
And to Rattleton's horror she shoved the bottle of Irroy under the
stove.

"Would you do me a bit of a favor, sir," she asked, "like Mr. Varnum
would do?"

"With pleasure,--that is if I can," answered Jack, cautiously, wondering
what she wanted, and with a dread that it might be in the nature of
religious services.

"I got to go out to see the doctor, and I'd take it friendly would you
sit wid th' boy, till I get back. I'll not be long."

"Why, yes, of course," said Rattleton, feeling how much worse it might
have been.

The woman took down her shawl, and throwing it over her head, drew out
the bottle she had just hidden, and tucked it under her arm out of
sight. "I'll ask the doctor whether this is good for the kid," she
muttered. "If Jamsey don't need it, I can sell it. I know some one else
it ain't good for."

Opening the door she first looked out cautiously, then hurried
down-stairs.

"Wonder what I ought to do now?" thought Rattleton. Blathers was over at
the bed making friends with the patient.

"Dis your dog? nice one, ain't he. Is you one o' de student fellers?"

Jack admitted that he was, knowing that the word "student" was used in
its generic, not its strict sense.

"You're a friend o' Mr. Varnum's, eh? He's nice, ain't he?"

Rattleton agreed emphatically that Varnum _was_ "nice."

"Yare," continued the boy, "he's a daisy. He comes in and reads to me
all de time. Mr. Talcot, he comes too sometimes; but he ain't as nice as
Mr. Varnum. Hullo, you been to de game?"

This last question was elicited by the sight of the little bit of
crimson ribbon stuck through Rattleton's buttonhole,--an _insignium_
brought from the seat of war. In cheerful compliance with the demand to
hear all about it, Jack sat down by the bed, and recounted, as well as
he could, all the details of the afternoon's battle. He described
Jarvis' splendid run, and how he had scored and at the same time broken
his collar-bone in his great plunge for Harvard and glory. As he told of
it he thought of Varnum lying alone in the hospital.

"Would you like me to read to you?" suggested Jack, when the foot-ball
subject had been exhausted.

"You bet," assented the patient. "I ain't heard no readin' all day.
Mudder can't read; and Sis ain't been here."

"Here's a book I brought," said Rattleton, picking up the
bright-pictured nursery rhymes. "I don't know whether it's interesting,"
he added, doubtfully.

For a little while he read the classics of _Mother Goose_ in his gentle
drawl, until the boy interrupted him.

"Say, what sort o' baby's stuff is dat, anyhow? I don't t'ink much o'
dat. I'd sooner hear _Dare-Devil Dick_ dan dat."

"I am inclined to agree with you," replied Rattleton. "Really, you see,
I hadn't read this for so long that I had forgotten just what it was
like. Let's have _Dare-Devil Dick_."

"I ain't got it now. I give it away. Mr. Varnum, he gi' me a book he
said was better, and I guess it is. It's got an A-1 scrapper in it, too,
dat could do Dare-Devil Dick wid one hand. He didn't kill so many
people, but I t'ink he was a better feller. 'Dere it is at de foot o' de
bed."

Rattleton took up the book indicated. It was _Westward Ho!_ He sat down
again by the bed, and opened the book at a place where there was a mark.
Then the two went out from the little squalid room, and sailed away over
the Spanish Main with tall Amyas Leigh and his good men of Devon. For
over half an hour the little invalid street-arab and the hare-brained
Harvardian were both wrapped in the spell of the apostle to the
Anglo-Saxon youths.

Before Rattleton had finished reading he heard the door open and close,
and a rustle of skirts. Looking up he saw, not the old woman, but a
rather gaudily-dressed young one. Jack thought he had seen her face
before somewhere. That was quite possible, I regret to say.

"Hullo, Sis," said the boy. "Me sister," he explained to Rattleton. The
young woman looked with surprise at the latter, as he rose to his feet.
Her eye glanced at his stick and his bull terrier, and all over his
clothes, from his shoes up; then narrowly scrutinized the face of the
thoroughly uncomfortable youth. Though the shyest of men, this was the
first time he had ever felt very bashful in such a presence. Then she
asked, disdainfully, "What's one o' your kind doing here?"

Jack colored to his hair. "I--I don't know exactly, myself," he
stammered. "You see I came to take the place of my friend who is ill,"
he explained, apologetically.

"I know you now," said the girl, her look softening a little. "You're
the sport that done up Dutch Jake for kickin' a kid one night in
Stuber's restaurant."

"I _have_ been in there occasionally," Jack confessed. He was going to
add "I am sorry to say," but remembered that might be rude. "I promised
Mrs.--er--Mrs. Haggerty, to sit here until she returned," he continued,
"but I suppose I am not needed now?"

"No, much obliged to you, I'll stay with Jimmy till she gets back."

Jack took up his hat and stick, but paused a moment awkwardly as he
turned to leave.

"Would you--er--would you mind," he said, hesitatingly,
"my--er--my--er--my _lending_ a little money--for the boy, you know?"

The girl laughed bitterly. "I guess we can stand it," she said. "If you
never spent your money worse than that, I'm mistaken. You can give us
the tin. We ain't proud."

"Thanks," murmured Jack, vaguely feeling that he was being helped out of
an awkward attempt. He pulled out the contents of his pocket, both bills
and change. "I dare say you _will_ spend it better than I."

Just as he was handing the money to the girl, there was a knock on the
door, and in answer to her heedless "come in" a man entered. It was a
classmate, named Talcot, whom Jack knew only by sight as one of Varnum's
"Y. M. C. A. pals." He stopped in astonishment, and then frowned, as he
recognized Rattleton, and saw him giving the money.

"Mr. Rattleton, I believe?"

Jack looked him in the eye, and nodded stiffly.

"Don't you think, sir," asked the worthy student, with an indignant
sneer, "that you had better confine yourself to your expensive clubs,
and to your regular haunts in town?"

Jack colored again, the shade of his little ribbon; but this time it was
not a blush. He bit his lip for a moment, and gripped his stick hard.

"I am afraid I had," he said very slowly, as he moved towards the door.
"But I will tell you one thing, Mr. Talcot," he added as he paused in
the doorway. "I am an awful fool, I know, but I am not mean enough to
think that every damn fool must be a damn rascal. I will give you an
opportunity later to apologize. Good-night, Jimmy. Come along,
Blathers," and he strode down-stairs.

"Pheugh," puffed Rattleton, as he got out in the grateful fresh air
again. "I got it in the neck twice in that round. Guess I'd better keep
out of that kind of a ring hereafter."

He went back to the hospital, and found that Varnum was asleep, and
resting comfortably. "Now, by Jove, Blathers, we'll have dinner!" he
exclaimed, joyfully, as he left the hospital. "I'm nearly dead," he
thought, "we'll go to the Victoria and have a bang-up din, and a bot--No
we won't, either," he suddenly concluded, as he thrust his hands into
his pockets, "we'll go to Billy Parks." He had a bill at Park's. There
was also a fair prospect of his walking out to Cambridge that night,
unless he met a friend; for he had forgotten to keep even a car-fare.
Holworthy always declared that Rattleton would forget his head some day,
and Jack now expressed a fear of that nature himself, when he discovered
the void in his pockets.

Annoyance never chummed long with Jack Rattleton, however, and it had
left him by the time he got to Park's restaurant. He looked over the
bill-of-fare with the delight of anticipation and expended a good deal
of careful thought in his selection.

"Let's see, shall I fool with Little Neck clams? Yes, I can have those
while they are cooking the rest. Mock turtle soup, and then filets of
sole; they are mock, too, but they are very good. Then bring me some of
that chicken pasty. Yes, you can call it _vol-au-vent_ if you like, but
don't stick me extra for the name; I would just as lief eat it in
English. Then I want half a black duck. Tell the cook it is for me, and
I don't want coot. After that I'll decide as to the next course. Bring
me a half bottle of Mumm, and a long glass with chopped ice in it, and
bring that right away. Oh! by the way," he called, as the waiter was
starting off with the order, "find out at the desk how the game came
out. Gad, I'd nearly forgotten it!"

"Why, sir," replied the waiter, "haven't you heard? Too bad. Six to
four. Yale made a touch-down in the last five minutes, and kicked a goal
from it."

"Wha-at!" exclaimed Jack. "Hi! waiter! Hold on a minute; come back here!
Make that order one English chop and a mug of musty."




THE WAKING NIGHTMARE OF HOLLIS HOLWORTHY.


Holworthy had accepted an invitation to dine at the Tremonts' in Boston.
There was nothing remarkable about that; but so had Jack Rattleton, and
that _was_ remarkable. He had done so chiefly on Holworthy's account. He
rarely went anywhere in Boston society, as he held that to do so was a
waste of precious time given to him for a college education. He could
employ his evenings much better in Cambridge in his study, with a select
party, or in one of the clubs. True, he often went over the bridge; but
that, as he said, was always with some earnest purpose, such as a study
of the drama at the Howard Athenaeum, or to attend a benefit of Prof.
Murphy or some other revered instructor. He never frittered away his
moments in the vapidity of a polite ballroom. Dinners he especially
abhorred (except, of course, serious masculine dinners); chiefly because
dinner engagements had to be kept, and worse, kept punctually. For that
reason they were, in Jack's estimation, as bad as lectures to a man on
probation. He had decided to bind himself to this dinner, however,
because he knew the Tremonts very well, and happened to know they were
going to invite Holworthy, and also happened to know that some one else
was going to be thereabout whom Holworthy did not like to be chaffed. He
foresaw a possible opportunity of "seeing Hol do the devoted and
breaking him up"; so for this benevolent purpose he determined to
sacrifice himself.

Now, Holworthy knew naught of this, and when Rattleton casually
mentioned to him that he (Jack) had been bidden to a dinner at the
Tremonts', and asked him for the most approved form for a lying regret,
he used all his powers of persuasion to make Rattleton accept. He
preached a sermon on the evil effects of Jack's Bohemian ways and
neglected opportunities. He said he was going to that same dinner and
would bring Jack back in a cab. Finally, after much objection, and after
getting as many bribes out of his mentor as possible, Rattleton agreed
to go, and also agreed to do his best not to be late.

On this latter point Hollis spent half an hour. He insisted, and
impressed upon Jack in every way, that a man could do nothing more
outrageous than to keep his hostess waiting for him for dinner.
Holworthy, it may be observed, had been brought up with old-fashioned
ideas of good breeding. His father had taught him never to fail, or be
late at a dinner or a duel, if once engaged for either. He cautioned
Rattleton not to put his faith in excuses, for they were always weak and
as naught. "Everybody," said he, "knows you are lying, and you know that
they know you are lying, and they know that you know that they know you
are lying."

"That's so," acknowledged Jack, with a melancholy shake of his head. "At
one time, when I went in for these vanities, I used to have some pretty
good excuses, but they are all played out now. I have broken down every
cab in Cambridge, given every horse the blind staggers, and ruined the
reputation for sobriety of every driver. I have broken my own leg once
or twice, and limped painfully into the room; that was very effective,
until I once favored the wrong leg. The electric cars were a great help
when they first came in, but I have long since dislocated every trolly
on the line."

"Well, above all," said Holworthy, "if you _should_ happen to be late,
don't try that worn out chestnut about the drawbridge being open, as I
heard a poor young Freshman do the other night, with a happy
confidence."

"Do you take _me_ for a Freshman?" responded Jack, indignantly. "At the
first dinner I went to when I first came up, I started to use the
drawbridge, and the old grad. with whom I was dining took the words out
of my mouth and then laughed at me."

"The best thing for you to do," suggested Hollis, as his final advice,
"is to get a chain and make yourself fast to your bedstead from now
until the evening of the dinner. I'll come round and unchain you when it
is time to dress. At any rate, I shall endeavor to keep you in sight all
that day." All of which Rattleton took humbly, and promised to do his
best.

But on the afternoon of the appointed day Jack was not to be found.
Holworthy hunted in vain for him at all his usual haunts, and in the
evening began dressing himself with many misgivings. While he was still
in his room, his chum Charles Rivers came in from the afternoon's work
in the University boat. Holworthy complained to him of the way in which
the man Rattleton was turning his hair gray.

"Looking for Lazy Jack, are you?" laughed Rivers, reassuringly; "well,
he was in a four-oar above the Brighton Abattoir not very long ago. I
couldn't see him, because I had to keep my eyes in the boat, but I could
hear him objurgating Steve Hudson for hitting up the stroke. We passed
them as we were pulling back from Watertown. It wasn't half an hour
ago."

Holworthy made a short remark about Rattleton that has nothing to do
with the story. "I have only just time to get into the Tremonts' now,"
said he, as he threw on his cloak, "but I will stop at the shiftless
beggar's room before I go in. He may possibly have got back and
dressed."

He hurried along Harvard Street, and on the corner ran into a lot of men
coming up from the river. Sauntering along in their flannels, perfectly
happy after the glorious exercise and bath, he saw Hudson, Randolph,
Stoughton,--and the long form of Mr. Rattleton, quite as usual, hands in
his pockets, head thrown back, a smile on his face, content in his soul,
and nothing on his mind. There was a sudden change in his aspect,
however, when he caught sight of Holworthy's silk hat and white tie. He
stopped, aghast, with a "By Jove!" and then, "Oh, the devil!"

"Yes," exclaimed Holworthy, hotly, "and that is just where you will go
some day from sheer carelessness. That is the one appointment you'll
keep,--though, I believe, you will be late for your own funeral."

"Don't wait for me, old man. I'll be there as soon as I can," answered
Jack, ambiguously.

"Wait for you!" Hollis cried, "I wash my hands of you! If you choose to
disgrace yourself, it is none of my business. As it is now, I may be
late myself," and he boarded a car for Boston.

Now it was so that Holworthy did not know the Tremonts. They were old
friends of his family, and he ought to have called on them when he first
came to college; but he had not, and they had been abroad since his
Freshman year. He was not even perfectly certain of where they lived,
and he had forgotten, in his hurry on leaving his room, to look at the
address on the invitation! He thought of this fact when he was over the
bridge and well into Boston. However, he pretty clearly remembered
having sent his acceptance to 142 Marconwealth Street. It was either 142
or 242; but to make sure he decided to look it up in a Blue Book. He,
therefore, got out at Park Square and went into a druggist's, to consult
the little directory.

He first looked up 142 Marconwealth Street, and found the name of Jones.
Then he looked for 242, 342, 442,--he felt there was a 42 in the
combination somehow,--but all were vacant of Tremonts. He tried the 42's
of other streets, but in vain. Then, in desperation, he ran down the
whole list of Tremonts. Reader, dost thou know aught of the ancient town
of Boston? If not, look some time into a Boston Blue Book, open
anywhere, and see what Holworthy saw. In Boston, when they want to
describe a particularly luxuriant forest, they say that its leaves are
as the Tremonts. Hollis was not even sure of the first name of his
intended host; he thought it was Mayflor. There were three Mayflor
Tremonts on Marconwealth Street, one at each end and one in the middle.
Of other Tremonts on that street there were fourteen.

The cold sweat stood on Holworthy's brow in the most approved style. It
was already half past seven, the hour of dinner, for he had spent
several minutes in his Blue Book research. Only one plan occurred to
him. He bought the book at an extravagant price and jumped into a cab,
determined to hunt down that dinner if he had to go to every Tremont in
Boston. He began with the Mayflor Tremonts. When the servant answered
the bell, he would ask if there was a dinner-party going on in that
house. He was not sure whether he was taken for a lunatic or a society
reporter, but did not care which. None of the Mayflor Tremonts were
giving dinners on that evening. Then he began at one end of Marconwealth
Street, and tried every Tremont in order.

All this time the minutes were joining the past eternity, and he, Hollis
Holworthy, was getting later and later for dinner. At the sixth house,
however, as a maid opened the door, he heard the sounds of gentle
revelry and small talk, and his heart leaped for joy. The maid said,
"Yes, we have a party here to-night." He rushed back and paid for his
cab, not stopping for the paltry change due him, amounting to half that
he gave. He left his coat and hat in the hall to save time and, without
asking further questions, strode by the maid into the dining-room. He
was twenty-five minutes late, and glad they had not waited for him.

Going up to the hostess, he began, "Mrs. Tremont, I can't tell you how
mortified--" the table was filled! There was no vacant chair! Then he
noticed that the hostess was looking a little blank, though smiling and
polite. "I beg your pardon," he said, as his heart sank, "have I made
some awful mistake? My name is Holworthy; did you not invite me to
dinner this evening, or have I got the wrong house?--or the wrong
night?"

"I am afraid you _have_ made a mistake, Mr. Holworthy," replied the
lady, "and I think it must be in the house."

"Well, can you tell me," asked the blushing and desperate youth, trying
to keep a groan out of his question, "whether you happen to know of any
other Mrs. Tremont who is giving a dinner to-night? I have lost the
address, and I am dinnerless in the streets of Boston."

The hostess laughed a little at Holworthy's despair, but relieved him by
saying that her cousin, Mrs. Mayflor Tremont, had said something that
day about a dinner.

"But I have been to the houses of three Mrs. Mayflor Tremonts on this
street," protested poor Hollis. "Is there another one?"

"Why, Hol," spoke up Ernest Gray, an intimate friend, who was present to
Holworthy's great comfort, "that is where Jack Rattleton told me that
you and he were going--the Mayflor Tremont's, 142 Marconwealth Street."

"That is just what I thought," said Holworthy, "but the Blue Book gives
one Jones at 142."

"Oh!" explained Mrs. Tremont, "they have only just moved in, and their
name has not been changed in the Blue Book."

"Then _that_ was my ruin," Hollis exclaimed. "Thank you very much,
indeed. I hope you will forgive me for making such a scene," and he
retreated with as much dignity and haste as could be combined. He was
too much relieved to mind Gray's remark, "That is one on you, Hol," or
the laugh that he heard as he got to the front door.

His cab had only moved to the corner, and he hailed it again. The driver
repaid his recent generosity by getting him to 142 in less than three
minutes.

Let us now see how it fared with Jack, the grasshopper. At the moment
when Holworthy took the car in Harvard Square, there was seen a rare
phenomenon of nature;--Rattleton showed acute animation. He went up
Harvard Street with two leaps to a block. Riley's cab, as usual, was
standing at the corner of Holyoke Street, and as Jack dashed by, he
yelled for Riley. The latter came tumbling out of Foster's, and, in
forty-three seconds and two fifths, had his chariot at the door of
Rattleton's staircase. Both Riley and his horse are as well drilled to
emergencies as are the men and steeds of a fire-engine. Jack reached his
room in record time, and only stopped to wash his face and hands. He
grabbed his evening clothes and shoes, a "boiled" shirt and tie, and was
in the cab almost as soon as it got to the door.

"Riley," said he, "get me to 142 Marconwealth Street before Mr.
Holworthy, and I'll try and pay what I owe you this week. It is a matter
of life and death, and I expect you this day to do your duty. Don't be
beaten by an electric car."

The latter part of this exhortation had its effect. Riley follows the
Golden Rule and never duns anybody, but his weak spots are his
professional pride and his sporting blood. Touch him there, and you will
travel in his cab as in the car of Phoebus. He has never lost the day
when it was possible for man and horse to save it. Ned Burleigh used to
say that he would back Riley's nag against Salvator, provided the former
should have behind him the cab, Riley, and a load. On this particular
occasion he fully maintained his reputation.

While rushing towards Boston, Rattleton proceeded to dress. He at first
complimented himself on not having forgotten anything; but, when he came
to his shirt, behold, there were no studs! He had been wearing a soft
cheviot, and had only a collar button. The absence of sleeve buttons
would probably not be noticed, but he could not go to dinner with a
studless chest. For a minute he thought the game was up, wrecked by such
a little thing. Then an inspiration came to him. With his knife he cut
three little pearl buttons out of his under-shirt, leaving a piece
attached to each button. These he pushed through his shirt, and they
were held in place by the pieces of flannel at their backs. It had
always been suspected by his friends that Jack Rattleton really had
brains, though he never made the exertion to use them. It had even been
said that some time in an emergency he might show positive genius. He
looked at those improvised studs with satisfaction, as he reasoned to
himself that they would be taken for imitation buttons and, therefore,
go unnoticed. If they should be recognized as real, that would be all
the better; it would look like a new fashion, and one of most "swagger"
simplicity. He tied his cravat all right by feeling; but he had not
thought of a hair-brush, and his hair was all damp and on end after his
shower-bath at the boat-house. This did not trouble him, however, as he
was sure of finding a brush at the Tremonts, in the room where the men
would leave their coats.

He had hardly finished this flying toilet when he arrived at the house,
not two minutes late. He instructed Riley to come back at ten, and that
the return trip would be "on Mr. Holworthy." In the dressing-room there
were hair-brushes, as he had expected, and he went down to the
drawing-room in faultless order, feeling that he had made a great
discovery. Undoubtedly a cab was just the place for a hurried man of
business, like himself, to dress.

He called the attention of his hostess to his punctuality, and assured
her that such a thing in him was a sign of the greatest devotion. "You
see," said he, "when I am late, everyone says, 'Oh, it is only that
shiftless Jack Rattleton,' and when I am on time, I want the credit for
it. Now it is nothing particularly praiseworthy for a man like Holworthy
to be on time. If he should ever slip up, it might well be put down as
an insult, because he never forgets or dawdles. Some day his good
reputation will be the ruin of him. I think my system is the better."
After which airy persiflage, Rattleton noticed that Holworthy was not in
the room; and ten minutes later, when the latter was still absent, he
began to wish he had let airy persiflage alone. Everybody else had
arrived. Five minutes more went by, and when twenty minutes were gone
and no Holworthy, Jack went to Mrs. Tremont and told her how Hollis had
left Cambridge in plenty of time, and, in fact, had refused to wait for
him. "Something must have happened to him," he said, rather anxiously,
"and I am prepared to back up as strictly true any excuse he may offer,
for I can swear he left Cambridge more than an hour ago, and was coming
right here."

"No accident to himself, I hope," replied Mrs. Tremont. "At any rate, I
think we had better go in, as I am sure Mr. Holworthy will feel more
comfortable if we do not wait for him."

So in they went, Rattleton taking her whom Holworthy should have taken,
for Jack was one of two extra men.

And Hollis, where was he? Suffering in the cab.

Ten minutes later, as he went up the stoop of 142, an insidious policy
stole into Holworthy's brain. He had lost the invitation and mistaken
the number of the house,--why should he not have mistaken instead the
hour of dinner? Was that not better than to be ignorant of the address
of his hostess, upon whom he ought to have called long before this? He
was in good time for an eight o'clock dinner, and most dinners are at
eight nowadays. Then, too, Rattleton would be just about half an hour
late, and would probably be utterly unconcerned about it, and offer no
excuses. That would lend color to a suspicion that Mrs. Tremont had
herself made the mistake, in writing some of the invitations. He would
not need to tell any actual untruth--to say distinctly that he thought
dinner was at eight. He need only imply it, and apologize for his
evident mistake. It would be a pretty poor plea for a very bad crime,
but at any rate it was a more polite explanation than the real one, and
less ridiculous. Oh, Hollis Holworthy, that thou shouldst thus forget
the _veritas_, the watchword of thine Alma Mater!

In the dressing-room was a straw hat with a colored ribbon. "Hullo," he
surmised, "Jack is here. Wonder if the rest of his outfit corresponds,
and he has come in his blazer." As he went into the dining-room, his eye
first lighted on that interesting person whom Mr. Davis has capitally
termed "A Girl He Knew." On her right was Rattleton, on her left a
vacant chair. She must have had to go in alone!

With a look of gentle surprise and concern, that, he flattered himself,
was rather well done, he went up and saluted Mrs. Tremont.

"Have I been mistaken," he asked, "in thinking that dinner was at eight
o'clock, or has my watch betrayed me?" There was no fib in this and what
could be more diplomatic?

Mrs. Tremont stood it for a second, then she happened to catch sight of
Rattleton's face. It was too much for her, and she burst out laughing.
After all, it was the best thing to do.

"Now, Mr. Holworthy, tell us what really happened, and we will believe
and forgive you. Jack, here, has testified to the time of your departure
from Cambridge, and you must fill in the interim somehow."

Then Hollis made a clean breast of the whole thing, and made the tale of
his sufferings as moving as possible, finishing with a request for some
dust to put on his head. He was so humble that even Rattleton was sorry
for him; but the memory of many of Holworthy's lectures came to Jack and
he could not resist suggesting to Mrs. Tremont, as Hollis took his seat,
that as Holly's blood had run so cold she ought to have some soup warmed
up for him.

That evening, on the way back to Cambridge in the cab, was spent one of
the pleasantest half hours of Rattleton's life. He told Holworthy how a
man could do nothing more outrageous than to keep his hostess waiting
for dinner. He said he had a very good chain that he used for his dog
Blathers, but which he could lend Hollis. He warned him some day that he
would surely go to the devil by his careless habits. "Above all," said
he, "never put your faith in excuses. Everybody knows you are lying, and
even if you don't know that they know, etc., you sometimes find out."

Holworthy smoked his cigar vigorously without saying a word in reply.
When they arrived at their club in Cambridge he asked, resignedly,
"Well, what do you want for supper?"

"I know I ought to take champagne," answered Jack, graciously, "but as
you are so very humble and I don't really want any more fizz, I will let
you off with a rarebit and beer. But don't you ever jump on me again."




THE PLOT AGAINST BULLAM.


Something had to be done about the case of Sergeant Bullam. For years he
had ruled his beat with a rod of iron. Many a noble spirit had fallen a
prey to his desire for notoriety and promotion. The slightest offence,
the most innocent or technical infringement of the law, was sufficient
pretext for him to indulge his thirst for student incarceration. The
_lettres de cachet_ and the Bastile were nothing to Bullam and the
Cambridge jail. In the dark days when the ungrateful University town
went prohibition, the tyrant had revelled in his opportunities. He had
raided several of the club-houses and had charged Hollis Holworthy, the
president of one of the clubs, with keeping a liquor nuisance. Of course
this little joke on the superb Holworthy had exceedingly pleased all his
friends; but it did not excuse Bullam. There had been isolated attempts
at resistance and vengeance, and these had sometimes been successful,
but never yet had Bullam suffered any great public downfall worthy of
his oppression. He was wary to a high degree, and never ventured into
the sacred Yard, where his uniform would have been only blue cloth and
his buttons common brass.

The crafty Stoughton, however, had a scheme. He had been pondering over
the case for some time, and Dick rarely pondered for nothing. He was
known to his intimates as Machiavelli, called Mac the Dago for short.
This particular plan was indeed worthy of his great namesake. He
imparted it to Jack Randolph, who had the heaviest personal score
against Bullam, and, therefore, the best title to share in his
humiliation. They fixed the following night as Bullam's Ides and
announced it to all their friends. They posted it in all the clubs, and
in every way spread the glad tidings that on the morrow Bullam should be
utterly cast down. They fixed the hour at about ten o'clock in the
evening, and exhorted the people to gather themselves together in a
great concourse to see their enemy made a cause of laughter unto them.
The promise of the avenging prophets was to conduct a triumph along the
whole length of Harvard Street and to lead in their train the haughty
Bullam, humbled and a captive; he should even act as their body-guard if
they so chose, and prevent all interference by his brothers of the
force. How this millennial spectacle was to be brought about, they kept
carefully secret.

There is, perhaps, in every man a certain element of moral obliquity,
which, as he is put through any civilizing process, is squeezed out of
him from time to time in varying forms and quantities. It comes to the
surface, makes itself acutely felt and apparent for a short time, and
then drops off,--just as a physical poison would act in his veins. At
any rate, this is the only theory that can explain the highly
reprehensible but firmly established custom among Harvard Freshmen of
"ragging" signs. "Ragging," uninitiated reader, simply means stealing.
What amusement, profit, or glory the Freshman finds in it has never been
ascertained. He cannot tell exactly himself, and, as soon as he ceases
to be a Freshman, wonders why he ever indulged in the habit. Perhaps the
charm lies in the chance of getting into a scrape; but in most instances
a sign can be taken with perfect safety. Now I cannot possibly think why
I--but that is another story, as Mr. Kipling says.

I am going to digress, however, for one story in this connection. Ned
Burleigh used to tell it on his room-mate, Steve Hudson. Steve always
denied it vehemently, and declared that Burleigh did not even deserve
the credit of a fabricator; that the story had been in college for
years, and he had heard it told by a '42 man. Ned held that made no
difference; that some one had to carry it for our four years and Steve
was the best man for the position. According to him, Hudson, in walking
back from Boston on a dark night in Freshman year, spied a tempting sign
hanging on a door-post. He secured it by some difficult climbing, and
tucking it under his overcoat, went on his way. On arriving in his room
he announced that he had a prize, and, unbuttoning his coat, he
displayed to Burleigh's delighted gaze, his only evening suit and the
sign "Fresh Paint."

This practice of stealing signs had made Bullam's meat of many a
Freshman. In fact, the diligent Sergeant depended upon it for most of
his [Greek: kudos] so Dick Stoughton had determined to play upon his
keenness in this respect, and use a sign as the bait with which to hook
his fish. On the appointed evening he and Randolph went to
Cambridgeport, and bought a barber's pole. They were careful to get a
receipted bill from the barber with an accurate description of the pole.
The latter was marked with the barber's name in gilt letters, and was
small enough to be nearly, but not quite, covered with an overcoat. Thus
provided, they started back for Cambridge proper (the Port being usually
known as Cambridge improper) along Main Street, keeping as much as
possible in the shadows. At the end of half a dozen blocks, they came on
a policeman, and promptly crossed the street in a most alluring manner.
The vigilant officer, noticing the suspicious shape of Randolph's
overcoat held under his arm, gave chase. The end of the pole stuck out
from the coat, and it was useless for the students to protest that they
had nothing that did not belong to them. They assured their captor that
the pole was theirs, that they had paid for it and could prove the fact;
but he insisted upon taking them before the captain of the precinct.

The captain had had a hard day, and was preparing to go to bed when they
were brought before him. He was tired and cross, and his humor was not
improved by this new arrival. When Stoughton showed the receipt,
however, he at once discharged the prisoners with much pleasure, and
reprimanded the overcareful officer.

The two then went on to the next guardian of Main Street, and he bit
equally well. They warned him of the result, and gave him their word of
honor that the pole was not stolen. He hesitated, and for a moment they
feared that he was going to be decent enough to believe them. But he was
a new and zealous recruit on the force and the bait was too inviting; so
he decided not to trust them. He was as polite as possible about it and
when he even apologized for not taking their word, they came near
melting and showing the receipt. But the fall of Bullam was not to be
averted, simply because gentler tyrants might be entrained. So back they
went to headquarters.

The captain came down in a red dressing-gown, the skirt of which flapped
idly in the breeze that came through an open window in the office. His
bare feet were shoved into a pair of carpet slippers, each foot in the
wrong slipper. With one hand he held a candle that wiggled in the
candle-stick and dropped wax on his wrist, and with the other hand tried
to keep the dressing-gown about his person. His frame of mind faithfully
carried out the spirit of the picture. To any guilty prisoner he would
have been indeed a terrifying spectacle; but he could do nothing to the
innocent and insulted gentlemen who had been haled before him. He
therefore relieved himself on their captor. The poor man got such a
dressing down, that when they left the office, Randolph presented him
with full forgiveness, a dollar bill, and the advice to learn as soon as
possible to tell a Senior from a Freshman.

The next policeman they met was old George Smith. He held them up with a
look of surprise, and a remark that he thought they had been in college
too long to be "ragging" barber's poles. When they explained to him,
however, he of course believed them, and grinned as he perceived
something in the wind.

"It is lucky that was George," said Stoughton, as they went on. "If we
had struck a strange cop, who thought we were liars, we should have
brought down the wrong bird. That police captain is just exactly primed
and loaded to the muzzle, and all ready to go off. Now for Bullam!"

They had now reached Quincy Square, and saw the fated form of Bullam
loom in the offing. They made for him boldly; there was no need of
finessing in his case. The moment his hawk eye caught sight of the
ill-concealed pole, he bore down on them with a grim joy.

"What have you got under that coat?" he demanded in his usual suave
tone.

"None of your business," responded Jack Randolph, with an inward
chuckle.

"It isn't, eh! Do you think I can't see that pole a-sticking out there?
Do you think you can steal signs under my very nose? You come along with
me now, and we'll see whether it's none of my business."

"If your insulting remarks refer to this barber-pole," replied Randolph,
producing the pole with ostentatious confidence, "allow me to tell you
that it belongs to us, and we have a perfect right to carry it wherever
we please. Although, as I said before, it is none of your business, I
will condescend to let you know that I bought it lately, and have a
receipt for it in my pocket."

"You can't give me no such bluff as that," sneered Bullam. "You can tell
that to the captain of the precinct. I'll give you a chance to show your
receipt."

"Look here, my man," (nothing makes a gentleman of Bullam's class more
angry than to call him "my man") answered Stoughton, "you don't deserve
it after the language you have used to us, but, nevertheless, I give you
fair warning not to do anything of the kind. If you take us to the
captain, you will get into trouble."

Bullam was beside himself. The more they said to him the more furious he
became, and finally threatened to use his club "if they gave him any
more guff." So, in high delight, the two injured youths took their way a
third time towards the house of the captain.

The policeman who had last had them in charge turned quickly away as
they passed, and shoved his handkerchief into his mouth. It was a
grateful balm to the new man to see a veteran going into the same trap
that had just lacerated him. Moreover, Bullam was quite as unpopular in
the force as with the students.

All was dark in the house where lay the uneasy head that wore the crown
of the precinct. Bullam rang the bell, with a ferocious glare at his
prisoners, as though tolling their death knell. A minute afterwards a
window opened above, and a head was thrust forth.

"Who is there?" bellowed a voice, now familiar to our much-arrested
pair.

"Sergeant Bullam, sir, with an arrest."

Dick and Jack took care to stand under a gas-lamp.

"Have you got two men there with a barber's pole?" asked the voice,
rising from a roar to a shriek.

"Yes, sir," chuckled Bullam, gleefully, mistaking the direction of his
superior's wrath. "I caught----"

"Didn't they tell you that it was their property, bought and paid for?"

"Yes, they had some cock-and-bull----"

"Stop!" thundered the captain, "you're too ---- ready to think every
gentleman you meet is a liar. Don't you be so ---- ---- hot after your
promotion. If you'll give more attention to your important duties, and
less to making capital out of the students, you'll get ahead faster. Now
you go all the way back with these gentlemen, and see that they are not
troubled any more. If they are brought here again I'll know who to blame
for it. I'll have you up for a breach of special duty, and make it hot
for you. What's more, you treat them civilly. I'll have no bullies on my
squad. If this man gives you boys any lip, come around and see me about
it in the morning. Now get out of here, and you, Bullam, mind what I
tell you, and be ---- ---- careful."

All the blanks in the foregoing address were filled in with deep color,
and the window went down with a slam that heavily sank in the sickened
soul of the astonished Bullam.

"Come along, sergeant," cried Randolph, cheerfully, shouldering the
barber-pole. He and Dick led the way back through Quincy Square,
whistling the "Rogue's March" and the "Pere de la Victoire." The
overwhelmed Bullam fell in behind. As they turned down Harvard Street,
he walked slowly and tried to drop back to a distance which would
disguise his connection with the parade; but his conquerors allowed no
such break in the procession. They slowed down, too, and kept about ten
feet in front of him.

On the first corner of Harvard Street were stationed three or four small
boys (the occasionally useful Cambridge muckers) employed as vedettes.
Upon the approach of the triumph, they dashed off to the different clubs
and gathering-places where the long oppressed people were eagerly
awaiting the arrival of Bullam in chains. These all flocked to Harvard
Street, Hudson bringing his cornet, Dixey a pair of cymbals, and Ned
Burleigh flourishing the drum-major's baton, with which he had done
mighty service in the last torch-light procession. It was going to be
the most glorious triumph ever seen in the classic shades since
Washington rode through them on his white charger.

But, alas! what a trivial thing may upset the grandest strategy; what a
petty boor may defeat Ulysses! Yet it was not such a petty boor who
caused the ruin in this case; it was the Cambridge mucker, and he should
never have been overlooked by a man of Machiavelli Stoughton's
experience. Those who know the Cantabrigian guerilla respect his power,
though they abhor his ways. An influential member of this free
lancehood, having demanded a quarter for the vedette service before
mentioned, and being refused employment, nursed a vindictive spirit. He
gathered a band on Harvard Street, near to the advanced scouts, and
waited to see what was going to happen. As soon as Stoughton and
Randolph came up with the attendant Bullam, this unforeseen enemy raised
a joyful shout and marshalled his comrades behind the trio. As they
proceeded along the street, he yelled to every mucker they passed, "Hey,
ragsy, come on! Here's two o' de Ha'vards gettin' run in!"

Muckers gathered from every side like jackals, and Bullam, realizing the
sudden turn in the aspect of affairs, no longer lagged behind, but
forged up alongside of his would-be tamers, and assumed his old fierce
and haughty air. He could maintain his dignity before the public anyway.

This was the way Dick Stoughton's great triumph looked when it reached a
point opposite the Yard. The expectant crowd of undergraduates looked
for a moment in surprise and grief, then, notwithstanding their
disappointment at Bullam's escape, a great roar of laughter went up, as
they concluded that the two daring plotters had egregiously failed in
their attempt and were on their way to a dungeon.

"Let's bail them out," cried two or three. "Bail nothing, you idiots,"
shouted the chagrined Stoughton, "we are not arrested; this man is our
body-guard. Come on, and we will take the procession around the Square
and up Garden Street."

This had been Dick's original intention as to the line of march; but
just at this moment the Dean of Harvard College came around the corner
of Holyoke Street and stopped short. In the direction of Harvard Square
lay the jail, and Stoughton at once decided that a triumph of such
uncertain appearance had better be brought to a close right where they
were. He and Randolph halted, therefore, and, waving aloft the barber's
pole, gave Bullam their gracious permission to depart. As a little extra
effect they ordered him to disperse the rabble, to which mandate he
payed no attention. Then, with as much dignity as possible, they
retreated into Foster's. It was the best effort they could make to
retrieve the day, a weak ending to so magnificent a scheme.

They did not hear the last of their "grand pageant" for a long time; but
their own recollection of it will always be softened by the memory of
those sweet moments beneath the captain's window.




THE DOG BLATHERS.


Besides the "officers of instruction and government," and the instructed
and governed, there are many classes and individuals that make up the
university population of Cambridge--unofficial members, whose names do
not appear in the catalogue. There are the camp followers, the goodies,
the janitors, the Poco, John the Orangeman, Riley, the O'Haras who
"understand th' busniz," and all the other dignitaries, as firmly
established and well recognized as the Faculty. Probably the most
numerous of the unofficial classes is the great four-legged one. There
are undergraduate dogs, and law-school dogs, and post-graduate dogs, and
I believe there were one or two Divinity dogs. During our time there
were several very distinguished dogs in the Faculty, notably one huge
bull-dog. Among the undergraduates, the ugliest and most perfect in form
and feature, the most polished and attractive in manner, the most genial
and popular, in every way the leader _par excellence_, was Rattleton's
round head bull-terrier Blathers.

Blathers was named after the great man who bred him. That celebrated
fancier was renowned throughout Cambridge for two things, his dogs and
his profanity. He could outswear Sawin's expressman, Hitchell the black
scout, and the janitor of Little's Block, and any one who could excel
those three was indeed an artist. I do not believe, however, that the
recording angel entered all of Blather's items in the debit column:--in
the first place, he would not have had time, in the second place, most
of Blather's oaths were not delivered in anger, in the sense of Raca,
but flowed out innocently and unconsciously, merely as aids to
conversation. One morning this worthy came into Rattleton's room,
bearing in his hand a little brindled object about five inches long. It
looked like a stub-tailed rat, whose nose had been smashed with a lump
of coal.

"Good mornin', Mr. Rattleton; beg your pardon for intrudin', sir, but
I've got sumpthin' here I want for to show yer. I've got a magnificent
animal."

"Oh, get out, Blathers; I don't want a dog; had to give away the last
one."

The following speech was bristling with profanity, but I have omitted
even the indication blanks, except in one passage where they were too
characteristic to be left out.

"I don't want yer to buy him, sir. I just want to show him to yer. He's
a beauty. I know yer knows the points of a dog, sir, and its just a
pleasure I'm givin' yer to look at him. Just take him in your hand, sir.
Now, I sold Mrs. G. an own half brother of that feller. You know Mrs.
G., surely, down here to the Theolog. school?" (Mrs. G. was a most
charming and gentle lady, the wife of a celebrated clergyman.) "Well, I
stopped at her house the other day to see how she liked the pup. She
says to me, 'By ----, Blathers,' says she, 'that's the ---- ---- finest
dog ever I see; d---- me, if it ain't,' says she. Yes, sir, that's just
what she thought about him. You go ask her and see if it ain't. And she
wouldn't say nothin' she didn't mean, just to tickle me, neither. Mrs.
G. is a real lady, and knows the points of a dog, she does. She was ----
---- kind to my wife when she was sick last time. Oh, my wife's been
orful sick, Mr. Rattleton. I had to pay for a lot of doctor's consults
and other stuff; that's just the only reason, sir, I want to sell this
beautiful pup. I 'd never part with him in this world, if I could help
it."

Blathers never would have parted from any of his dogs had it not been
for his frequent family afflictions. These afflictions were always very
expensive and varied, from the funeral of his mother to the birth of
twins. He buried four mothers in one year; that was his best work,
though six children born during the following term pushed hard on the
record.

"If I could only make up my mind to let yer have that dog, Mr.
Rattleton," he went on, "it would work both ways. Maybe I ought to do
it. It would be a favor and a kind thing in me to sell yer that pup at
any price, and you'd be doin' a charity to a poor man in helpin' me
along. It would be a good action all around, see? Oh, I need the money
orful bad."

Rattleton during this speech had been playing with the puppy, and he was
struck both by the brightness of the little fellow and the logic of his
owner. He knew that Blathers really did have rather hard times with his
family. In any case Lazy Jack never took the trouble to sift a tale of
woe and apply the most enlightened and efficient remedy. He had no
excuse for not doing so; he took the Social Ethics Course in Philosophy
because it was easy, and of course he knew how wrong it is to give to a
beggar; nevertheless, he rarely failed to do so if he had a coin in his
pocket, because it was so much easier than making enquiries and giving
advice. Moreover Jack was so lacking in principles, that if he thought
the beggar looked cold and in want of a hot whiskey, he was, if
anything, more apt to yield the ill-destined alms. In this instance the
insidious Blathers had struck him in two vulnerable spots, his very weak
nature, and his love of dogs. He also wanted to get rid of Blathers with
his endless stream of lurid and decidedly rum-flavored eloquence, and
the easiest way to do so was to buy the puppy.

It was in his master's Sophomore year that Blathers, the pup, began his
career. He waxed fast in beauty and knowledge. His nose grew in and his
teeth grew out, his ears assumed the correct angle and his legs the
proper curve. His tail in babyhood had been scientifically bitten off by
the gentleman after whom he was named, and was, therefore, of exactly
the right length. He went through the distemper and gave it to every dog
in his club. His spirit did not belie his points; before the end of his
junior year he had tackled almost every dog in Cambridge and generally
came out on top. He was a dog of marvellous tact, also; he learned not
to growl at the proctor on his staircase. Rattleton spent much time on
Blather's education--so did Rattleton's friends. The latter, among other
accomplishments, succeeded after great effort in teaching him to drink
beer; but Blathers never went beyond the bounds of propriety, as did
frequently that disreputable Irish terrier of Dixey's.

Blather's most prominent virtue of all was devotion to his master, and
his affection was fully returned. Those two were rarely apart, except in
the mornings, before Rattleton was up. Blathers always got out with the
nine o'clock lecture men and chapel goers, and would visit around at the
various club-tables where he had friends, generally collecting five or
six breakfasts before his master arose. At about eleven o'clock he would
be seen, sitting with his arms akimbo, in front of the Holly Tree; then
Jack was sure to be inside, getting the marvellous dropped eggs from the
sad-eyed John. If ever Blathers frequented the steps of Massachusetts,
Sever, or other lecture hall, all men would know that Jack Rattleton was
again on probation. If they saw the dog on the grim stone Stair of Sighs
in the south entrance of University, they would make sympathetic
inquiries when next they met the master.

When the round black and brown head stuck out of the window of Riley's
cab, it was certain that Rattleton was bound over the bridge. They even
went once or twice to the theatre together, Blathers concealed under
Jack's overcoat. Though pugnacious by nature, it was not because
Blathers loved other dogs less, but fighting more. He loved a row for
its own sweet self, had few enemies and several warm friends. He was
particularly devoted to Hudson's Topsy, and engaged in many a combat on
her account, and for her edification. There were only two dogs for whom
he had any real aversion--Mike Dixey, of his own class, and Baynor's
white bull-dog, of the class below him.

Probably the happiest moment of Blathers college life occurred one day
on Holmes' Field. There was a class ball-game going on; the Sophomores
were ranged on one side of the field, the Juniors opposite. The white
bull-dog had been barking in time with the cheering, yelping at the
players of the opposing team, trying to "rattle" the pitcher, and making
himself generally conspicuous and obnoxious. Finally, in the excitement
over some good play, he slipped his collar and ran into the outfield to
congratulate the centre-fielder. Somehow or other (Ned Burleigh probably
knew), Blathers happened to get loose at the same moment. With a
heralding bark he flew into the listed field and made straight for the
white champion. All interest in the ball-game ceased at once. With a
great shout the two opposing crowds rose from the seats _en masse_, and
swept across the diamond, "blocking off" the owners of the two dogs, who
rushed to separate them. In the rush, five or six more terriers got
adrift, and reached the front well ahead of their masters. In just about
ten seconds there was a ball of at least seven dogs of various fighting
breeds, rolling about in a halo of hair, howls, and pure delight. After
a few minutes, their masters succeeded in pushing through the
surrounding crowd, and each man laid hold of a dog's tail or hind leg.
By dint of heaving and kicking, the happy party was at last broken up,
and at the bottom of the pile were found Blathers and the white
bull-dog. They were locked in a fond embrace, and it took hot water from
the gymnasium to get them apart. Ever after that Blathers bore a scar on
the side of his head; but he was proud of that mark, for there was a
larger and more distinct one on the Sophomore dog.

Blathers got into a scrape in his Senior year that nearly caused his
expulsion from the University, and compromised his master seriously. An
aunt of Rattleton's came out to Cambridge one afternoon, for the purpose
of attending the Thursday Vespers in Appleton Chapel. She notified Jack
that she expected him to escort her. Jack got his room in order, with
some difficulty, expurgated the ornaments and pictures, put his aunt's
photograph on the mantel-piece and a Greek lexicon on the table, and
sent Blathers to spend the afternoon with a friend. Aunt could not abide
a dog, especially one of Blathers' type of beauty. So Mr. B. went off
with Jack Randolph.

Randolph's room was in the back of Thayer, and his window commanded the
approaches to Appleton Chapel. Blathers was squatted in the window-seat
with his head on one side, idly watching the birds, and wondering where
his master could have gone. Suddenly his eye fell on that very person,
and with him one of that kind of humans whose legs are all in one piece.
Blathers had seen lots of that kind, and knew well enough what they
were; but what could one of them possibly be doing with his master,
right here in Cambridge, at this time of year? He had never seen such a
thing as that before, except once on Class Day. It was for this, then,
that he had been dismissed for the afternoon! Well, well, well, pretty
goings on! He betrayed his astonishment and irritation by a low "wuff!"
jumped down from the window-seat, and scratched at the door.

"No," said Randolph, looking at him, "you can't get out. Did you see a
cat?"

Blathers came over to the arm-chair, stood up, putting both hands on
Randolph's knees, and looked at him appealingly.

"Yes, I know," said Randolph, "your master has deserted you for the
afternoon, hasn't he? Mean trick, isn't it? And where do you suppose he
has gone? To Vespers, think of that! Don't shake your head, Blathers,
it's true----" "Wuff!" "Yes, rather remarkable, I know; no wonder you
say so. But don't blame him; he couldn't help it, and it will do him
good."

A few minutes afterwards Randolph threw away his book, and took his cap.

"Come, Blathers," said he, "we'll go over to the Pud for awhile. You may
find your friend Topsy there."

No sooner had he opened the door than Blathers scrambled down-stairs
with that graceful motion peculiar to a terrier on urgent business; his
hind-quarters shoved his head all the way down-stairs, and tripped over
it at the bottom. He shot out of the door as if after a cat, whisked
round the corner, and made straight for the Chapel. On the steps,
however, he paused, for, at that moment, coming up the path from
Memorial, he saw a sight that made his blood boil. Hudson and Dixey were
strolling back from the Agassiz, and trotting ahead of them were Topsy
and that abominable Mike Dixey. As has been mentioned before, Mike was a
dog of very loose character. He would get intoxicated on beer whenever
he could find any one to "set it up." He belonged nominally to Dixey,
but was really a sort of dog-about-college. He would attach himself to
any one whom he could work for crackers and beer. He did not mind
spending the night on a door-step, and associated with all the street
curs. He would hang around the public billiard-rooms and Foster's, and
do tricks for sandwiches. Sometimes he would disappear on a spree for
days, get caught by the muckers, and come home with a tin can in tow.
Altogether he was no fit company for a lady, and when Blathers saw this
low-lived animal walking with his Topsy, reverence for the spot could
not restrain his indignation. Right in front of the Chapel door he
insulted the Irish terrier, and before the men behind could come up,
then and there the fight began. Rattleton, within, heard the sounds of
conflict rise above the anthem, and, by some vague intuition, his blood
ran cold. Another moment and Mike came flying up the aisle with yelps of
pain, evidently seeking sanctuary. Blathers may have had a deep
reverence for Appleton Chapel (barring the architecture), but his blood
was up, and he did not stop to think. He pursued the flying foe,
overtook and grabbed him again, just beyond Rattleton's pew, and
alongside of that of a couple of magnates. Jack thought it would be
better to remove those two dogs himself, and did so, one in each hand.
But there was no use in pretending that he did not know to whom that
scientific bull-terrier belonged. The men outside had some difficulty in
persuading him that they were in no way responsible for the episode.

Mr. Blathers lived long and went to many places, but that was the only
time he ever attended services in church.




A HOWARD AND HARVARD EVENING.


That evening at dinner Burleigh and Rattleton entertained the table with
a glowing description of a new play they had seen on the previous night,
at the Howard Athenaeum. They were most enthusiastic about it.

"I can't understand," declared Burleigh, "how such a piece and such a
troupe happened to drop into the old Howard. Such scenery! Why, the
stage setting was the best I ever saw. One act was laid in the pine
woods; you could look way through them, apparently, live birds flew
about among the branches, and they must have burned some sort of balsam
in the wings, for you could actually smell the pines."

"That's a new smell for the Howard," remarked Hudson.

"Yes, and those two girls!" added Jack Rattleton. "By Jove, wasn't that
blonde a beauty!"

"The brunette was better," averred Burleigh. "How she did sing! They
have splendid songs all through the play."

"Never saw such acting," said Jack, "even--certainly never at the
Howard."

"The hero was a magnificent young man," Burleigh went on. "You ought to
see him throw down the villain in the last act. I'm going again as soon
as I can."

"Why haven't we heard of it before?" queried Stoughton, suspiciously.

"It was a first night," explained Burleigh, promptly. "Jack and I were
pioneers. You fellows ought to go see it. You'll hear enough of it
before it is over; but go in now while it is fresh."

"I have nothing to do to-night," said Hudson. "I believe I'll go. Who is
with me?"

Stoughton and Gray both agreed to join him. Holworthy and Randolph were
going to drive over to a ball in Brookline.

"I'd give anything to go with you chaps," said Burleigh, "but I have got
to work into the wee sma' hours on my forensic. It is due to-morrow
morning, and I haven't done a thing on it."

"I'd like to see that show again, too," said Jack, "but I don't feel
very well to-night. I'm going to turn in early."

The three theatre-goers started for town immediately after dinner. They
stopped at one of the clubs first, and picked up three or four other men
on the strength of Burleigh's eulogy of the play.

Whoever has been through Harvard College and never been to the Howard
Athenaeum has neglected his advantages; fortunately such deplorable
instances are rare. Who, that has improved his opportunities, does not
remember the old stamping-ground, where the commingled perfumes of
orange-peel, humanity, and peanuts would smell to high heaven, were they
not stopped in a concentrated mass by the grimy roof. There things are
real, things are earnest, unweakened by affectation and refinement. The
villains are real bad villians, and carry knives, not cigarettes. They
know how to gloat. The heroes have red undershirts and true nobility,
and don't mind showing either. The heroines are not ashamed of
sentimentality. Neither is the audience. There, too, is music that you
can remember and whistle, that you can sing afterwards on the way back
to Cambridge; not music that you must contemplate with rapt gaze on the
ceiling. There you will find humor of the broad, plain, unmistakable
variety, humor at which you can laugh for its own sake, not for the
maker's wit or your own in detecting it. Nor, in that shrine of the
Muses, does pleasure always end with the fall of the curtain. Frequently
you may see two or three excellent fights on the way out, and perhaps be
granted a share in one yourself. Oh, you get your money's worth at the
classic Athenaeum, for it is all for fifty cents (thirty-five in the
gallery).

"I have a suspicion," said Stoughton, on the way in town, "that those
fellows were lying to us. I'll bet this show is something awful, they
were probably bored to death, and conceived the happy thought of getting
us sold in the same way."

"Never mind," said Hudson, philosophically; "we'll have a good time
anyway."

Before the curtain had been up ten minutes, Dick's suspicion gained
ground; it's truth was fully confirmed long before the end of the play.
The scenery, the birds, and the pine balsam effects were wholly
creatures of Burleigh's capable brain; as for Jack Rattleton's houris,
Stoughton declared that "Noah was a fool to have saved them; he ought to
have shut them out in the rain long enough to get a wash any way."

Even the Athenaeum audience was dissatisfied and inclined to jeer. Gray
wanted to leave at the end of the first act.

"Hold on," insisted Hudson, "let's stay here and make this a success.
There's lots of good sentiment all through it, just your style Gray. All
it needs is a little enthusiasm in the house to warm up the actors.
Let's lead the applause on the strong points."

So they stayed, and their efforts were attended with such success, that
they might have had a free pass for future performances. Every time the
hero said, "I am the just man and you are the villain," or the heroine
declared she would never leave him while life lasted, or showed other
symptoms of heroism, the knot of students would stamp, and applaud, and
rouse the finer feelings of the whole house. The grateful actors
certainly did warm up, and delivered with more and more vim their honest
expressions of lofty sentiment and occasional touches of patriotism, the
latter utterly uncalled for, but always welcome. The audience became
worked up as well, but in the last act suddenly began to hiss.

"Hullo! what's up now?" asked Gray, who had not taken the Athenaeum
course faithfully, and was not learned in it; "what are they hissing
at?"

"Good gracious, man," answered Hudson, "don't you see? Don't display
your ignorance. They are hissing the villain. It's the greatest
compliment you can pay him. Go ahead, hiss like a good one."

On the whole, the performance was a grand success, and Hudson insisted
that Gray had made an undoubted conquest of the second lady. After it
was over some one mentioned "broiled lob. and musty," at Parks, but it
was voted to return to Cambridge and make a rarebit there.

"We'll go pull out Ned Burleigh, and have it in his room," suggested
Dick.

"No you don't!" exclaimed Hudson. "You forget I'm his chum. I'll have no
Welsh rarebit made in that room unless we draw lots and I get stuck. The
room would smell of cheese and stale beer for twenty-four hours."

"Let's land on Rattleton then. We'll teach him to lie."

Feeling in a luxurious mood they scorned the cars, and chartered a
herdic, four men getting inside and three on the roof. For those readers
who know not the herdic, I will explain that it is a sort of tiny
omnibus in which four thin people can sit uncomfortably. It usually has
two wheels and never more than one horse--sometimes not quite as much.

"I may as well tell you before we start," said Stoughton, who sat on the
top, to the driver, "that we are not Freshmen, so don't break a spring
on the bridge and tell us that it will cost you ten dollars to get it
mended."

"I know you're old hands," answered Jehu, with a grin, "I know youse
fellers. I remember your face pertickler. Mebbe you disrecollect comin'
out with me one night from Parker's. Let's see, guess it was two years
ago, after the Institoot dinner."

"All right, my friend, say no more," acknowledged Dick, as the other two
men shouted. "The drink is on me. Here is the price of it."

The door at the back of the herdic is held shut with a strap that leads
through the roof to the driver's seat. This was secured firmly, so as to
keep the inside passengers safe, for it is an established courtesy for
those inside to slip out when near the college, leaving the others to
pay the driver and joining them later. By means of the strap, however,
and the lack of a knife among the insiders, all arrived well together at
the building where Rattleton roomed.

"I'll go to the Fly and get the cheese and beer," said Gray. "You get
your chafing-dish, Dick."

Stoughton roomed in the same building with Rattleton, as did Hudson and
Burleigh. While he went after his chafing-dish the others reconnoitered
Rattleton's quarters. The door was locked and all was dark. The glass
ventilator over the door, however, was unfastened, and large enough to
admit a man. Jack Rattleton always left his ventilator unfastened, for
he often depended on it for his own ingress. The reason of this was very
simple,--the door had a spring bolt, and it was characteristic of Mr.
Rattleton's nature to frequently leave his keys inside and shut the door
when he went out. It was a very simple matter for Hudson to climb over
the door through this ventilator, drop down, and open the door from the
inside.

"Look out for Blathers," said one man. "If that pretty pup is in there
he'll take a piece out of your leg."

"He knows my voice," answered Hudson, as he "shinned" over. He let the
rest in and lit the gas. Rattleton was not in his bedroom.

"Humph," grunted Hudson. "Said he wasn't well and was going to turn in
early. The abominable liar."

They poked up the fire and had it roaring when Stoughton returned,
bearing the chafing-dish and a long pipe, his dear Mary Jane.

"That's a good idea," said Hudson, as his eye fell on the latter
article. "You've brought that disgusting black pipe. We can stand it for
a while, and it will permeate Jack's room and teach him the beauty of
truth. Puff away on Mary; serve Jack right."

Rattleton's plates and other necessities were foraged out by the time
Gray appeared with the cheese and beer. Not seeing Rattleton, he asked
how the others had got in. Hudson explained. "This open ventilator habit
of Jack's" he added, "is worse than rooming on the ground floor. Ned
Burleigh and I had enough of that in Freshman year, before we moved up
here. Our room was a regular darned club. Everybody would drop in there
between lectures, chin when we wanted to study, and smoke our tobacco,
just because it was too much trouble to go up-stairs. We couldn't leave
our window open at night without having some fools crawl in, at any time
after midnight, and raise the deuce."

"Yes, I remember. It was very pleasant," remarked Stoughton.

The creation of the rarebit was well under way with the usual
accompaniment of advice and altercation over the ingredients, when
shouts were heard from under the window, of "Jack, Jack Rat, Oh, Jack!"

Hudson threw up the window and saw Holworthy and Randolph below in a
buggy. "Mr. Rattleton is not in, gentlemen," he said, "but come right up
and make yourselves at home."

"All right; be with you in a moment, as soon as we have taken this trap
round to Blake's."

"It is the two society fritterlings," announced Hudson, as he drew in
his head. A few minutes later Randolph and Holworthy appeared in their
big coats.

"Seems to me you're back from your ball pretty early," observed Gray.

"Hol didn't find the person there he wanted to see, so he soured on the
whole thing and dragged me away early," Jack Randolph explained.

"What a whopper," said Holworthy, as he took off his ulster. "It was
very stupid, and Jack himself suggested that we should be happier in
Cambridge."

"Aha," cried Stoughton, who was stirring the "bunny" with a master hand.
"Very nice. Two gentlemen in faultless evening attire. They'll do for
the waiters. Here, quick, hand up your plates before this thing gets
cold."

While they were eating the rarebit, a step was heard in the entry,
accompanied by the trotting feet of a dog, and the locked door was
tried. Then a familiar voice drawled "What the devil is going on in
here?"

"Hullo, Jack," cried Stoughton, "come right in. Don't be bashful."

"Open the door, you arrant burglars," demanded Rattleton. "My keys are
on my bureau, or somewhere inside."

"Climb over the transom as I did," Hudson called. "You'll have to turn
your back to the company in the performance, but don't mind the
awkwardness of the position."

"We'll excuse your back. We have your hair-brushes and the fire shovel
already," added Randolph, cheerily.

"Don't be such babies," said Jack, (whenever any of the gang was at a
disadvantage, he was apt to age suddenly) "come, let me in."

"Are you sorry you told a naughty fib to-night?" asked Hudson, with his
hand on the knob.

"Yes."

"Will you set up the ingredients for a punch?"

"Yes."

"All right then, you may come in," said Hudson, graciously, opening the
door.

"How was the play?" inquired Jack, pleasantly, as he went into his
bedroom after the wash-basin, the regular understudy for a punch-bowl.

"Enjoyed it immensely, in spite of your wishes for our entertainment,"
Hudson declared. "We know now your ideal of talent and beauty."

"Don't blame me. That was all Burleigh's rot," protested Jack,
apologetically, but with a chuckle. "Why don't you pull him out?"

"That is a good plan," assented Hudson. "Two of you come up and help me
capture the elephant. He may resist." A committee of three went up to
wait upon Burleigh.

"What is the sense of this meeting as to the temperature of the grog?"
asked Rattleton.

"Hot!" promptly moved the two who had driven over from Brookline. The
motion was carried, so Jack put the kettle on the fire.

"Speaking of the drama and brother Burleigh," said Holworthy, "do you
remember the time, Dick, that we saw the old man suping in that
spectacular play in Sophomore year?"

"I'm not likely to forget it," answered Dick. "You fellows remember that
show called 'Albrachia,' or some such name, full of red fire and
fairies? Hol. and I went in to see it one night, and whom should we
discover as leading demon in the grand climax, but the stout Edward. We
nearly stood up and cheered,--but we'll make him tell about it
to-night."

"Hullo, here is the sylph now!" exclaimed some one, as the committee
returned in triumph with Ned in tow.

"The perjured loafer told us he was going to work on his forensic,"
cried Hudson. "Look at this," pointing to Burleigh, whose generous
proportions were swathed in gaudy pajamas.

"I hear you enjoyed the play exceedingly," remarked Burleigh, as he made
for the fireplace, and spread his huge form all over the front of it.

"So we did, no thanks to you," answered Gray.

"Any men who are such Athenaeum Lotharios as to be decoyed in town by the
mere mention of two pretty actresses, deserve to get sold," declared
Ned, severely.

"Here, take your toddy and stop your mouth," said Stoughton. "As a
penance for your lies, you can give us some reminiscences of your
disreputable career on the stage."

After some demurring, Burleigh was persuaded to begin his yarn. The
"tea" was made by this time, and enthroned on the student's desk in the
centre of the room. With "tod and tobac." the party disposed itself
about the room, every one with a view more to ease than grace. Blathers,
as usual, chose his master's outstretched legs. Ned Burleigh, with a
cigar, stood in front of the fire in his airy raiment, his feet apart,
warming his exterior with the genial blaze, and his interior with the
genial toddy. Would that we could have those evenings again!




THE HARVARD LEGION AT PHILIPPI.


"What do you want me to relate?" asked Burleigh. "The great battle of
Philippi?"

"Yes, we would like to hear about that," answered Stoughton, "and also
your experience with the Hosts of Darkness."

"That was a very short and painful affair," Ned explained. "I'll tell
you that first. You must know, my children, that I was once a godless
Sophomore even as other Sophs. You may scarcely believe it now, but I
was. Among other follies, I took to 'suping' occasionally. Of course my
intentions were purely noble; I wanted to elevate the stage. On one
occasion this man Hudson, here, led me to the Boston Theatre, where an
elaborate show was being given and 'supes' were in demand. You fellows
must remember the play, it was called 'Alboraka, the Wizard.' They
wanted only one man for that night, and as I was the handsomer, they
chose me. I comforted Steve by promising to share with him the quarter
that I expected to earn; I believe on the strength of my promise he
bought a seat in the peanut gallery."

"Oh, no, I didn't," interrupted Hudson, "I had a seat right under a box
where there was a theatre-party of Mrs. Mayflor Tremont's, with a lot of
girls I knew. I was thundering glad I wasn't on the stage, and had more
than half a mind to point you out to them."

"You wouldn't have troubled me at all," answered Ned. "That is where we
unknown woolly Westerners get the drop on the Boston men, and you dudes
who go in for Boston society. However, to go on with this confession, I
was appointed leader of the Hosts of Darkness. I don't know why I was
singled out for this distinction, unless it was on account of my superb
figure."

"That was it," corroborated Stoughton. "You did look stunning in those
red tights, even more fetching than you are now in those pajamas."

"The part was not a difficult one, but very important," Burleigh
continued. "I had to look fierce, and bear aloft a huge red and gold
affair. This was referred to once or twice as 'yon gonfalon of
Diabolus,' so I suppose that's what it was. I only had to go on the
stage twice. In the last scene, where the Wizard got thrown down, there
was a high bridge at the back of the stage. It was steep on the sides,
shaped a good deal like the Chinese bridge in a blue willow-ware plate;
don't you remember? I had to hold this bridge for the Wizard at the head
of my minions, and was doing it with dignity and grace. My instructions
were to stay there until the Queen of the Fairies should point at me and
say 'Avaunt, vile blood-fiends, to the shades below'; then to retire
with signs of rage and terror, while the Hosts of Light came up the
other side of the bridge. Now I was watching and listening to the Queen
carefully, and I am sure she never pointed at me, or opened her head
about 'avaunting.' I think myself that my fatal beauty in the red tights
had made an impression on her, and she didn't want me to leave. She
probably couldn't find it in her heart to call me a blood-fiend; at any
rate there was some hitch, for the Hosts of Light began coming up the
bridge ahead of time. Of course, I wasn't going to avaunt without
orders, so I stood there waiting for my cue. The leading angel called me
a most vile name, in an anxious undertone, and poked his spear violently
in the pit of my stomach. He hurt me like the devil, so I promptly
smashed him on the head with the Gonfalon of Diabolus, and bowled him
down among the advancing Hosts of Light, to their utter confusion. The
next minute something lit on the back of my neck, and that is all I
know. I believe it was a sandbag hove from the wings, and that I was
dragged out by the heels."

"You were, you were," Holworthy shouted at the recollection, "but it was
done so quickly that half of the audience didn't see it."

"When I came to," Ned went on, "I was on my face behind the scenes, with
four or five able-bodied Irishmen sitting on my back. The 'super'
captain was going to turn me over to the cop; but I begged pardon all
round, paid for the leading angel's broken head, and finally managed to
smooth things over."

"They are pretty careful how they take amateur supes at any of the
theatres now. Nothing like the battle of Philippi can ever occur again,"
said Rattleton, regretfully.

"Give us that, Ned," said Stoughton; "I guess some of these fellows have
never heard an accurate account by one of the heroes."

"That was truly the grandest suping event in history," said Burleigh,
refilling his glass, and returning to his position by the fire. "It was
just after that new theatre was opened, way down there on Washington
Street. It was a cheap shrine, but I tell you, now, Melpomene was right
in it. The owners had no idea of making it a low-down variety hall, not
much. They were going to give high-class performances and educate the
masses. One of the first things they had there was a Shakespearean
revival, run by a peripatetic star named Riley. The fellows used to go
in and supe all the time. They rather liked to have Harvard men for two
reasons: first, because it was cheap, and, in the second place, I think
Riley's manager rather expected us to bring all our friends and
relatives there to see us act, and give the place a boom.

"The first night of _Julius Caesar_ came on Jim de Laye's twenty-first
birthday, and he was going to give a dinner, after which we intended to
fill a box at the show and give Caesar a good send-off. I went in town to
get the box, and at the office I heard the manager, or some official,
complaining about lack of supes. I made inquiries, and it ended in my
contracting to furnish him with ten good men and true for that evening
at reasonable rates. He gave me as a bonus a few tickets for any of my
family or 'lady friends.' It showed how green he was to take ten of 'de
Ha'vards' at once. They never would have done that anywhere else in
town.

"The other chaps all fell in with the arrangement, and we had the dinner
at Parker's early. A man does not get to be twenty-one years old every
day in the year, so we took pains to see that Jim did it properly.

"That lazy goat on the sofa there (pointing to Rattleton) had not been
seen in Cambridge that afternoon, and knew nothing about the suping
arrangement. Of course, he was late to dinner, as usual, and of course,
as usual, he turned up with that d----d dog of his. After dinner, when
we adjourned to the theatre, we wanted him to leave Blathers behind at
Parker's, but he insisted on taking the pup along, wrapped in his
overcoat. He assured us that Blathers would keep perfectly quiet, and no
one would ever know he was there. We might have known better, but I
suppose we were in a yielding mood. De Laye and two or three others
brought bottles of fizz in their overcoats. They said it was always well
to propitiate the natives, and thought such provisions might be popular
with the Thespians. Jim swore he'd make noble Romans of every man of
'em. We got there early, and Blathers was tied up and hidden away under
Jack's coat in a corner of the dressing-room. In the performance we all
did our parts like little men. Rome was proud of her citizens that day.
As for our mob-work, that showed positive genius."

"How Marc Antony's speech over the body did go!" chuckled Rattleton from
the sofa.

"The stage-manager was delighted and complimented us, and so did Riley
himself. Jack Rat had made friends with Riley very early in the game. He
had invited him out to lunch in Cambridge, and had hinted at getting him
to coach the Pudding show. Moreover, Jack and I had steered several
large parties in to Riley's performances, and Riley knew it. It was a
lucky thing for us, as it turned out, that he and Jack had got so
chummy.

"All went well until the battle scene. They had put us all on the same
side; in fact, we constituted the entire army of Brutus--that was
another evidence of greenness in the management. The battle had been
raging mildly for some time. We had marched and counter-marched, and had
been reviewed and exhorted two or three times, without even getting a
glimpse of the enemy. At last it came to the scene where Brutus'
aggregation gets driven across the stage by Antony's offering a
desperate resistance. Cassius had been killed, young Cato was going to
be captured, and everything was going to the bow-wows. While we were
standing in the wings along with Antony's army, waiting to go on, Jim de
Laye said, 'Hang it, let's put a little real good acting into this
thing; these stage scraps are too woodeny.' Of course I did my best to
restrain this idea among my companions, but it became popular at once in
spite of anything I could say. I must confess I always had rather a
desire myself to see that oily-mouthed peep of a Marc Antony well
thrashed. The next minute we had to go across the back of the stage,
hotly contesting every inch of the way with our trusty wooden brands,
two up and two down. About half way over, that crazy Jim de Laye opened
the ball by smiting his man hip and thigh and other parts, in the most
life-like manner. The other supe hit back in just anger, and there was
an instant rally of the Brutus forces. My man was a little fellow, and I
did him up in time to see an entirely new feature introduced in the
scene. Marc Antony himself suddenly appeared, hard pressed by a togaed
citizen. The way he got there was this--correct me, Jack, if I make any
mistake in this part of the history. Blathers, as I told you, had been
left curled up under a coat in the dressing-room. Some of the employees
had found him there, however, untied him, and started in to play with
him. Mr. Blathers, finding himself in strange company, slipped away from
them and went looking for his master. Just as the battle scene began, he
arrived at the wings, where Marc Antony was waiting to go on. Antonius
was in very bad humor about something. He asked in fluent Latin, 'What
the ---- that dog was doing there?' and made a kick at Blathers. I guess
Blathers was in much the same mood, for he turned around and effected a
prompt connection with the calf of Marc Antony's leg. He was a
disappointed dog; he got his mouth full of horsehair. Antony wasn't
touched, and let Blathers have it with the other foot.

"Now, Jack had not been assigned to the army, and was off duty in that
scene. He was standing in the wings in Roman citizen's clothes, trying
to flirt with the vestal virgins.

"Hold on," interrupted Jack, "you told me to correct any mistake. That's
one."

"Well, perhaps they were not. You know more about that than I do,"
admitted Ned. "Any way, he turned around just in time to see his
faithful hound doing somersaults from Marc Antony's toe. I'll do Jack
the justice to say that he is generally slow to wrath--he is too
lazy--but when that ugly pup of his is concerned, he loses his head.

"He not only lost his head that time, but tried to knock off Marc
Antony's too. Marc went, staggering out into the field of battle, and
Jack, the fool, followed him up. As I said, the battle had opened in
earnest all along the line when this happened, and the house was already
on it's feet. It was a good, warm house. It was mainly from Sou' Boston,
and had taken about thirty-five seconds to get on to the magnificent
realism of the scene. It went wild with delight at this addition to the
affair. Blathers rallied and flew out on the stage to the support of
Jack's charge. This time he tore all the padding off Marc's legs, amid
the enthusiastic plaudits of the audience.

"The stage-manager yelled for the policeman, and went tearing about
after him. 'Colonel' Dixey, of Kentucky, who was also off duty in this
scene, had enticed the cop into a distant corner, along with the
departed Caesar and a bottle of fizz. J. Caesar was a tragedian who would
have been dear to the heart of a _Puck_ artist. He was a thirsty soul
with a radiant nose and a beery eye. Shortly after his death he had
attached himself to Colonel Dixey and his overcoat, and the Colonel had
warmly requited his affection. In fact, Dixey devoted two whole bottles
to the good work, and at the end of the fourth act Caesar had had some
difficulty in doing his own ghost. He was free after that, and during
this last act, he and the Colonel had let in the blue-coat, and retired
into a secluded nook among the scenery. The Colonel had filled Caesar up
to the brim, and had got the law pretty well zigged, too, when the
manager brought the news of battle. All three rushed to the front, the
cop, of course, getting there last. The conflict was at its height, when
dead Caesar appeared, boiling drunk, and took sides with inspiring shouts
against his own avengers. Dixey pitched in too, and these reinforcements
turned the tide at once. Brutus was victorious at all points. We rushed
Marc Antony and his gang clear off the field, and destroyed the flying
remnants behind the wings. The audience fairly howled and encored
wildly.

"The cop was utterly useless, he grabbed the small man that I had
floored in the beginning of the row, clubbed him a little, and hung on
to him like grim death. The manager was crazy, and told him to send for
a hurry-up wagon, and run us all in. We showed the law great respect,
though, after the shindy was over; called him sergeant and offered to
support him in maintaining the peace. He didn't know exactly who was
responsible, so he contented himself with shaking the little man some
more, and declaring that he could 'attend to this business alone, and
didn't want no help, see?' Marc Antony wanted the blood of Jack and
Blathers, but Riley, the star, who played Brutus, was inclined to think
that Antony was to blame for the whole thing. You see Antony had got
more applause than Brutus all through. His great speech had had a
particular success, probably due to our able presentation of the
populace. Riley sat on Marc first, and then they both went for Caesar,
who was maudlin in the corner. He had got a helmet on, wrong side
before, and was begging us with tears in his eyes to go 'once more into
the breach, dear friends, or close the wall with our English dead.' When
Brutus cursed him he drew himself up and hiccoughed, 'Et tu,
Brute,--hic--well--hic you seen me at Philippi anyhow.'

"Riley went back on the stage and made a little speech, and the audience
cheered him to the echo. Then the play went on, Brutus died like a man,
and all the principals, including J. Caesar and Blathers, were called
before the curtain. Jack made it up with Marc Antony, and after the show
we consoled the vanquished army with what was left of the champagne.
Most of the supes were Irish, anyway, and had enjoyed the pleasantry."




IN THE EARLY SIXTIES.


It was ten o'clock and time for John Stuart Mill to give place to Mary
Jane, so Stoughton threw the former into an arm-chair and took the
latter from the mantel-piece. He filled and lighted her affectionately,
and the content of the evening pipe came upon him. Then he bethought him
of beer and pleasant converse, and strolled around to the Pudding in
pursuit thereof.

There he found the usual ten o'clock "resting convention" in session
beneath its blue cloud of nicotine. The "earnest resters," as Burleigh
termed them, were stretched about in various attitudes, more of laziness
than repose. They were just then engaged in the popular pastime of
blackguarding the last number of the _Lampoon_ for the benefit of
Hudson, one of the editors.

"Hullo, Dick," remarked that gentleman, glad to change the subject as
Stoughton entered, "we knew you were coming; smelt Mary Jane as soon as
you turned the corner."

"Did you, really," replied Stoughton, making room for himself on the
sofa by removing Rattleton's legs to a neighboring chair, and spilling
the dog Blathers on the floor. "What was that chum of yours doing in the
building last night? Were you also engaged in the unseemly disturbance?"

"No," answered Hudson, "I had nothing to do with it. I decline all
responsibility for Edward Burleigh. I am not my room-mate's keeper."

"I heard him carolling on the stairs at an hour when singing should be
left to the little birds. He hammered on my door for a while, but I knew
enough not to get up. I wonder he didn't raise the proctor. He shouted,
through my key-hole, something about the war being over."

"Yes," said Hudson, "that was what he told me when he woke me up by
sitting on my chest. He was going to carry the good news all through the
Yard, but I persuaded him to go to bed and wait until morning."

"Where had he been?"

"Well, you see, Jack Randolph carried him off yesterday evening to a
meeting of the Southern Club, as an invited guest, to span the bloody
chasm with him. They spanned it a good many times there, I guess, and
then as it was a beautiful moonlight night and perfect sleighing, they
decided that the bloody chasm ought to be spanned in Brookline and other
neighboring towns. So they got a cutter, and must have conducted
spanning operations on a wide scale all over the country, for they
didn't get back until dawn. George Smith, the policeman, says he saw
them sitting on the steps of Harvard Hall, singing 'John Brown's Body'
and 'Dixie,' and hymns of peace while the sun rose."

"I deny the aspersion on the Southern Club," exclaimed 'Colonel' Dixey,
from the other end of the long sofa. "I was present at the meeting, and
we had nothing to induce sunrise hymns. I don't know what Jack and Ned
did afterwards, but they didn't get it at the Southern Club."

This somewhat veiled assertion raised an incredulous chorus: "Oh, Dixey,
may you be forgiven." "Come, come, Colonel, do you mean to persuade us
that an organization containing at least three members from Kentucky is
run on a cold-water basis?" "Where is the glory of your old
commonwealth?" "Bet the meeting was full of rum--rum and rebellion!
Don't deny it, Colonel." "Drink and treason!"

"Neither, sir, neither," replied Dixey to this chaff. "I grieve to hear
such narrow-minded accusations. Prexy was there and made a speech.--Oh,
Holworthy! You know that man we saw yesterday in the Transept of
Memorial? He was at the Southern Club with Prexy."

"Oh, yes," said Holworthy, "who was he?"

"A grad. from Georgia. I have forgotten his name."

"I thought he was a grad., and not a stranger, for he didn't have a
guide book, and didn't ask us to show him the "_campus_." Had he been a
soldier?"

"Didn't say. If so, he was probably a Confed."

"Well, he looked like an interesting old cock anyway," said Holworthy to
the others. "He was standing before one of the tablets with his hat off.
Somehow, when we saw him, our own hats felt so uncomfortable that we
took them off, too, as we passed through."

"Holly made up all sorts of poetry about him," added Dixey.

"No, I didn't; but I do think he did the right thing in uncovering."

"Of course he did," said Ernest Gray, emphatically. "No man ought to
keep his hat on in that transept."

"Oh, now you've done it, Hol," groaned Stoughton. "You have started the
'Only Serious.'"

"We get too careless going back and forth in it every day," continued
Gray. "We don't fully appreciate it, or we forget what it means."

"Forget what it means! Great Scott, Ernest, have you never heard a Class
Day oration or poem? What would our inspired youths do without the poor,
hard-worked old transept? How did they ever get inspired before it was
built? Don't we have our hearts fired all up at least once a year on
that subject?"

"Except those of us who may have been previously fired by the Dean," put
in Rattleton, with a contemplative sigh over eminent possibilities.

"Well, it is a pity then that the Class Day conflagration doesn't last a
little longer. I don't believe in keeping sentiment for special
occasions. It would be better for all hands to preserve a little of it
throughout the year, and in this place, of all others, I should think at
least a little reverence for the past might be kept alive. But one might
suppose that there was no such thing as reverence at Harvard nowadays."

"Hooray!" "Hear, hear!" "Go it, old man!" "Good for the Only Serious!"
"Pegasus in a canter!"

"That's right," answered Gray warmly, to this burst of invidious
encouragement. "Laugh at anything that is serious or the least approach
to feeling; it is the fashion."

"Brought on by over-doses of gush," remarked Stoughton, knocking the
ashes contemptuously out of Mary Jane.

"Of course, there is a lot of twaddle talked about such things,"
answered Gray, "and I acknowledge that exaggeration tends to cheapen
patriotism, but the existence of a lot of tinsel in the world doesn't
make gold less valuable, does it?"

"Quite true," assented Hudson, "and because Dick Stoughton smokes such a
pipe as Mary Jane, there is no reason why we should all give up tobacco.
That is a better simile than yours."

"Well, it is a good thing that Harvard men have not always been so
afraid of appearing in earnest," growled Gray. "I don't believe there
was so much brilliant wit wasted when men were leaving college every day
to join their regiments. I wish I had been here then."

"So do I," drawled Rattleton; "what a bully excuse a fellow would have
had for not getting his degree."

"What an excitement there must have been," went on Gray, without
noticing the interruption. "Just think of being cheered out of the Yard
when you left for the war, and then perhaps distinguishing yourself, and
coming back to Class Day with your arm in a sling."

"Just think of coming back in a pine-box," added Hudson, graphically.

"Well, suppose you did? You have got to die some time, and your name
would have been put on a tablet in memorial."

"Yes, but you wouldn't have been tickled by seeing it there," said the
irritating Stoughton. "Half your patriotism is vanity, Ernest, you
shallow theatrical poser."

"It would do you men good to read the _Memorial Biographies_," Gray
continued, now thoroughly aroused, and paying no attention to the side
remarks. "They ought to be part of the prescribed work for a degree."

"Yes, but as Hudson says, you couldn't do that if you were a
biographee," reasoned Dane Austin, the law-school man, taking a hand in
the baiting.

"It would be perfectly disgusting to hear you fellows talk this way,"
Gray declared, "if one didn't know that it was all affectation. I am not
sure that that fact does not make it worse. You all really feel just as
I do, but you are afraid to say so."

"Another appalling case of Harvard indifference," observed Stoughton.

"The modern dilettante has no noble desire for red war."

"He likes to make people believe that he has no noble desire for
anything, and he has a morbid fear of being a hypocrite. As a matter of
fact, you are all of you the worst kind of hypocrites, for you try to
appear worse than you are."

"Oh, dear, no," Rattleton protested, lazily, "that would be too hard
work for any of this crowd--except me."

"A war would be a good thing to stir you up. I almost wish the war times
would come again," exclaimed Gray, hotly.

"Now you are getting right down to work," laughed Hudson. "What a rise
we are getting out of our earnest young man to-night."

"You let your feelings get away with you, Gray," added Holworthy. "I
don't believe it was all glory and enthusiasm in those days. You forget
there was another side to it. For instance, Jack Randolph's governor was
not cheered out of the Yard when _he_ left for the war."

"Yes, there _was_ another side to it," came a voice from the other end
of the room, and a big arm-chair, that had been facing the fire with its
back to the knot of men, was pushed around so as show its occupant. He
was evidently one of that wide class known to the undergraduate as the
"Old Grads." An old grad. attains his title as soon as he ceases to be a
very young grad.; there is no transition degree. In this case he seemed
about middle aged, perhaps fifty, with hair turning gray, and a rather
deeply marked brown face. The latter was just then a little flushed, and
had the expression often seen on a face that has just been looking a
long time into a fire and a long way through it.

The lounging students started a little at this sudden interruption, and
stirred as young men do on finding themselves suddenly in the presence
of an older one. Rattleton took his long legs down from their supporting
chair, Hudson pushed his hat back from his nose to its proper place,
Dixey took his hands out of his pockets and sat up straight, while Dick
Stoughton paused in the act of relighting Mary Jane, and when the match
burnt his fingers forbore to swear. As the cause of the disturbance rose
and came towards them they stood up. Hollis Holworthy showed signs of
positive uneasiness. He turned bright red in the face, as he recognized
the man whom he had just described as "an interesting old cock."

"I--I beg your pardon, sir," he began, "I had no idea----"

"That the old cock was present?" laughed the older man. "I assure you,
my boy, that I was not in the least offended, and even had I cause for
offence, I deserved it. Your remark was a retribution, a striking
repetition of history. I remember once asking Holworthy of '61 who the
bully old boy in the beaver hat was, and the bully old boy proved to be
Holworthy '32. Thirty years are like a spy-glass--your views depend upon
the end through which you look."

The thirty years melted at once beneath the laugh that followed this
introduction, and, as the stranger took a chair among the group, the
smoke went up again from Mary Jane and other pipes.

"Then you were in college with my father?" asked Holworthy. "You must
have been here just in the time of which we were speaking."

"That is the reason why I took the liberty of joining so abruptly in
your conversation," said the graduate. "I want to tell you young men a
story. I have never told it before, and would not tell it to any other
audience, but I know that it can be fully appreciated by you, and it
belongs to your traditions. So I am going to give it to you, if you do
not mind being bored for a while by an old grad."

"I don't think any of us will raise any serious objections," said
Stoughton, as he paused.

The graduate smiled and then began: "As I said when I just now
interrupted your discussion, there was another side to the glory of the
war times in the old college. To the war itself there was, of course,
another side, and I was on it. Up to the breaking of the storm we boys
had not troubled ourselves much about the out-look. Most of us took
politics lightly, and though burning then, still, among us at least,
they were, as now I suppose, more the subject of good-natured chaff than
of bitter feelings. However deeply the more thoughtful of us may have
felt, they never allowed their convictions to interfere with their
friendships. Of course, there were a few loud-mouthed zealots who made
themselves disagreeable, but they were as much so to men of their own
opinions as to those of the opposite.

"Hardly any one really expected war, or, if he did, ever said so. The
historic shot fired on Sumter was, therefore, as much of a shock to our
little community as to all of the North--even more, for a civil war
meant more to us. To us, you know, fraternity is a reality.

"When the news came so that it could not be denied, it was not talked of
between us Southerners and the rest. Next came the news that my State
had gone out. That night my chum Jim Standish and I sat in our
window-seat and smoked a long time without speaking. Finally the
question came from him, 'Well, old man, are you going?' I said, 'Yes.'
Then he put out his hand and I took it hard. When we had nearly finished
our pipes Jim spoke again, 'When this is over, Tom,' he said, 'you will
come back and get your degree with us.' I shook my head, I remember, and
answered: 'It won't be over until long after our commencement--or else
Harvard will be in a country foreign to me.'

"You see I remember that evening and the conversation very vividly. It
was all we ever held on the subject. I knew what Jim's opinions were,
and he knew mine well enough; but he was too much of a gentleman to make
my position any harder for me than it was. I was going to do what I
considered my duty,--let that pass now also; it was more than a quarter
of a century ago.

"Very soon the letter came from home, but I did not need it to hurry me.
Jim and I were together almost every minute until I went away, and all
my other friends seemed to go out of their way to show me courtesy and
affection.

"The night before I left was Strawberry Night at the Pudding, and I
remember I had intended not to go to the rooms. They were then in the
top of Stoughton. I was packing in my room when Jim and Harry Rodes and
one or two others came in, as a committee, to insist on my going. The
committee accomplished its purpose by the usual smooth-tongued diplomacy
of the undergraduate. They told me not to make a damn fool of myself,
and that if I did not come round like a man, the theatricals should not
go on. So I went, and tried to forget on my last night in the Yard that
there was any world outside of it. That is the play-bill of those
theatricals hanging over there on the wall now. What a time we had that
night!

"I went home next day, with Clayton Randolph, Jack Randolph's father, as
the rising generation always puts it. There was not much difficulty in
getting South at that time. I enlisted soon after I arrived, and, as a
result, was rather busy for four years.

"Of course, for a long time I heard nothing from Cambridge. You boys
know how almost the whole graduating class went to the front, and many
an underclassman did not wait for his Commencement. You can read the
degrees won by some of them in Memorial Hall. Every now and then I saw
in that precious booty, a Northern newspaper, a name that I had last
heard called in a recitation, or had myself many a time shouted across
the Yard.

"The stray Northern papers were not my source of news in all cases.
There was one name that for a time was in the mouths of all our men, and
I had to risk their scorn and suspicion in defending it. They would
hardly believe that the man who could lead a black regiment, and die in
the front of his niggers in that terrible charge on Fort Wagner, was not
a hardened ruffian, a desperate mercenary, but a fair-haired boy of
five-and-twenty, and the most sunny, lovable gentleman that ever left
the ballroom for the battle-field.

"I saw myself the fall of a man of different mould, but of the same
metal. We were holding a strong position and had repulsed two heavy
charges, when we saw the enemy forming for a third. This time they came
closer than in either of the previous attempts, and it looked for a
minute as if they would reach us. But our fire was frightful, aided by
several batteries that were pouring in grape and canister at short
range. The regiment immediately in front of us came on well; but no body
of men could stand it, and at last it wavered and then broke. Through
the smoke I could see a mounted officer tearing about and trying
desperately to rally the men, striking with the flat of his sword, and
evidently beside himself with anger. Then, as he found it was no use and
his men left him, he turned, rode all alone straight at us, and was shot
through and through. I have seen too much of what is ordinarily called
courage to be attracted to a man solely by that commonest of virtues;
but this man's splendid scorn of surviving his failure, his fury at what
he considered disgrace, and his deliberate self-sacrifice, lifted his
act above the common run of bravery. That man had breeding, and I wanted
to have a look at him. After the fight was over, I went to where he lay
dead with his horse. It was Boredon of '61. I had hated that man. He had
been one of those disagreeable cranks of whom I have spoken, a man
absorbed with one idea and allowing that idea to color all his feelings,
and spoil his manners. He had been to me as a red rag to a bull. But
when I recognized him there, I would have given a great deal to have
been able to tell him how proud I was of him. Evidently he had at least
the hard part of a gentleman. I went back to my brother officers, and,
with a good deal of boyish swagger I am afraid, said to them, 'That
fellow was at Harvard with me. That is the sort of fools they make
there.'

"Well, the war went on until we were hemmed in around Richmond in '64.
It was at that time that I ran across Clayton Randolph, whom I had not
seen since we left Cambridge together. I came near not recognizing him
in the circumstances in which I found him. A battery of artillery had
got stuck in the mud, but as I came up to it the last gun was being
dragged out. An officer seemed to be doing most of the work, shoving on
the wheels and encouraging his tired men. Shortly afterwards we were
again halted next to the same battery, and there was the same officer
sitting on a stump. His old uniform was covered with mud and
axle-grease; his beard was four days' old; but he was Clayton Randolph,
Randolph the dandy, Randolph, the model of neatness, whose perfect
clothes had always been an object of chaff among us; Randolph, whose
heaviest labor had been to polish his hat, and deepest thought to plan a
dinner. He was sharing his piece of stale cornbread with a hungry little
darky. You may imagine that we were rather glad to see each other.
Clayton, however, had no more Cambridge news to give me than I had to
give him, which was rather a disappointment. His battery was stationed
near my regiment that winter, so we managed to see a good deal of each
other in camp.

"One day, as I was sitting in front of my tent, I saw Clayton come
galloping into the company street as though carrying urgent despatches.
On seeing me he began shouting and waving his cap, as if there was
danger that I might not see him and hear what he had to say. He was
evidently beside himself about something,--and so was I, when he pulled
up and yelled: 'What do you think? Jim Standish is in Libby prison!'

"I forget how he had learned this, but I remember he was very sure of
it. By great luck and much energy we both managed to get leave that same
day, and go to Richmond together; but we were disappointed in our hopes
of seeing Jim. We turned every stone we could, and tried our best with
the authorities, but it was no use; we could not get into the prison.
There had been several escapes at that time, and no visitor of any sort
was allowed to enter. The provost in charge, however, who knew Clayton,
told us we might send Jim a letter, subject, of course, to its
examination by the authorities. So we wrote him that we were there, and
asked if there was anything he wanted us to send him. We explained that
we could not get in to see him, but that he must write us all the news
he could.

"In a short time the guard who had taken our note came back and asked
what relation to us 'that young feller' was. We told him no relation by
blood, but something a little closer, perhaps. 'Well,' said he, 'I never
saw a feller take on so when I give him your note. He begged me to let
him talk to you, and he most cried. Then he begged worse kind just to
let him look out of a window where he could see you. He asked which side
of the house you was on, and I reckon if I'd ha' told him he'd ha' made
a break for the window and risked my shootin' him. I was right sorry,
but I couldn't do nothin' for him but get him some paper. He's writin'
you a letter now, and says for you to be sure and wait for it.'

"There was no danger of our not waiting for it. Neither of us had heard
a word from the old place or from any of our friends for three years. I
suppose none of you boys has ever been separated from his college
friends for a longer time than the long vacation?"

"I was away for a year after graduating," answered Dane Austin. "I was
abroad with a classmate, and I remember the first long letter from one
of our chums; all about the Springfield game, and what all 'the gang'
were doing. We read that letter over every day for a month."

"Then you can imagine what it was to get news after three years, and
three such years. We waited and waited for that letter, and at last it
came out to us--a regular volume. I have it now. I don't believe Jim
ever wrote so much in all his college work put together. We sat with our
backs against a wall while I read it aloud.

"First it gave us all the news from Cambridge;--among other things, that
we had won the boat-race on Lake Quinsigamond. Randolph said that almost
made up for Gettysburg, and we had a little cheer all to ourselves. I
remember a man came running up to hear what the news was and whether the
Yankees had been licked anywhere. We told him not that we knew of, but
Harvard had beaten Yale, and he went off damning us for making such a
row about nothing. The letter went on to say that there would probably
be no race that year, as most of the rowing men had gone off to the war.
Almost all of our old set had gone into the army, it said. That jolly,
good-for-nothing rattle, bad Bob Bowling, who was always on the ragged
edge of expulsion, always in hot water with the Faculty, and who had
been booked by every one for a very bad end, had disappointed them all
and found a distinguished career in a cavalry regiment. But the hero of
the class was little Digges, 'Nancy' Digges, the quiet, shy, little
pale-faced student who looked as if he would blow away in a strong wind,
and whom no one had thought was good for anything but grubbing for Greek
roots. This man had been promoted several times for gallantry. At
Gettysburg, when Longstreet's corps was right on top of his battery,
when his supports had been driven in, his horses shot, and his gunners
were falling around him, he had dragged his guns back by hand, one by
one, and stopped to spike the last while one of our men was reaching for
him with a bayonet. When I read this we both exclaimed: 'Well, I'll be
hanged, Little Nancy!'"

"It was at Gettysburg also that Jim had seen Harry Rodes. The last time
that Jim had seen him before that was just before leaving college, when
Rodes had been elected president of the Hasty Pudding; this time he was
lying in the grass, where it was red. There was like news of several
other old chums.

"'As for your humble servant,' Jim wrote, 'he has only succeeded in
getting himself ignominiously jugged by your Johnnies.' I heard, long
afterwards, how he had been captured, pinned under his dead horse, with
a broken sabre, and three of our men to his score. 'This is not so much
fun,' he went on, 'as that night in the Newton jail, which perhaps you
may remember, Tom. You got me into that, you riotous companion and
perverter of my youth.' I remembered that scrape of our Sophomore year
very well, but I had a strong impression that it was Jim who upset the
officer of the law. He told us he could stand Libby, however, well
enough, if he only had a little smoke, and asked if we could not give
aid and comfort to the invader in the shape of tobacco. At this Randolph
exclaimed: 'Jim Standish without his pipe! That is a real case of
suffering among the prisoners!' The letter wound up with an injunction
to answer it at once and tell all about ourselves and the other boys on
our side, and with the hope that we should all be at the next triennial
dinner.

"As soon as we had read the letter we went off and spent all our savings
in tobacco. That was the only cheap thing in Richmond in those days, and
we got enough to last Jim for months, though I have no doubt that he at
once gave most of it away. Then we got some paper, and wrote him all we
knew of the Harvard men on our side of the fence. We could give an
equally good account of them, too; for though, as disobedient children,
Alma Mater has frowned on us, she never had cause to blush. We finished
the letter before it was time for us to go back to camp, and sent it
with the tobacco to Jim. We promised to try again to see him, but
neither of us could get leave for a long time. If we had there would
have been little chance of our getting into Libby; and if we had gotten
into Libby, we should not have found Jim there."

As the speaker paused Stoughton asked, "Why? did he es----" and then
stopped, inwardly cursing himself, as he noticed a look that was coming
into the face of the narrator. But the latter at once relieved him
immensely by continuing.

"Yes, he escaped--very soon after our visit. A lot of prisoners got out
together, Jim among them. The news was sent to all the troops near
Richmond and instructions to keep a sharp lookout for them. Jim managed
to get to our very outer lines, and one pitch-dark night tried to run
the picket. The officer in command saw him in the brush and challenged
him. Jim, trusting to the darkness and his old hundred-yard records,
tried to make a dash for it. The officer fired and shot--shot him down
like a dog."

The speaker's cigar had apparently gone out, and no one looked at him
while he relit it. They looked at the walls where the firelight danced
over the rollicking play-bills of thirty years ago. In a moment the
graduate spoke again:

"As I leaned over the dearest friend I ever had, we recognized each
other and he smiled. I took his head in my lap and he died holding my
hand."

"Then you saw him before he died? Were you with the picket?" asked Gray.

"Yes.--I commanded the picket."




LITTLE HELPING HANDS.


It was all the result of a violent discussion in Stoughton's room.
Hudson held that four miles an hour was an easy walking gait; Stoughton
and Gray said it wasn't.

"I tell you," said the latter, "when you are doing better than three and
a half, you are hitting it up pretty well, and you couldn't keep it up
for any length of time. Don't you remember, Dick, we timed ourselves
when we walked out from Boston the other night? It took us fifty minutes
from the corner of Charles and Cambridge Streets, and that is just about
three miles."

"Yes, and we went at a pretty good pace too," added Stoughton.

"That was probably after a supper at Billy Parks'," Hudson explained;
"under those circumstances you undoubtedly covered a great many more
miles than the crow flies between here and Boston."

"No, witty youth, it wasn't anything of the kind. We don't follow in
your footsteps," retorted Dick to this innuendo. "No, sir, you couldn't
walk four miles an hour all day to save your neck."

"I'm betting I could," Hudson replied, "I have done it often out
shooting."

"I dare say you thought so; have you ever tried it over a measured
stretch?"

"No, but I can guess at about what rate I am walking, and four miles an
hour is a good easy swing. I'll bet you a V that I can do twenty-four
miles in six hours."

"I'll take that," answered Stoughton, promptly.

"So will I, if you offer the same," said Gray.

"Yes, I'll bet with you, too," said Hudson.

Just at that moment Ned Burleigh came in, going through the form of
giving the door a thump as he opened it, and telling himself to come in.

"What are you abandoned sports betting about now?" he asked, as he
covered the whole front of the fireplace as usual.

"Steve thinks he can walk twenty-four miles in six hours," answered
Stoughton, "and we each have five dollars worth of opinion that he
can't. What do you think about it?"

"I don't know; he is a pretty fast young man. Is it to be on a cinder
track, or over an ordinary road? That would make a great difference."

"Have you any fond hope," asked Hudson, "that I am going to make a Roman
holiday of myself on Holmes' Field for the edification of you children
and the whole University? I am quite aware that that is just what you
would like; you would be out there with a brass band. No, my friend, I
ask for no advantages. I am quite willing to take my chances over any
ordinary country road, and in ordinary clothes."

"Extraordinary English knickerbockers, you mean," corrected Ned.

"You can take the road from here to Framingham," suggested Stoughton.
"That is a perfectly straight one and you can't miss it. It is a little
short of twenty-four miles, but we will allow you the slight
difference."

"Yes, I know that road," said Hudson. "I drove over it when I was at
school at Southborough. Strike the Worcester turnpike, don't you, after
crossing the river at Watertown, and then keep on through Newton,
Wellesley, Natick, and all those places? All right, I'll take that road."

Ned Burleigh reflected a moment. "I think," he admitted, with a shake of
his head, "that it can certainly be done by any man with strength and
sand; but Steve Hudson can't do it."

"I'll tell you what, old fatty-cakes," declared Hudson, indignantly,
"I'll bet _you ten_ dollars on the event."

"No, I won't go you ten, because I don't believe in betting so much on a
certainty. Besides, you are hard up now, and you would undoubtedly
borrow from me the money with which to pay me your bet. I can't afford
to have you do that, sweet me child, but I will contribute a five like
the others, towards this purse."

It was arranged that Hudson should choose his day, and give notice of it
to the others in the morning. Then the tones of the ancient bell, tolled
by the ancient Jones, came from the ancient belfry of Harvard Hall, and
Hudson and Gray went over to a recitation in University Hall.

When they had gone Burleigh delivered himself of a great whoop of
ecstasy. "He can do it easily, I know," he said. "We shall lose our
money, but, Great Caesar, it will be worth the admission. We must get all
the others to bet with him, too, so that he won't back out. Let's go and
get ready for it at once."

"What do you mean?" queried Stoughton, "what are you going to do?"

"Can't you guess, Mack, you Eyetalian? Come on, I'll tell you," and they
went out over the Square towards a printer's.

Three or four days after this Hudson appeared at breakfast in his
walking breeches and big Scotch stockings and announced he was going to
start. He would leave Harvard Square at half-past ten o'clock and arrive
at the town hall in Framingham at half-past four on that afternoon.

Stoughton and Gray said that they might be at the finish to receive him,
if they found nothing better to do, otherwise he could time himself at
the finish. Both of these men had ten o'clock lectures, so they could
not see him start. Holworthy and Randolph had promised to make up a four
for a morning pull on the river. Rattleton, of course, had not yet come
to breakfast. Burleigh also had a ten o'clock that he felt he really
ought not to cut (it did not strike Steve at the time that this was no
reason to Ned for not cutting); so he regretted exceedingly that he
would have to let Steve start off uncheered and time himself. He would
endeavor to be at the finish, however, to carry Hudson home.

Promptly at half-past ten Steve left Harvard Square, with a swinging
stride, and struck up Garden Street by the Washington elm and thence to
Brattle Street. He was in fine form and spirits and had chosen his day
well. It was one of our glorious, manful November days that have had
much to do, I firmly believe, with the progress of this nation; days
when a man can do anything; when the sparkling, drinkable Northwester
floods your lungs, and swells your chest into a balloon that seems to
lift you clear of the ground. On such a day the twenty-four miles ahead
of him seemed nothing to Hudson, and he sprang along overflowing with
spirits.

The historic University town, with all its associations, seemed to him
more beautiful and interesting than ever. Washington, he thought, might
have taken command of an army under the old tree four or five times a
day in such weather. No wonder Longfellow could keep the Muse at his
fireside in that fascinating Craigie house. As he neared the end of
Brattle Street, he went by peaceful Elmwood, where a poet, ambassador,
scholar, and patriot was then ending his days; and buoyant, youthful
Steve was struck by that perfect waiting-place for the great gentleman
whose work was done. He wondered whether any of _his_ friends would ever
stir and honor the nation, and whether the great man had been anything
like them when he was a fool undergrad. The traditions of the Hasty
Pudding said that he had been a good deal like other boys.

Hudson reached Watertown well ahead of time. To his annoyance he saw
that the street through which he had to pass was crowded, principally
with small boys. "Something or other must have happened," he thought. "A
dog-fight, or a runaway, or a man carried into a drug store. If the
attraction is still on, I am all right; if not, I shall have to run the
gauntlet."

He soon discovered that the latter apprehension was the true one, and
that he was in for just that species of entertainment. A great cheer
went up as he approached, and a body of embryo leading citizens ran
forward to meet him. They closed in all around and escorted him along
the main street between two lines of shouting people.

"Hey, mister, give us some!" "Go on, you'll do it; good boy, Wingsey."
"When're yer goin' to fork 'em out?" "Rats, dat ain't him, dat fancy guy
is one o' de Ha'vards, sure." "Will yer look at de jay?" "Get on to de
legs!" "What's he got 'em wrapped up in, shawls?" "Naw, carpets." "Say,
mister, yer pants is got caught inside yer socks." "I guess them is
English, yer know." "Ain't yer going to give us no gum?" "A--ah, let 'm
alone, he ain't nothin' but one o' them stoodent jays. He ain't no
winged wonder, a--ah!"

The above was what Steve enjoyed in his progress through Watertown. He
finally shook off his pursuers on the edge of the village, and breathed
freely again, as he "crossed the river and mounted the steep." The
beauty of the Charles begins at this point, and he sat down for a minute
to look at it and rest. On his left was the first dam, the end of
navigation for the college craft; on his right the river wound away from
its high banks to the brown meadows beyond. While he sat there a
four-oared crew shot under the bridge and rested on their oars in the
quiet pool at his feet, just in front of the falls. He knew the man who
was steering and called to him. "Hullo, Hudson," came the recognition,
"what are you doing up here?"

"Off on a tramp. Glorious day for exercise, isn't it?"

"Yes, you have no idea how I enjoy this rowing," answered the coxswain.

"Have you seen Holworthy and Randolph up around this part of the river?"

"No, they were coming in this boat, but backed out because they had
something else on hand, I believe."

"Oh, did they? Well, good-by, I have got to hurry along. I am walking
against time."

Steve strode on through Newton, and Newton Centre, and Newton Lower
Falls, and all the other Newtons, and to his horror he found in each
town the same gathering, and went through the same ovation that he had
received in Watertown. Had he gone to work and picked out a public
holiday? No, he was sure it was not that, and the fact that it was
Saturday, and the schools had therefore turned their swarms loose on the
suffering country, would not account for all of the crowd in every
village. Perhaps there was an extra election going on in that county.
What puzzled him most, however, was that all the urchins seemed to
expect something of him besides mere amusement, and a pitiable example
of dress.

He passed close by Joe Lee's at Auburndale; several children ran across
the lawn of the famous hostel, and after "sizing him up," went back with
expressions of disappointment. The worst trial of all, however, was the
battery at Wellesley. He had to go by the Female College, or Ladies'
Seminary, and there was a large group of the students of that
institution, by the roadside. Steve had never before been afflicted with
bashfulness, and did not acknowledge that he was troubled in that way
now, but he felt peculiarly alone, and would have given much for another
man or just a few less girls. By the terms of his bet he could not run
any of the distance; but a giggle almost made him throw up the stakes
and break the pace. By a great effort, however, he brazened it out, and
even smiled cheerfully. He made a penitent inward resolution never to
lean out of the window again when a girl went through the Yard.

When more than half way, he stopped to speak with a farmer leaning over
the fence by the road. The uncrossed Yankee of the rural districts still
clings to a prejudice of his fathers, a prejudice, long since dropped in
our more progressive communities, that a man has a right to wear what he
chooses and do what he chooses provided he neither shocks nor interferes
with any one else. This old farmer looked at Steve with wonder and
interest, but did not think it necessary, as had the good citizens of
the factory towns, to heap scorn and derision on "de dood." He bowed to
the wayfarer, as he would to any well-behaved stranger.

"Good afternoon," said Hudson, grateful for this drop of human kindness.
"Can you tell me, sir, how far it is to Framingham?"

"Wa-al, abaout nigh on to ten mile or more, they call it. There's a
train goes pretty soon; ye won't find it so fur in the cars."

"Oh, I'm going to walk it," explained Steve, with a smile.

"Thet's a powerful long walk, young man. How fur ye come already?"

"From Cambridge."

"Gosh! Well your legs is young and pretty long, but ye must want suthin
to do' pretty bad. Be ye broke or anythin'? Want any victuals?"

"No, thanks, I am walking for fun, trying to do it on time, you see."

"Mebbe you're advertisin' suthin'? Oh, I want to know! Be you the winged
wonder o' Westchester, or some sech place I hear tell on jest now?"

A light began to glimmer in Hudson's mind. He had been asked several
times if he was the "winged wonder," but had paid no attention to the
question, supposing that it was merely a form of the great public wit.
Now it was asked him in perfect good faith, and the name of his own home
was added to the alliteration. He began to connect his persecution with
Holworthy and Randolph's failure to row.

"No," he answered his friendly interrogator, "not intentionally, but I
am beginning now to suspect that I _am_ occupying some such position. I
am much obliged to you for your information. I must move along now."

"Good day, sir; guess ye'll want a heap o' corn-plasters when ye git to
Framin'am."

"Not with these stockings," laughed Hudson, glad of an opportunity to
justify his clothes, "they're thick and soft, great things to walk in."

"They be, eh? Well, I kinder thought they wasn't just for looks. I don't
want none to-day, though, good day."

"Good-by," and Steve went on, feeling sure that the old man still
suspected him at least of peddling footgear.

Just before the end of his tramp he sat down for a rest on an inviting
fence rail. He had plenty of time to spare, but the grassy bank might
have kept him too long and made him stiff. Oh, how pleasant that
three-cornered rail did feel! A piece of paper blew across the road and
whirled up in his face. It was a hand-bill of some sort; he remembered
now having seen several of them along the way, but had picked up none.
He caught this one and turned it over. This was what he read:

     HE IS COMING!

     WAIT FOR HIM! WATCH FOR HIM!

     THE WINGED WONDER OF WESTCHESTER!

     PEERLESS PEDESTRIAN PRODIGY!

     He is matched to walk twenty-four miles to-day for an enormous
     purse. He holds world records for pedestrianism. He will wear
     one of our custom-made London suitings, unexcelled for natty
     outdoor wear and stylish appearance. They are all the rage in
     England, and therefore sure to be popular here.

     He will also distribute, gratis, tops and marbles to the boys
     and chewing-gum to the ladies. Watch for him, everybody; he
     will be here soon, and will follow this road.

     COME OUT, GIRLS! COME OUT, BOYS!

     NOW IS YOUR CHANCE.

     WAIT, WATCH FOR THE WINGED WONDER OF WESTCHESTER!

The glimmer dawned to a great light. He jumped down and hurried along
the remaining mile or two as fast as his weary legs would go. There was
no crowd awaiting him on the out-skirts of Framingham, and for a few
minutes he hoped that he was going to at least finish in peace. Vain
hope! As he approached the public square he saw it crowded with people
and heard the strains of a brass band. On turning the corner he was
received with a great shout. Then he saw a sight that explained it all,
and caused him to exclaim, "The three-year-old idiots!"

In front of the town-hall was drawn up a barge with four plumed horses.
In it were a band of music and a full delegation of Steve's devoted
friends. Ned Burleigh was up on the box haranguing the populace.

"What sort of a fool circus are you children trying to make of
yourselves," asked Hudson, as he came up.

"A grand one, old man, and you have been the elephant, the shining star
of the whole show," replied Burleigh. "You will find beer in the
ambulance."

"You have won the money handsomely, Steve," acknowledged Stoughton, "and
we all accept with pleasure your kind invitation to dinner."




A RAMBLING DISCUSSION AND AN ADVENTURE, PERHAPS UNCONNECTED.


Dick Stoughton came to lunch that day in a decidedly bad humor, cause
unknown. He was late, and all the other members of the club table were
there, including the two dogs. A "Gray baiting" was going on. This sport
consisted in working up the poetic feelings of Ernest Gray, and then
ruthlessly harrowing the same. Gray was a fiery, imaginative little man,
whose soul compassed far more than his body. His impulsive nature drove
him constantly into the net spread by his friends, but he had become
used to the process, and perhaps it did him good. Whether or not he had
in him the stuff for a true poet, he was at least in no danger among
those men of becoming a false one. He was just then stirred to a fine
condition on the subject of Philistinism, was violently supporting the
famous professor of the Humanities, and had almost got to the point of
quoting poetry.

"It makes me laugh a low, sad laugh," remarked Stoughton, gloomily
buttering a muffin, "when I think what Gray will be doing thirty years
from now."

"We have arranged all that," said Burleigh. "Ernest is going to marry a
strong-minded woman four times as big as himself, who will take him out
shopping and make him carry the bundles and the twins."

"No, it will be a greater change than that," continued Dick. "At fifty
he will probably be a keen, representative business man. He will be
celebrated for being better able than any one in Wall Street to cheat
his neighbor, and he will be absorbed in the occupation. He will be a
man of strength and stamen, a man of industry, a plain, hard-working
man. He will publish Letters of a Parent, in bad English, about the
degeneracy of education at Harvard, and will refuse to send his sons
here for fear of their becoming dudes and loafers. He won't spoil good
paper then with odes and fantasies; he will devote it, instead, to
watering stock and foreclosing mortgages. Just see if he doesn't."

"Are you narrow enough to think," asked Gray, defiantly, "that a man
cannot work in this world, and work hard, without shutting his mind to
everything outside of his tool shop?"

"Perhaps he can," answered Stoughton, "but he never does in this
country; he hasn't time. Whatever we take up, we have got to keep at
fever heat or else go to the wall. It will be work, work, work until we
become utterly uninteresting machines. It can't be helped, we have got
to make up our minds to it some day and we had better do so now. We are
all wasting four valuable years in this anomalous spot of Cambridge,
when we ought to be learning bookkeeping. We are a nation of one-sided
workers, and we might just as well accept the situation philosophically.
I am sure I for one don't care a cent. Only I wish I had not fooled away
my time so long, with a set of men made up of dilettantes and bummers."

Dick emphasized the concluding word by handsomely scooping the last
sausage just ahead of Jack Randolph, who with a bow and wave of his hand
gracefully acknowledged the defeat. It was a strict rule of etiquette at
the club table to take the odd trick of any dish, whether you wanted it
or not.

"Hello," exclaimed Burleigh, with a happy light in his face, "Dick has
waked up to the seriousness of life again. That is the third time this
month." Stoughton's occasional pessimism was as fair game to his
friends, as Gray's poetry, so the victim for that day's lunch was
promptly changed.

"So he has," added Hudson. "He has a good, old-fashioned attack of
remorse. Where were you last night, Dick? Must have been an awful
spree."

"Is it a letter from your governor?" queried Rattleton, sympathetically.

"Perhaps it is the letter on your forensic," suggested Randolph. "Jack
Rat got an E. on his, but just see how sweetly _he_ takes it."

"A little serious reflection is undoubtedly a good thing for you, my
son," observed Hollis Holworthy. "But though I don't want to flatter
you, excuse my saying that you talk like an ass. Even if your premises
were true your conclusion is false. If we Americans are all such
narrow-minded money-makers, that is all the more reason for trying to be
something better. But it isn't so. I don't believe work has necessarily
any such effect. Gray is right."

"My conclusion is all right. The difference between us is that I am
perfectly contented to be as the rest of my countrymen are; you want to
be something different, _ergo_, you are a snob. Furthermore my premises
_are_ true, and you will find them so, my poor children. I am a few
years in advance of you, that's all. Just see how men change after they
leave college. Go over to the Law School and look at those grinds, each
one working night and day to get ahead of the rest. I met old Dane
Austin the other day crossing the Yard, three huge books under each arm,
and a pair of spectacles across his nose. He used to be the best built
man in the 'Varsity boat, but he doesn't touch an oar now, and won't try
for the crew, unless they absolutely need him at the last minute. He is
getting red-eyed and pale, and looks almost hollow-chested. A man can't
keep up with the law and pay any attention to his physique. He is losing
all his strength and good looks."

"You had better hit him once and find out," suggested Holworthy.

"Thanks; I don't care to put my theories to quite such a test,"
acknowledged Dick, with a grin. "But it is true just the same. It is
true of every other occupation. Go down to New York and stand on Wall
Street. You will see a dozen men you knew, at least by sight, in
college, men who used to be well-dressed and well-bred. Down there they
rush by you with a nod, in all sorts of costumes,--dirty, slovenly,
nervous. Sometimes they will stop for a moment to shake hands, and make
some impertinent remark on your clothes. I don't mind the prospect
myself, but I am only laying it fairly before you blissful, careless,
conceited youths."

"I rather think you will find that those fellows haven't forgotten how
to turn themselves out properly when there is any need for it," said
Holworthy. "You don't wear your town togs to recitations here."

"There is no doubt about it, this work and worry does spoil a man's
looks," said Burleigh. "Just look at that poor wreck over there,"
pointing to Rattleton.

That student had finished his lunch (or breakfast) and stretched his
legs as usual in the next chair. He was engaged in throwing crackers for
his dog Blathers to catch, and was rather out of the conversation. He
caught the last remark only.

"You have no idea what a handsome man I'd be if I didn't work so hard,"
he replied.

"It is all right for you, Jack," Stoughton went on. "A watchful
Providence has sent you an income. It is almost a pity, though, for you
would make a fascinating tramp. No amount of either starvation or public
opinion would ever make you change your calm, philosophical life. But
the rest of us must all get into the procession and keep up with the
brazen band. No wonder so many of our girls marry Englishmen. They are
dead right, too; they don't want to marry worn-out machines, they prefer
men."

"Hurray!" shouted Hudson. "The secret is out. Some Englishman has cut
him out with his best girl."

"I am not handicapped with any such nonsense, thank Heaven," growled
Dick. "But if I was, by Jove, I wouldn't be fool enough to do any work
for her sake, as so many misguided men do. No, sir, I'd take life easily
and keep my figure, as our trans-Atlantic cousins do. I'd spend my days
with the daughter and live on the old man. That is what girls like, and
they do have some sense."

"That is perfect rot," exclaimed the poetic Gray, expressing his roused
sentiment with more force than grace. "Life to-day is just what it was
in the days of chivalry. A true knight must prove his love with his
lance, and win his wife like a man."

"There you go, of course," answered Stoughton; "clap your leg over
Pegasus, and off across country, regardless of hedges and ditches, or
the narrow roads of commerce. Suppose his lance got busted, as was
frequently the case?"

"Sic 'im, sic 'im," chuckled Burleigh. "We have got the poet and the
cynic by the ears. Oh, this is lovely!"

"Both of 'em amateurs," added Holworthy, "and neither knowing what he is
talking about."

"Two to one on the poet, though," said Randolph. "He is always in
earnest, anyway."

"Shake hands, gents," said Rattleton, getting interested. "Time."

"Now just listen to me," said Dick, tilting back his chair and waving
his fork pedantically. "I'll give you a really accurate picture of your
dear days of chivalry, such as you never got out of a romance."

"Silence for Sir Walter Stoughton's account of a tourney," commanded
Burleigh. "Steve Hudson, pull that pup of yours off the table; she'll
upset the milk pitcher."

"I have just been reading all about that sort of game," interrupted
Rattleton. "Seems to me they were a most unsporting lot. They had no
classes or handicaps; just lumped 'em all in together, feather-weights
and heavy-weights. No idea of a fair thing."

"Shut up your childish prattle, Jack," commanded Burleigh. "If you will
push your researches far enough you will find that the little fellows
always won. The giants invariably got the heads smote off 'em. We are
not on the brutal subject of prize-fighting, we are on chivalry. You
know nothing about that, so keep quiet and let Dick go on."

"I suppose you have an idea," Stoughton went on, "that every interesting
young gentleman who entered the lists was a sure winner, and then all he
had to do was to crown the heroine as Queen of Love and Beauty and live
happily ever afterwards. Now of course that wasn't so. Some one had to
get thrashed, and most young knights probably occupied that position for
the first ten years or so of their career. Take an individual case; Sir
Ernest Gray, bent on winning glory for Dulcinea, looks over the sporting
calendar and enters himself for every big field-meeting during the
season. He bears himself right bravely in them all, but gets stood on
his head with great regularity; in fact Dulcinea gets a little tired of
watching his performance. Nevertheless she goes to the crack meeting of
Ashby de la Zouche, to see Gray try again.

"This tourney is carried off with great ease by an old hand, Sir Thomas
de Mainfort, who, having been separated from his third wife on the
ground of brutal treatment, is not doing any love-proving with his
lance. He is simply a mug hunter; he is in for the white Barbary steed,
and the other fellows' armor."

"Gate money?" broke in Rattleton interrogatively.

"Same principle," answered Dick. "He wins the appointment of the Queen
of Love and Beauty, and takes d---- good care to choose the king's
elderly daughter; thereby putting in good work for a government office.
Of course, none of the fair damsels in the ladies' gallery are in the
slightest degree interested in _him_, that goes without saying; but do
you suppose that they are a bit more interested in the poor youngsters
whom he has been knocking about? Not much. The fellow who takes their
eyes is a chap in a white satin doublet, cut in the latest French
fashion, who has sent flowers to Dulcinea, and is hanging over the rail
of the ladies' gallery, talking to her. He is a delightful young man. He
can sing the songs of the Troubadours that he has heard in Provence. He
knows all the latest gossip about that delicious row between the Pope
and the German Emperor. He spends the proper season in each Continental
court. He is so different from the homely, insular youths who are
pummelling each other down below in the lists. They never can think or
talk anything but fight. He says funny things about those youths, and
criticizes their armor. Altogether he is charming. Handsome and well
preserved, too. Splendid figure, and could undoubtedly fight well if he
had to; but he doesn't have to, and isn't fool enough to do it. No
bruises on him.

"After the fight is over young Sir Ernest comes along, in a sheepish
sort of a way, to see what Dulcinea thinks of his day's work. Sir Ernest
was a pretty good-looking boy when he started on the career of arms.
Now, however, he is showing marks of wear. The saddle has made him
bow-legged, the helmet has worn off much of his hair, and the gauntlet
has raised corns on his knuckles. Some of his front teeth have been
knocked out. Besides the wear and tear in his personal appearance, his
mind runs largely on parries and thrusts, relative advantages of
chain-mail and Milan plate, and all that sort of shop talk. He can not
sing the new Romance songs, he knows only the old ones that his nurse
taught him. Dulcinea used to like him very much, and is still fond of
him in a way. If he had accomplished the marvel of winning the whole
tournament, of unhorsing the old veteran De Mainfort; if he had won the
crown of Love and Beauty, and brought it to her, giving that hideous
stuck-up old Princess the go-by, Dulcinea would have loved him fondly,
and been ready to marry him then and there. But he has not brought her
the crown of Love and Beauty; he has only brought a stove-in helmet and
a black eye. True, he has been fighting his level best, but how much
good has it done him? He has unhorsed two or three young men of his own
weight; he has even put up a stiff set-to against big De Thumper, who
won the Templar stakes; but Dulcinea did not see him then, she was
talking to the interesting foreigner. Then he ran up against Sir Thomas
de Mainfort, and got landed on his back; Dulcinea was looking right at
him that time. He got up like a little man, without claiming his ten
seconds, and went for the redoubtable Sir Thomas again. Thereupon the
big fellow smashed him on the jaw, and put him to sleep, so that it took
his squires half an hour to bring him round. Dulcinea took that in, too,
and the amusing foreigner remarked on what conceit a youngster must have
to go in for this sort of thing against men like De Mainfort. The
highest renown that the young knight has so far won may possibly be a
line next day in the Ashby _Herald_ and _Tournament Gazette_. It will
run something like this: 'Where are we to look for the De Mainforts and
Thumpers of the next generation? There is absolutely no new material
worth mentioning. Young Gray gives a little glimmer of promise in some
of his back-strokes, but his work is eminently crude and boyish.
However, if he gets over his swelled head, he may in twenty or thirty
years of hard work become a fair lance.' Do you think that helps his
chances with Dulcinea? D---- that dog of yours, Hudson, she has stolen
my muffin!"

"Are you all through?" demanded Gray, who had been restraining himself
with difficulty.

"No; hold on. I haven't shown you half your trouble yet. At the banquet
in the evening, Gray sits on one side of Dulcinea and the handsome
stranger on the other. Gray is sore and tired and comes near falling
asleep at the table, while the other fellow discusses the Italian
painters, and tells anecdotes of the Dauphin of France. Gray used to be
able to play the harp well, and can still play sometimes in the
evenings, when his fingers are not too lame; but they generally are. He
can also get into his satin doublet on Sundays and great occasions, and
look almost as well as the other chap; but he does so _only_ on
occasions, whereas the stranger keeps himself up to the mark all the
time. Dulcinea cannot help thinking, therefore, that Gray is a boor and
a bore, even though he sometimes shows capabilities other than those of
getting his head smashed. On the other hand, Dulcinea's governor is a
stout baron of the old school. He looks upon Gray as a dude and aper of
foreign customs, for taking a bath after a hard day in the lists and
leaving off his breastplate at dinner. The old man's chief boast is that
with his own good sword he has carved out all his fat lands and broad
baronies, and he asks, as he proudly thumps his chest, how he could ever
have done all that if he had put on effeminate airs and fooled away ten
minutes every week in a bath-tub. Now I ask you to drop your poetry for
a minute, substitute reason for imagination, and confess that this is
really what a young knight had to take. Dixi, let's hear what you have
got to say."

"Just this," answered Gray, "that your Dulcinea is a fool. Any true
woman would appreciate a man's best efforts, even if unsuccessful. I
claim that such Dulcineas are the exception and not the rule. Point two.
Your young knight is also a fool if he allows himself to become nothing
but a mere bruiser and cut-throat. He ought not to forget that he is a
gentleman as well as a fighting man. He can pay some attention to the
graces of life and fight none the worse for it. You say he knows the old
songs,--those are the best always--and he can pick up the new ones in
spare moments. It makes no difference how he dresses, so long as he has
a good excuse for dressing badly, and doesn't forget how to dress well.
As for your point about his personal appearance, that doesn't amount to
a row of pins. It certainly can't trouble him, and it wouldn't trouble
Dulcinea if she had any sense. I don't believe any woman objects to
honorable scars in a man."

"Every woman doesn't throw poetry around them as you do. Honorable scars
received in commonplace everyday scrapping don't count."

"This has not been a fair fight," declared Holworthy. "I can see through
this man Stoughton, now, and understand it all. He has prepared all this
harangue, and is trying to pass it off here as impromptu. Now, I am
going to give him away. I was with him the other evening at a dinner.
There was a girl there who had been abroad for the first time. She had
spent the last season in London, for the expenses of which her governor
probably had to do double work at home. She had quite naturally, fallen
completely in love with all those great big, splendid-looking chaps who
float about London in long coats all day during the season. A handsome
leisure class. Some of the biggest and best dressed of them, by-the-way,
are quite apt to be her own humdrum countrymen on a vacation, but she
hadn't found that out yet, and it has nothing to do with the present
discussion, anyway. I heard her remark to Dick during dinner that
Englishmen were so much better looking and more agreeable than American
men. That is an undeniable fact, in daily life, but Dick was fool enough
to get a little mad over the observation. He couldn't think of any
brilliant repartee at the time, but came home and slept over it. Next
time he meets that girl, or one like her, he will be loaded for bear,
but he wants to rehearse a little, first, so he has brought his mediaeval
metaphor here to try it on the dog. He knew that our hair-trigger poet,
with a little joggling, would be morally certain to shoot off something
about love and lances; that was just the opening he wanted. Keep it for
your next dinner-party, Dick. It doesn't mean anything but it may make
you feel clever and entertaining. I hold that Brother Gray has thrown
you and your Dulcinea down hard."

"It is perfectly true to life, anyway," said Dick, with a conscious
grin; "but you are wrong in accusing me of worrying about it. I don't
mind the prospect in the least, as I said before, and am only warning
you snobs who think you are something pretty nice. You can't carry your
poetry out of college. Your 'graces of life' as you call 'em, either
mental or physical, won't raise your salary in an office, and your hard
work in the office won't help you to figure in a ballroom. If you get to
the top before you are thirty, Dulcinea may smile on you; but you are
not likely to do anything of the kind. You will probably spoil all your
other chances with her in the attempt."

"Listen to our man of the world, you fellows," said Burleigh. "Jack
Rattleton, stop playing with that ugly pup and improve your advantages.
Uncle Richard, here, aged two and twenty, has upon half a dozen
occasions made the exertion of going to a party in Boston, where he has
talked foot-ball with some _debutante_ and been floored on Esoteric
Buddhism by an elderly lady who had it. He has spent all the rest of his
time smoking a villanous pipe in Cambridge. He is now giving us, from
his wealth of experience, a few opinions and straight tips on the nature
of woman."

"I don't pretend to know anything about 'em," protested Dick, stoutly,
"and care less. But this I do know, that, among most men, success counts
for more than endeavor, and I am willing to bet that it is four times as
much so with women."

"And I know this," said Hudson, "that you, on your own confession, don't
know what you are talking about, and are in a beastly humor. You need
exercise; come on over to Fresh Pond and go skating."

"Yes, do take him off," sighed Rattleton; "when he and Hol and Gray get
theorizing it gives everybody a headache. They'll go around to the Pud.
and keep it up there if you don't take them skating."

Stoughton replied to this by kicking the hind legs of Rattleton's
carefully balanced chair, and upsetting him on top of the dog Blathers.
After which exchange of courtesies the party adjourned, arranging to
meet and go to Fresh Pond at three.

Holworthy did not join the skating party; he had promised to go for a
walk with his chum Rivers. Gray also had some engagement. As the others
were starting out with their skates, they met the latter little
gentleman arrayed in his best. He tried to pretend that he didn't see
them. They promptly set up a cheer and began ostentatiously making
snow-balls.

"Didn't you say something at lunch about men in New York who made
impertinent remarks about your clothes," demanded Gray of Stoughton.

"This isn't New York," answered Stoughton. "When a man puts on all his
feathers and paint on a week day in Cambridge, we know he is on the
war-path."

"Dog his trail, dog his trail," yelled Hudson. "Let's see what wigwam it
leads to."

"Doesn't he look pretty?" shouted Burleigh. "Only his coat doesn't fit
in the back."

"Look at that smooch on his collar," exclaimed Randolph.

"I hope you children will grow up sometime," grumbled Gray, as he
hurried on.

An hour or two afterwards Gray was walking into Boston in very good
company. The new Harvard Bridge was not then built, and the two (yes,
only one other) were passing through one of the more lonely streets of
Cambridgeport that lead to the Cottage Farms bridge. A hard-looking
citizen turned a corner ahead of them, and on catching sight of the pair
stopped with some insulting remark. Gray's blood boiled into his face,
but he had sense enough to cross to the other side of the street with
his convoy. The man, evidently in liquor, promptly did the same, and
showed that he meant to give trouble.

"Run back as fast as you can to Main Street," said Gray to his
companion, upon which advice she wisely and quickly acted.

The rough started forward, and Gray placed himself in the middle of the
path.

"Hold on," he commanded. "Don't come a step nearer."

"Get out of my way, you little dude, before I eat you up," answered the
other.

The little dude naturally did not get out of the way. He dropped his
stick and squared himself for the enemy. Then, contrary to the generally
accepted pleasant idea, the burly ruffian proceeded to "eat up" the
slender thoroughbred.

The light-weight met his adversary's rush handsomely, but utterly failed
to stop it. The tough closed, "back-heeling," and at the same time
landing his right with a door key in it, used as brass knuckles, thereby
cutting Gray's face open. As the latter tripped and went down under the
blow, the tough kicked him. Gray jumped to his feet again, however, and
managed to fasten on the rough's back as he went by. They went down
together, the rough on top with his knee on Gray's stomach. This knocked
the wind out of the little fellow terribly, still he clung to his
adversary. The latter struggled to free one of his hands, with the
amiable purpose of choking, or of gouging the eye of the youth under
him, when a shout made him look up. He managed to tear himself away, and
sprang to his feet. Holworthy and his chum, Charles Rivers, who was No.
4 in the 'Varsity crew, were tearing down the street.

The second battle was quite as unequal as the first, for there was as
much difference between the big college oarsman in the pink of
condition, and the rum-soaked Port tough, as there had been between the
latter and the plucky little stripling. It is only justice to the tough,
however, to say that no idea of flight entered his mind; he was quite as
ready to fight the big dude as the little one.

His hand went to his hip-pocket, but evidently the weapon was not there.
Then he gathered himself and made a spring at the new-comer. As a result
he ran his face into a big fist at the end of a long, straight,
stiffened left-arm. At the other end of that arm were a hundred and
ninety pounds of hard-trained muscle. As he staggered back from this
concussion, he got the hundred and ninety pounds again, concentrated in
a right hander on his fifth rib. That doubled him up, and then it was
River's turn to rush. He knew enough not to close, for the brute, though
practically knocked out, could still use his teeth if he got a chance.
Holding him up by the throat with his left hand, with his right Rivers
pounded the ruffian on the jaw, then threw him senseless on the ground.

"There, that will do. He'll come to after awhile," he remarked, "but he
will do no more mischief at present. You chivalrous little jackass," he
continued, turning to Gray, who was wiping the blood from his face, "I
saw you throw away your stick when we first caught sight of you. It's
lucky you weren't killed. Of course you couldn't help fighting under
these circumstances, but if you ever get caught with a beast like that
again, don't ever try fair prize-ring methods with him. It is only in
books that the nice young man thrashes two or three toughs bigger than
himself in a square fight. These chaps know how to fight just as well as
you; what is more, they know how to fight foul, and always do if they
get a chance. Just remember, now, if you ever have to tackle this kind
of cattle again, cut him right over with your stick. Paste him under the
ear for keeps."

"If this isn't just my luck!" said Gray, looking ruefully at the blood
on his handkerchief. "Here have I been longing and praying for this sort
of an opportunity, and when it comes, by Jove, I get a thundering
licking and another fellow comes along and saves me and the girl both.
Hang it, Charlie, I could have held on to him until she got away."

"Too bad," laughed Rivers, "I beg your pardon. I didn't think. I ought
to have let you get killed or gouged for her and glory, oughtn't I?
Come, cheer up, old man, you did a great deal more than I, and deserve
all the favors. Let's go back and see her."

They walked back to Holworthy and the fair _casus belli_. The latter had
paused in her flight on the arrival of the reinforcements, and with
natural curiosity and anxiety had watched the fray from a distance. As
her rescued rescuer and his rescuer came up, she held out her hand to
Rivers, and uttered her gratitude in nervous broken sentences.

She expressed much sympathy for Gray.




SERIOUS SITUATIONS IN BURLEIGH'S ROOM.[1]

[Footnote 1: This farce is printed by the kind permission of the Hasty
Pudding Club for which it was originally written.]


SCENE:--Room of Hudson, Burleigh, and Co. (Co. being Topsy, the
terrier).

Burleigh seated in easy chair, legs stretched towards fire, ba

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