← catalogue

Princeton Stories

by Jesse Lynch Williams · English · Gutenberg #43587 · 377,327 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Princeton Stories
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: Princeton Stories

Author: Jesse Lynch Williams


        
Release date: August 28, 2013 [eBook #43587]
                Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43587

Credits: Produced by Melissa McDaniel and the Online Distributed
        Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
        produced from images generously made available by The
        Internet Archive)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRINCETON STORIES ***

Transcriber's Note:

  Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
  been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal
  signs=.




     Princeton Stories

     By
     Jesse Lynch Williams

     _FOURTH EDITION_

     Charles Scribner's Sons
     New York 1895




     _Copyright, 1895, by
     Charles Scribner's Sons_

     TROW DIRECTORY
     PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY
     NEW YORK




To '92




TABLE OF CONTENTS


                                         PAGE

     THE WINNING OF THE CANE,               1

     THE MADNESS OF POLER STACY,           37

     THE HAZING OF VALLIANT,               67

     HERO WORSHIP,                         89

     THE RESPONSIBILITY OF LAWRENCE,      105

     FIXING THAT FRESHMAN,                139

     THE SCRUB QUARTER-BACK,              177

     WHEN GIRLS COME TO PRINCETON,        193

     THE LITTLE TUTOR,                    209

     COLLEGE MEN,                         241

     THE MAN THAT LED THE CLASS,          277


_Acknowledgements are due Messrs. Harper & Brothers for permission
to republish "The Scrub Quarter-Back" and "When Girls Come to
Princeton."_




THE WINNING OF THE CANE


The modern Cane Spree is held in broad daylight on University Field.
It is a vastly different affair from the Spree we used to watch with
chattering teeth at midnight, kneeling on the wet grass in front of
Witherspoon, with a full moon watching over West College and Mat.
Goldie and two assistants waiting by the lamp-post to join in the
fierce rush which followed each bout.

Nowadays it is one of the regular events of the Annual Fall Handicap
Games, and is advertised in large special feature letters on the
posters hanging in the shop windows and on the bulletin elm. It is a
perfectly proper and legitimate proceeding, and is watched like any
other field event from the bleachers and Grand Stand, with girls there
to catch their breath and say "Oh!" The class that wins is glad. They
cheer awhile and then watch the final heat of the 2.20.

In our day you could seldom see much of anything, and there was
nothing proper about it. But it was one of the things a fellow lived
for, like Thanksgiving games and Spring Term. To win a cane for one's
class was an honor of a lifetime, like playing on the 'Varsity, or
winning the Lynde debate. Men are still pointed out when back at
Commencement as the light or middle weight spreers of their class, and
a member of the faculty is famous for having "described a parabola
with his opponent." This trick and a book called "Basal Concepts in
Philosophy" bear his name, though it is maintained by some that he is
more proud of the book.

This is to be a story of "How we used to do when we were in college."
It would not do to revive the ancient cane spree. Things have changed
since then. We are a university now. We mustn't behave like a college
any longer. Besides, it was bad for the football men and training
hours. But all the same, those old times were fun while they lasted.
Weren't they?

       *       *       *       *       *

High up over Clio Hall hung a moon, which a night or two before had
been full. Over there, on the balconies of Witherspoon, blue and red
and green lights were flaring. On the grass-plot in front was a huge
black circle. This was made up of the College of New Jersey.

Their hats were off, and the red and the green and the blue mingled
with the moonlight and glared upon the bare heads and the white of
the faces with an effect as ghastly as it sounds.

The elms over toward Reunion and West cast long ugly-looking shadows.
Beyond these everything seemed far away and dark and silent. Yet only
a few hours before this same spot had served the innocent purpose of
batting up flies and kicking footballs for points, with fellows
shouting in loud, careless voices, "Aw! Come off! That was over the
line!"

The circle was not yet perfectly formed. The crowd shivered and
fidgeted, and borrowed lights of one another. Those behind called
"Down in front!" And everyone wished it would begin. Some fellows kept
edging in and were shoved back again by those appointed for that
purpose. A few were moving about inside the circle displaying rolls of
bills with which they made bets, and a great impression on
under-classmen of a certain sort. The night was to be clear and
frosty, and the strain on the nerves tremendous. So all those who
believed in artificial warmth had it in their pockets, and some who
did not.

For a month it had been, next to football, the most discussed topic at
dinner-tables. Almost as soon as the rush was over--the annual cannon
rush of the second night of the term without which the freshmen would
not have considered themselves a class, while the underclassmen were
still occupied in hazing and being hazed, and putting up and pulling
down each other's proclamations throughout the state, and painting and
repainting water-towers, and losing sleep in other good causes; in
short, early in the term the candidates for the spreeing positions
went into training, and they had been spreeing vigorously every night
since--the freshmen back of the chapel and the sophs on the South
Campus, about where Brown Hall now stands.

All sorts of rumors and counter-rumors had floated about the campus.
The sophomores were frightened about a hinted-at dark horse of the
freshmen, only they did not show it; and the freshmen were scared to
death at the confident air of the well-known champion of the
sophomores, and tried not to show it. And each was awed at the
mysterious air of the other, and both had betted more than they had
any business to on the result, and were now lined up in front of
Witherspoon. All were as excited as they cared to be, and they had
been cheering for themselves since nine o'clock. The cheers echoed in
the frosty air from dark West and bright Witherspoon, and from far
away first Church.

The sophomores were closely massed in the segment of the circle on the
higher ground toward Reunion. Their cheering sounded blatant, and to
the freshmen sickeningly confident. And the freshmen--they were
opposite, with their sweet scared faces still more closely huddled
together. Each freshman had his little cap safely tucked away in his
innermost pocket, and none of them was saying a word, except when he
opened his mouth to cheer with all his heart for his dear class. It
was all new to them. They only waited and waited with the same aching
suspense that you had on Thanksgiving-day, when you saw the referee
toss the coin and one team take the ball while the other crouched, and
then waited and waited, and you felt certain that something awful was
the matter, but you did not know what.

Presently, though no official sign was given, every one felt that the
important moment was at hand. The cheering sounded as if
reinforcements had arrived. A compact circle was now formed by
composite consent. Those in the front row sat down on the grass and
caught cold. The next row kneeled. Those behind leaned on them, and so
on back to those who stood on tip-toe and craned their necks for an
occasional glimpse. Outside the circle, over by the Witherspoon
lamp-post, leaned Proctor Matthew Goldie, Esquire, in a careless
attitude.

Everyone's heart jumped up a little when a voice cried, "Here they
come!" as though it were he who had to spree.

Led by their coachers, the two light weights scudded out mysteriously
from different wings of Witherspoon with overcoats wrapped about them.
As they crossed the light, the crowd, which had hushed for a moment,
broke out in wild prolonged cheering; the two upper classes, who were
not immediately interested, joined in. So did the sporting gentlemen
of the town, and even the little muckers cheered shrilly for their
favorite class.

A path was forced through the crowd, and the two nimble light weights
began peeling their sweaters. The sophomore was dressed in black, the
freshman in pure white. They resined their hands. Everyone felt
things.

The referee held out the stout piece of hickory called cane by
courtesy. He put the freshman's hands outside. The cheering ceased.
Mat. Goldie stretched and changed his position.

There was a hurting stillness as they stood there with their feet
braced, frozen in the ghastly glare, the one in white and the one in
black, while the referee said, in earnest tones, "Are you ready,
freshman?"

You could see his chest filling up from the bottom as he answered,
"Um."

"Are you ready, sophomore?"

"Yes."

"Spree!"

One of them dropped as if shot, the other followed him down, both
turned over, each began struggling and straining; the coachers began
coaching, the referee dropped down on his knees to see fair play, and
then someone in the rear said, "Down in front!" in healthy, human
tones, and you came to yourself and remembered that this was only a
struggle for class honor, after all, and that whichever way it came
out it was not going to kill you. Then you breathed.

Meanwhile, locked up in a room in East Middle Witherspoon, wrapped in
sweaters and blankets, were five other freshmen, and to them the
strain was worst of all. These were the other freshmen spreers, the
light weight, the middle weight, and the three substitutes. They could
only wait and listen and try to guess from the sound of the cheers
which side had the advantage. It was too far off to distinguish
anything but a ring with something undefined inside. The juniors said
they must not go out on the balcony or get excited. This was easy to
say.

While the crowd was in the room and fellows were clattering up and
down the stairs and everyone was talking and the crowd outside was
making a noise, it was not so bad. But now it was so silent they could
almost hear the two contestants straining and wrenching below. Now and
then the shrill, earnest voice of a coacher would cut through the
silence. "Now! Now!" with an echo from the Presbyterian Church. "Right
over with him. Remember what I told you." Once the middle weight arose
from the divan; then he sat down again. A little later one of the subs
whistled two bars of a tune and stopped as if he had forgotten
something. Once in a while someone glanced at one of the others and
then looked away again. They did not say much.

The only one who did not seem to mind it was Hill, the substitute
heavy weight, and that was only because he had not sense enough. He
was a big, thick-headed, sleepy-looking farmer, and the only reason he
was up here with these nimble athletes was that he was such a
tremendous buck and so stupid that when once he put his big hands on
the stick he would not let go. But he would be used only in case the
regular heavy weight died or had a fit or something before time was
called, and that was improbable.

But Hill was enjoying everything. He thought the colored lights were
"pretty," and he considered it good fun, loafing in this large,
luxurious room. He glanced approvingly at the water-colors and
examined the photographs and knocked down a few of them, and looked
over the mugs and the foils and the antlers and the usual dust
collectors of a well-furnished room. Then, because he approved of what
he saw, he grinned.

He had grinned at the staring crowd when, half an hour before, it had
stood to one side for him and the other spreers to pass by on the way
back from weighing at the gymnasium. He thought lots of things were
funny. He grinned broadly when, before the spree began, an excitable
junior approached him in the corner where he was sitting alone and
said, in jerky, tremulous tones, "Say, which do you think will win?"
This was before the crowd was put out. That was the funniest thing of
all--the way Cunningham put the crowd out. "Dash it! I wish to dash
you fellows would dash quickly get to dash out of here. This is my
room and, dash it all, I loaned it to the dash freshmen spreers and
not to the whole dash college, dash it!" That was so funny that Hill
let loose his huge laugh and filled up the room with it. This caused
the other freshmen to look at one another and smile pityingly. But
Hill did not notice it.

The other freshmen had little in common with Hill. It was not so much
because he was uncouth as that he had no class spirit. He had entered
college two days late, and those two days are like two years in some
respects. He had missed the class meeting, where freshmen get a first
sight of one another which lasts always, and he had missed the class
rush about the cannon, where freshmen are so closely pressed together
that they never after get quite apart. But the farmer should have
wakened up by this time. Lack of class spirit is never pardonable.
This is the way Hill happened to be here this evening.

One day early in the term, as he was pushing his big chest across the
campus to recitation, he heard someone call: "Hold up, there, you big
freshman!" So he smiled and took off his ugly derby hat.

"No, I'm not a sophomore; I'm a junior," said the stranger, who then
explained that he wanted to talk to him. "You come to my room at one
o'clock, and don't forget about it," said the junior. "Run along, now;
the bell is stopping."

Hill came, and found several other freshmen there. "Take hold of this
stick," said the junior.

He put his big fists about it and found himself flying across the
room. He landed against the door and beside him lay a table, which
never arose.

"Now, that is cane-spreeing," said the junior casually, as one would
say, "Down there is the new Art building," "and I want all you fellows
to meet me at eight o'clock back of chapel."

That night they gave Hill a cane and said, "Take hold of this and
don't let go." He held it for an hour against every one except the
junior that was sophomore heavy weight the previous year. But he had
never yet been quick enough to take it away from anyone, even the
light weights. And that was the reason he was a substitute waiting in
Montie Cunningham's room wrapped in two sweaters and a blanket. His
eyes were closed and he was thinking about what a bully time his
younger brother Ike must be having among the chestnuts this month.

The big leather chair was soft and he might have fallen asleep had not
at that moment a tremendous yell burst into existence down below--a
loud, shrill, fiendish yell which lasted nearly a minute before it
was shaken down to an organized cheer. Hill stretched.

The others were out on the balcony. "Tell us which has it! For
heaven's sake, tell us!" they cried to every one below; and no one
below answered. So all they could do was to bite their lips and wait
until the yelling became cheering, and then they knew from the
exultant tones of the sophomores what they did not want to know.

Just then they caught a glimpse of the victor waving the cane in his
hand as he was borne high on the shoulders of his class-mates to West
Witherspoon.

Then they had a confused view of the rush. The upper classes fell to
one side and the other two fell upon one another. This was the
fiercest sort of rushing known to the proctors. The two sides were
not, as in the cannon rush, evenly lined up four abreast. Not a bit of
it. There were two thickly massed bodies of men, one running up a
grade, the other charging down, and the roll of their footsteps was as
the sound of much cattle, running. For a moment each tried to keep in
solid form. But only long enough for some one to be knocked down and
run over by the rest. After the first crash it was mixed fighting. In
the moonlight one could not invariably distinguish friend from foe.
So each man doubled up both fists and let drive at everyone he saw. It
was glorious.

As soon as they became hopelessly mixed and each class had cheered
itself hoarse and the proctors had carried off an armful of sophomores
to appear before the Discipline Committee the next day, and to be
cheered off at the depot by lamenting classmates later on, everyone
turned up his coat-collar and helped form the ring again.

Those on the balcony, who had been panting and chafing like tied
deer-hounds, now heard the feet of them bearing bad tidings and the
defeated freshman up the entry stairs. The door was kicked open and
three winded juniors laid their burden gently on the bed, which had
been dragged in from the other room for this purpose. With them many
others pushed in who did not belong there, and the room was full of
people once more. Many voices were explaining how it all happened.

Ramsay, the little freshman, was completely done. He had fainted as
they brought him upstairs. His face was set and white, and he lay
there with his tough little resiny hands hanging limp at his side
while his classmates poured brandy down his throat and told each other
what to do. Through the window came a sharp freshman cheer with "Runt
Ramsay" on the end.

Meanwhile the middle weight had stripped to the waist. He was bending
forward with his forearms upon the mantel-piece and his forehead
resting on them, as one bows during prayers in chapel. Two men were
vigorously rubbing his long strong back with whiskey. The coach was
standing beside him, giving final admonitions in a quick, tense
manner. "Now, if he does this, you do this. See? He can't get you on
that shoulder-throw of his. And if he tries this trick you know how to
meet it. Why, you can do him dead easy. I won from him last year, and
you can take it away from me," and so on. As they started from the
room, he added, "Now remember your whole class is watching you
and----" But the door closed and they hurried down the stairs, and in
a moment the wild cheering announced their entrance in the ring. Hill
was sorry, because he thought it right funny.

He went out on the balcony and looked down on the crowd. The noise and
the moonlight and the specks of cigarlight had a grotesque effect. He
had never seen anything like it before.

"Oh, cork up that laugh, Farmer Hill," said Bushforth, the heavy
weight, who was also centre of the freshman team and had a right to
patronize. "It's bad enough as it is, without that bark of yours."

Hill stopped laughing. He grinned instead. His feelings were not hurt.
He had none.

Again the cheering was hushed. It was so still that those on the
balcony might have heard the hard breathing or the whimpering of the
freshman on the bed. The farmer heard it and went inside.

The liquor and exercise had made Ramsay warm. He had thrown off the
blankets and lay half naked with his hands clasped across his eyes.
Drops of sweat were running off his palpitating chest. Hill looked at
his prettily developed arms and at the slender, well-turned wrist and
at the tough little hands, which, Hill decided, had never done much
farm work. Then because he liked what he saw, he laughed.

The light weight uncovered one eye and then covered it again.

"There, there," said the farmer, patting the black curly hair, which
looked "pretty" against the white pillow. "I wouldn't take on so,
little one, we'll get some of those canes yet."

Brandy and defeat had made Ramsay cross. He said: "Oh, go to the
devil, won't you please?"

"All right," replied the big fellow. "Only you'll catch cold that way.
Let me fix them." He carefully tucked the blankets around his
classmate, who said, "That's so. Much obliged." Hill smiled at his
uncomfortable tone.

When, after seven hard-fought rounds, Murray, the middle weight, was
brought up breathless and caneless, there was great discouragement in
the freshman camp. The middle weight was the one above all others upon
whom they had relied to defend the honor of the class. Murray, the
long-winded, himself had felt confident of winning; and probably he
would have by sheer endurance had not the sophomore taken him unawares
by a very easy finger trick as they lay together on the ground
resting.

But it was all over now, and the middle weight was stretched out on
the bed beside Ramsay. He had not, however, fainted, and he was
sullenly chewing a piece of gum he had had in his mouth during the
struggle. He looked unconcerned. He made no excuses to those who told
what a nervy fight he had made.

All the week previous the betting on the heavy weight had been two to
one on the sophomore. But now three seniors from the enemy's camp
swaggered into the room shouting, "Here's four to one on Parker. Who
wants it? Why don't you back your man?" They smiled at the junior
coachers. "Drake don't want any of it," said another, in a dry tone;
"he knows Parker too well."

Drake was the man who met Parker, unsuccessfully, the year before.
"Wait a moment," he said. His sporting blood was stirred. "I'll take
all you have, at four to one. Charlie, will you hold it, please?"

All of this must have been soothing to the nerves of the freshman
heavy weight who was taking off his clothes for a final rub and trying
not to hear the class cheers outside.

"Now then," said Montie Cunningham, slamming the door as the seniors
hurried down the stairs, "this thing's got to stop right _here_." He
brought a baseball bat down on the table so hard that every one
stopped talking and looked up. "You've simply got to win that cane. If
those dash sophomores win all three they'll crow over you for the rest
of their course. They are arrogant enough already, dash them. And you
fellows will be disgraced forever, and your class will be handed down
in history as no good. People will refer to you as a class who lost
all three canes. This is a crisis in your history. You made a good
showing in the rush, but you were badly defeated in the baseball
series. This is the third test. This decides it. Win this cane and you
are all right. One out of three is a defeat, but not a disgrace,
because you are only freshmen. But _none_ out of three _is_. _You've
got to win this cane!_"

No one uttered a sound for a moment. Farmer Hill did not laugh.

"Come here, Bushforth," said Drake, in a low, solemn voice; "I'll rub
you myself."

The heavy weight was beautifully built and exceedingly quick for his
size. He came to college with a good prep-school record of centre
rush. But there was something disappointing about him, and you felt it
every time you saw him move. You know the kind. One of those fellows
who are splendid to look at in a football suit, and who will always
put up a fair game on the scrub, but who are never going to make the
'Varsity.

Just now he was biting his lip and looking down at his own good legs.
When he raised his glance he found Hill standing with arms akimbo,
gazing at him with an earnest expression.

Bushforth smiled good-humoredly to show how cool he was.

"Think you can take that cane?" Hill asked with a grin.

"I really don't know, Hill," answered the beautifully built man.

"Do you think you can take it?" repeated the other.

"Well, Hill, Parker will have to work for it," said the heavy weight,
indulgently. "Why? Would you like to take my place? I'd be glad to
resign in your favor."

"All right," said Hill, simply. He began pulling up his sweater.

"Go on and sit down and stop your nonsense." It was hard to stand
horse-play at such a moment, when your whole class was cheering for
you outside.

"I ain't fooling," said the big farmer, with his arms still in the
sweater, his head and body out.

"Hurry, Bush," said one of the juniors at the window. "The sophs have
yelled across at me that they are ready."

"All right," said Bushforth, lacing his Jersey as he started for the
door. He forgot to answer the other freshman.

"Wait a minute," said the big, cheerful voice of the farmer, "I think
I'll go down this time."

"Oh, cork up, you big cow!" said Drake.

Hill corked up and then pushed Bushforth out of the way and started
for the door.

"Will you please go back where you belong and sit down?" said Drake,
impressively.

It failed to impress Hill. "Well, you see, it's this way," he began
pleasantly, "he can't take that cane, I'm afraid. I can, though. I've
got my blood up." He began contracting his biceps playfully. "Isn't it
time to----"

"Freshman," interrupted Drake, with irony, "we have chosen the heavy
weight representative of your class, and we are of the opinion that we
know about as much of this business as you do. I never heard of such
foolishness. Go sit down, and shut your big face. Your services will
not be required unless Billy is laid off before he reaches the foot of
the entry stairs. Come on, Billy."

"Then," Hill answered, smilingly, "I'll have to lay him off." He
suddenly grabbed his big classmate by the shoulders, jerked him back
into his arms, grasped him like a bag of flour, and hoisted him on his
shoulders as if he had been one. "Now you lie down there, and be a
good boy." He dropped Bushforth, but not roughly, in the corner
behind the door, and then looked beamingly about at the others as
though he had performed quite a feat. And so he had. Bushforth weighed
one hundred and eighty-nine, stripped.

Outside the crowd was yelling concertedly in quick, jerky notes,
"Shake it up! Shake it up! Shake it up!" and the sophomores were
singing "Where, oh, where are the verdant freshmen?" etc., "Lost now
in the green, green soup." But upstairs everyone was so tense and so
excited that nothing was heard but the angry words of the coachers
addressed to Hill, who was grinning.

Bushforth arose from the floor slowly.

"Shake it up, Billy," cried Drake, exasperated; "do you want to lose
your cane by default?"

"Say," replied Bushforth, soberly, "do you suppose there's anything
the matter with this hand?--Ugh! Great Scott! don't squeeze it."

Hill had not thrown him violently, but Bushforth, in throwing out his
arms to stop himself, had struck his left hand against the wooden
door-guard a few inches above the floor behind the door, and all his
weight was upon it. The junior coach shut his eyes, dropped into
Hill's big chair, and let his arms fall down to his sides. Everyone
looked at him. "That settles it," he gasped. "Billy's hand is
sprained. Let's give up the cane by default and----"

"Is it sprained?" interrupted Hill, removing his smile suddenly. "I'm
sorry I hurt his hand. I did not intend that--Mr. Bushforth, I beg
your pardon. I just wanted to show these fellows how strong I was. I
didn't think I had a fair trial at spreeing. And now, Drake, don't you
think we had better go down? They are clamoring down there. Are you
coming?"

His tones were very deliberate and his manner so calm in contrast to
the boiling condition of the others, that everyone seemed stunned for
a moment. They only looked at one another.

"Shake it up! Shake it up! Shake it up!" came from the crowd below,
and just then two representatives from the sophomores came running up
the stairs, shouting, "Say, if you fellows don't wish to lose this by
default come right now. Everyone's tired of waiting."

"Don't get excited," Drake shouted back. "Bushforth met with an
accident and the sub is going to take his place. Come on, Hill." It
was the only thing to do.

Hill saw the eyes of the two seniors brighten at the news, and heard
his own classmates in the room cursing him. He said to himself, "Now
then, I guess I've got to do something this evening," and followed
Drake down the stairs.

"You're stronger than he is. He's all bluff. You'll do him dead
easily," the two coachers were saying as heartily as they could. Hill
did not reply. They crossed the light from the entry door. A strong
cheer went up for Bushforth. Hill laughed. The coachers shivered.

Before they had pushed their way through the crowd to the ring, word
went around that at the last moment Bushforth was laid off, and that a
big sub named Hill had taken his place. Few had ever heard the name.
The freshmen groaned; Hill heard it.

As they emerged into the ring, he heard a strange voice saying, "Why,
he's that great big awkward chap the sophs guy so much, don't you
remember?" Again Hill laughed.

"That's all right," whispered one of the juniors as he helped him off
with his sweater. "You go in and win this cane, and your class will
give you anything you want. Keep cool now, and remember what you have
learned."

The farmer's big deformity-like shoulders looked more huge than ever
in the thin, white jersey as he now straightened up in the moonlight.

"'Ray! 'Ray! 'Ray! Tiger, Siss, Boom, Ah! Hill." It rang out sharply
on the frosty air. Then came a long cheer and then more short ones,
with "Hill" on the end of them.

There is a peculiar thrill at the sound of one's own name shouted by a
hundred voices on the end of a cheer. Hill felt it. He liked the
feeling. "Now that means me," he said to himself, and he recalled what
Drake had said to the middle weight: "Now remember, your whole class
is watching you." It was in that moment that Hill caught class spirit.

The heavy weight spree was usually the shortest and most exciting
contest of the evening. Everyone eagerly pressed forward on the wet
grass.

The sophomores were barking and guying and quacking exultingly. The
freshmen were cheering hard.

"Get ready, boys," said Jim, the athletic trainer, acting as referee.
He held out the stick.

The sophomore ran out briskly. Hill spat on his hands and took his
time about it. They grasped the cane. "Down in front, _please_!" a
voice pleaded. The cheering had ceased as suddenly as you turn off the
gas.

Hill was cool. He looked about at the theatre of faces on all sides.
Just over the sophomore's shoulder, down on the ground with moonlight
on his face, he spied an important-looking senior, with glasses, who
on the campus had always seemed oblivious to the existence of
freshmen. He was rocking back and forth and chewing a cold cigar to
bits.

"Are you ready, Hill?"

The freshman spread his legs apart and said, "Yep."

"Ready, Parker?"

"Yes."

A ghastly silent second. "Spree!"

As the referee spoke the word, Hill felt the sophomore drop. He knew
what was coming. Over his opponent's head he went sprawling on the
grass, as he expected. But just then, in some manner, quick as a
flash, Parker doubled and threw both legs in between Hill's body and
the cane, and began, with all his strength, to strain, and push, and
wrench.

Hill had expected something, and thought he was guarding against it.
But this was a new trick--a variation on the old one--which the
sophomore had invented himself.

Now, if it had been an ordinary man, with ordinary Christian
shoulders, the strain would have been too great, and the sophomore
would have won the cane in ten seconds, as he counted on doing.

But you see Hill was somewhat deformed as to his shoulders. He grunted
and clung on, and the sophomore's coachers were yelling fiendishly:
"You've got him, Park! you've got him!"

The next instant, while the sophomore was trying to better his
advantage, Hill quietly turned, slipped out of the perilous position,
and drew himself up close to the sophomore's body. He lay there
panting, while his coachers cried, joyfully: "Good one, Hill! good
one!" and his classmates left off feeling sick at their stomachs, and
began to cheer him by name. This he did not hear.

He had been taken by surprise at the fall, but now he was entirely
alive to what he was about. Every nerve was at tension, each muscle
set at hair-trigger. There was just one thing in all the world to him
now, and that was the cane. And when, a moment later, Parker began a
quick series of furious jerks, back and forth and sidewise, Hill said,
half aloud: "No, you don't, old man," and smiled confidently to
himself as he felt how firm the cane was in his hand.

The sophomore, on top, now tried working Hill's hands off with his
fingers. But the freshman had lived on a farm all his life. Then he
tried something with his legs. But Hill's big supports were as hard as
the columns of Whig Hall, though not as symmetrical. Then, waiting
awhile, he tried to surprise Hill with more quick, sharp wrenches. It
was unsuccessful. He waited, and tried it again. Then time was called.
The two class-cheers burst forth simultaneously.

The contestants were dragged to their respective corners, wrapped with
blankets, and sponged with water.

During the interval, a buzz of voices began suddenly, as in a racing
grand-stand after the winner has been announced. The college had
expected an easy thing for Parker, the champion, and when they heard
of Bushforth's absence, they were sure of it. Everyone was saying:
"Who is this Hill? Hasn't he shoulders! Wasn't that a narrow hole he
crawled out of?"

The coachers were whispering, "You're doing well, Hill. Stick to him,
and you'll get him yet. You'll tire him out."

Two or three freshmen came into the ring and shook Hill's hand,
saying, nervously, "Good boy, Hill, good one." He was already a
distinguished man, having held the cane for a round against Parker.
But Hill only grinned and had his own opinion. The honor of the class
depended upon him. He thought he was going to win the cane.

When the referee called them up, one of the sophomore's coaches called
out, in an easy tone, "Remember, now," and Parker replied, in a cool
way, "Very well." The silence was worse than ever. People felt that
this would be the last round.

The two spreers were the coolest on the campus. But they also felt
that this would settle it, and as they grasped the cane each looked
the other over and then gazed straight into his enemy's eye. Very
much, no doubt, as knights of old used to size each other up before
they fell to cutting each other to bits, of a quiet afternoon by the
sea-side.

Hill did not like Parker, nor would he have fancied him even if the
sophomore had not been a brutal and unreasonable hazer. However, he
appreciated his athletic abilities, and even in the tense moment of
waiting for the referee's word, he could not help admiring the way his
opponent's neck fitted his body, and the clean cut of his limbs, which
Hill himself so lacked.

The sophomore looked him back in the eyes, and said, sneeringly, "You
damned freshman!" which was entirely uncalled for.

When the word was given both kept their feet for a few minutes. They
held their arms down stiff, keeping the cane close to their bodies in
order to prevent the other from jumping in between. Neither seemed
inclined to begin the attack, and they danced cautiously about the
circle with their faces close together. There was something impressive
in the sight of these two, pounding about in the moonlight. They were
so ponderous, and it all seemed to mean so much. Parker tried the
right hip throw.

He was partially successful. They were both on the ground now, and the
timer snapped his stop watch. Time is not counted when the men are
erect.

The sophomore was on top again. Again he tried his jerking
manoeuvres, and again Hill smiled to himself and thought, "I guess
not."

He lay perfectly still on the wet grass, as if comfortable and quite
content to remain there. He heard a voice from the crowd say, "Spread
out, you coachers. Give us a show." He could feel the sophomore's
breath on his neck and the beating of the heart against his back. He
felt the cool wet grass on his cheek flattened against it, and he
became aware that his nose was bleeding, and then said to himself,
"Oh, yes; I must have bumped that on Parker's elbow when we came
down."

Now, up to this point, the freshman had been on the defensive
entirely, and he had been so successful that one of the coachers began
giving the signals to begin a little offensive work. "No, no, Hammie,"
cried Drake. "Let good enough alone."

Hill had regained his wind by this time. "Please don't bother me," he
said, in a muffled tone. "I'm doing this thing. I'll get this cane in
a minute." This was loud enough for some of those in the crowd to
hear. Somehow it sounded horrible.

And it seemed to enrage Parker. He began a furious onslaught, as if he
were tired of playing with a freshman so long and meant to end the
thing right there.

He wrenched and jerked this way, he tugged and pulled that way, he
turned over and then back, he tried all the manoeuvres he knew, and
took desperate chances, which the freshman was too slow to take
advantage of. Twice the sophomore seemed to have the cane, and the
freshman still held on. It was a battle of giants, and those that were
there will never forget it.

And while they struggled, now one on top and now the other, they
rolled over to the extreme lower part of the circle toward the path
leading to the railway station. That part of the audience fell back.
The ring broke. Some closed in around them.

Then, while the referee was shouting, "Get back! Get back!" the
freshman was suddenly seen to rise on his knees yelling shrilly, like
a wild beast in pain. "You would bite me, would you, you----." He
sprang to his feet. The blood from his nose was smeared all over his
face. A furious wrench jerked Parker from the ground. With what was
extraordinary power Hill whirled him; part of the way the feet
dragged, though some like to tell that the whole of Parker was clean
in the air all the way round; he whirled him about, as you would whirl
a pillow with both arms; then, suddenly reversing all his big weight
and simultaneously twisting the hickory, he snapped the sophomore off
in the air and lifted the cane high and dry above his head. "The
freshman has it," shrieked a shrill voice.

He felt himself grabbed, he heard many noises, he went up, up in the
air, and then he forgot.

       *       *       *       *       *

The big leather chair was the first thing he saw, and he knew he was
in the Witherspoon room again. Then he heard many voices talking at
once. He remembered now that he had been hearing them for ages. They
echoed inside his head some place.

"Are you all right now?"

He raised his lids a little higher and there was Drake bending over
him as tenderly as a mother.

"I think you ought to know, you great big awkward old farmer, that you
saved the day for us." Drake looked as delighted as if he had done it
himself.

"I've seen a good many sprees," said another voice near his head,
which Hill had never heard before, "but that was the finest thing I
ever saw; and I'm blame glad you did him, though I _am_ a senior and
lost twenty-five bats on it." Hill moved his head and saw the
important-looking senior with glasses.

The farmer now laughed his hideous laugh. That showed he was all
right.

One of the sophomore coachers approached the bed, and after looking up
and down Hill's bulk a moment, said: "The trouble with you, you big
freshman, is that you don't know when you're beaten. My man had that
cane twice, but you wouldn't let go."

"Well, that's Princeton spirit, isn't it?" remarked the 'Varsity
Captain, who had something to say to Hill later on.

Ramsay, the light weight, came running up the entry three steps at a
time. He had been leading cheers for Hill out-doors and now he began
hugging him. "Oh, farmer, you're a dandy. Give me your hand."

But when the farmer raised his hand he found the cane was still in it.
"Here, little one, you can have this. I've had my fun out of it." This
showed how green he was.

"No," said Ramsay; "you're to keep that forever. What did you win it
for, anyway?"

As a matter of fact winning the spree meant much more to the big
placid farmer than a hickory cane to hang with ribbons over his
mantelpiece, and more than a bit of fame in another kind of athletics,
too. Much more. As we all know now.




THE MADNESS OF POLER STACY


In freshman year they say, "Are you ready to feed your face?" instead
of "Are you going to dinner?" and at the eating clubs they call the
milk-pitcher the "cow," and shout "Butter me, please," when they wish
the butter handed to them. All their desires and opinions they express
in variously bold and vulgar metaphors, which are witty. This is
because there is no one to tell them they must not. The boy is a
college man now. He is free from the restraint of home or school or
both, and he doesn't know quite what to do with his liberty.

Like a young town horse turned loose for the first time in the open
green of the country, he sometimes loses his head and frisks and
snorts and kicks up his heels to an unbecoming degree. This is a way
of saying that every once in a while some little boy (the strictly
reared kind, usually), in his eagerness to show his fellows how
reckless and devilish he is, goes so far that he never comes quite
back. Others dissipate merely to the extent of cutting chapel twice
in succession or pretending that they have not poled all night for an
examination. In still others it breaks out in a different form, and
they persuade themselves that they are naughty cynics or bold, bad
agnostics. But that will do for that.

The point is this: Sooner or later, in some form or another, this
spirit is bound to get hold of every young man who is worthy of the
name, and, like measles or calf-love, it is better to have it sooner.
In the very young it is interesting. After that it is not. And the
older one is when it comes, the more he reminds the onlookers of the
frolicksome antics of some ancient, misguided cow, or of a kittenish
summer girl, aged twenty-eight. When seen in a poler it is pathetic.

       *       *       *       *       *

At his first eating club in freshman year, H. Stacy felt himself
snubbed from the start; and when the crowd, which was not slow, became
well enough acquainted with one another and with the glorious freedom
of college life to pour syrup down their neighbors' backs and to hurl
fried eggs and coarse jokes about the table, little Stacy, although he
always said, "That was a pretty good shot," and wiped the potato from
his ear with a noisy laugh, saw that he was not in his own element,
which he should have seen a month before, and got out.

He joined a club of a very different sort of freshmen, who were too
busy speculating upon their chances at the approaching Divisional
Examinations to invent names for tough beefsteak, or learn what was
going on in Trenton at the theatres and other places.

This was his element. He drew in long, full breaths of freedom and
sunshine, and told himself that now he knew what was meant by the Joy
of College Life.

Here he settled down to the methodical poler habits he was intended
for, and when the next catalogue was issued his mother and sister
pointed out to the minister's wife the name of "Horatio B. Stacy, New
Jersey," in the small group of names called "First Group," and said,
"We knew he would do it." In his sophomore year he did it again and
won a prize or two besides and became a minor light in the Cliosophic
Society, and by this time he held in that Hall an office, the name of
which was a secret, and could not be divulged even to his sister
Fannie. He studied for high marks and was called a "greasy poler." But
he got the high marks.

You must not think he had no friends. He made some firm ones. About
these he could write home to his sister Fannie, telling what
magnificent characters some of them were. Often of a Saturday night,
if he had no essays to write or debates to prepare, he slipped off his
eye-shades and pattered across the campus to his friends' rooms and
knocked gently and said, "How do?" and conversed for an hour on the
difficulty of taking notes when your neighbor is borrowing your knife,
or about the elective courses for the next term. And down at the club
they had great horse calling each other "Blamed Neo-Platonists" and
"Doggoned Transcendentalists." Nor was it all shop. One of them
thought himself in love. It was Stacy that used to wink at the others
and bob his head and say, "I know some one who got a letter to-day."
They had great fun at the club.

By reason of his freshman year's disgust he remained innocent, which
was right, and ignorant, which was wrong, of much that he might have
experienced, and he bade fair to graduate a typical poler with a bad
breath and an eye on Commencement stage and special honors. Sometimes,
to be sure, dark questions arose in his mind, strange, shameful
yearnings that caused him to read whole pages without taking in a word
of it. But then, all polers have wild moments when they feel that they
would rather play on the team than win the Stinnecke Scholarship, so
Stacy should not have been distressed.

But sometimes it seemed to him that even those classmates whom he knew
only slightly and did not understand at all, those fellows who seemed
to do nothing but loaf about the campus all day and sing and shout at
night, while he was running his hands through his hair and his eyes
through Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason," they, it seemed to him, were
getting a poetry out of college life that he was missing. "But never
mind," he would say to himself. "They will regret it some day. They
will wish they had done as I am doing, instead of wasting golden
opportunities which come but once and which glide by like ships upon
the sea of life." Then he would pull his hair and start at the top of
the page again. It is better to have First Group than the Glee Club.

But there were some fellows who could do both. Some fellows stood high
in the class and were in with everybody besides. Why could not he be
like that? This question came to him quite suddenly in junior year,
and he tipped his head to one side and began to think about it. He
kept on thinking.

He was still thinking about it one Sunday afternoon in chapel when big
Jack Stehman, the tackle, came stalking down the aisles and threw
himself down beside Stacy, and the oak creaked. He was fresh and clean
and rosy from a long 'cross country tramp, and he said, "Hello,
Stace," in a hearty whisper. It was not from policy like the smiling
hello of a man a few pews in front, but because he felt like it. Stacy
enjoyed being saluted in that way, and if the big fellow grabbed and
pinched his thin leg he would beam for the rest of the hour, even
though he found a blue spot there at night when he undressed in
Edwards Hall.

It was because of his way of saying hello, as much as his great
football record, that Stehman was one of the most popular men in
college, and nobody worshipped him more than did Stacy, not even the
freshman who gazed across the pews and wondered what it would be like
to be on familiar terms with a man of that sort. Stacy had at one time
feared that there was something sinful in his own admiration; Stehman
was a fourth-group man.

He was thinking that his big class-mate looked just as strong and
clean and good as during the season. Just then Timberly, in the pew
behind, lay hold of Stehman's hair, drew his head back against the
rail, and then rubbed his own vigorously against Stehman's. "Little
Jackie's had his long locks cut, hasn't he?" he said. His teeth were
gritted and there was a sweet caress in his Southern voice, for he
loved his good pal Jack Stehman, though he would have called you
profane things if you had accused him of it. Stehman smiled, and said,
"Let go, Timber, you ass, the organ has stopped."

Little Stacy, watching this out of the corner of his glasses, said,
solemnly, "I'd give my first group for that," and then bowed his head
in prayer. He thought about it all through the service instead of
listening as he should have done to a returned missionary who told how
many widows there were in India under thirteen years of age, and other
interesting things.

The next day, when he walked with Stehman from a lecture by the Dean
on Robert Southey, he tried to catch his friend's tone of hello. Jack
said it to about fifty men between Dickinson Hall and Reunion, and it
sounded as though he were glad to see everyone of them, and he was.
Stacy liked to be seen with the big fellow. But he did not blush and
keep silent as in sophomore year when he was first permitted to walk
with him. He tried to show everyone that he was used to it.

This time something happened. When they reached the place where the
stone walks meet, in front of South Reunion, Stehman put a big hand
on his shoulder, and said, "Stace, will you dine with me this
evening?--Oh, yes, you can. I have an engagement in Dougal's room now.
I'll yell for you on the way to the club. So long." Stacy opened his
mouth and gazed after him until out of sight. Then he shut it and
started for his room. This was unexpected.

He had often thought about these large swell clubs with their elective
membership, and he had walked by the houses when the members were
lounging out in front. He had heard snatches of songs and the click of
billiard-balls from within, and he wondered what they did and said and
how it looked inside. And now he was going to see one of them, the one
he admired the most of all.

At his own little eating club, he and the others said that many of the
club men were snobs, and declared that they would have nothing to do
with them. He wondered if his friends envied them in secret, as he
did. At any rate he would not dread answering them the next morning
when they asked, "Where were you for dinner?"

When he reached his room he changed his necktie for a more becoming
one. At least he thought it was. And he put on his new, heavy, tan
shoes, like those Stehman and so many fellows wore. He would show them
that he knew things. Then he sat down and wrote to his sister Fannie
about it, as he did once before with a trembling hand, when he won
that essay prize in Hall and came late to dinner in consequence, and
all the fellows cried, "Yea-a, Stacy, Sophomore essay prize!" He had
pointed out that club to Fannie when she and his mother came over at
Commencement, and he had told her that Stehman was in that one. She
knew who Stehman was.

Stacy little imagined that he was of so much consequence, but Stehman,
the tackle, had been talking about him on Sunday evening by the club
fireplace. Two of the fellows who were younger than juniors ought to
be had smiled at what he said.

To them Jack turned with some heat, and observed, "You fellows make me
tired. You aren't under-class men now; you're old enough to know
better than to size up people by under-class man standards. Just
because Stacy has not learned to swear or smoke, and because he
worries and fusses and gets pale over what he came to college for, you
think you have a right to laugh at him. I respect him, and I wish to
the deuce I was more like him. Little Stacy is all right. And he'll
be in it all right some of these days, and he'll do a great deal more
good in the world than most of us."

This was the longest speech Jack Stehman had ever made, and he was
duly applauded and guyed for it. But he was serious. He had a Sunday
night sour on. It was junior year for Stehman also, and he too had
been coming to some conclusions about his college course. But of a
different kind.

It was nearly half after six when Stacy heard his friend's big voice
echo across the campus. As he pattered down the stairs in his stiff,
new Bluchers, he could not help wishing that Stehman had come a little
earlier. Not that he was hungry, but the campus would then have been
more crowded, while Stehman called, "Hello, Ray Stace."

As they passed under the lamp-post and Jack said "Hello" to somebody
going in the other direction, Stacy remembered how that once he would
not have believed that he should ever be walking as he was now with
Stehman's big, strong arm upon his shoulder, the same arm that had
brought down many a canvas jacket. But that was long ago.

When they reached the club, Stehman kicked the mud from his big, heavy
shoes on the porch steps, and Stacy did the same for his bright new
little ones. The door flew open and the brightly lighted interior of
the club was before them. Stacy caught a glimpse of an open fire and
deep, comfortable places to lounge in beside it, and some etchings on
the wall. He heard knives and forks and many voices, all going at
once, and laughter and exclamations. He spied a waiter hurrying in
with a tray full of dishes. A little nigger boy, with innumerable
buttons on his jacket, began to help him off with his overcoat, and
just then he heard one voice exclaim emphatically, "Doc., I say they
can't do it," and he wondered what it was and who could not do it.

Stehman said, "Come over here a moment--no, this way."

"Oh, this way?" said Stacy. He was led to a large open book with names
written on it.

"Will you give us your distinguished signature?" said Stehman, dipping
the pen in ink and handing it to him.

"Where shall I write--oh, yes, of course." Stacy wondered how many
people would read Horatio B. Stacy, introduced by John Carter Stehman.

Though he had made up his mind to have confidence he felt a little
flustered. Perhaps the voices of many diners and the sight of many
rooms and various passage-ways and the negro buttons were a little too
much for him. Besides his glasses were blurred at coming in from the
cold and that always rattled him.

Possibly his host noticed this, for he said, "Boo, I'm cold. Let's
warm up before grubbing," and led him to the fire and pushed him into
a chair big enough to hold two Horatio B. Stacys.

He was perspiring now, but he held out his hand to the cheerful blaze
as if to get all he could of it. He looked at the andirons and the
crackling wood and glanced up at the etchings. He thought, "It must be
very fine to have all this every day."

"Well, do you feel as though you could eat something?" Stehman lifted
him by the coat-collar.

Stacy made answer, in a familiar tone, "I'm ready any time you are,
Jack," and then to himself, "Keep cool now."

Stehman, with his hands in his pockets, led the way with his slouching
football walk which the freshmen studied on the way to recitations.
Stacy followed. He slouched pretty well, but his pockets were at the
very top of his trousers, so that his little coat turned up behind.

They entered the bright, noisy dining-room. "Jack, why so late?" some
one was calling out, when suddenly there came, "Hello, Stace." "Hello,
Kay." "Hello there, Stace." "How do do, Stace." Most all of them
seemed glad to see him, and he was quite overcome with answering them
all. Jack showed him where to sit.

After the waiter had pushed the chair under him and he had unfolded
the napkin there came in a solemn voice from the end of the table,
"Horatio, how do you do this evening?"

"Why, Lint, old man, how are you?" he returned quickly in a strong
tone. Then he smiled a little because Linton might be guying him. But
he was not.

It seemed that many eyes were upon him and he felt embarrassed and
strangely lonely because his host had turned to speak about something
to someone on the other side. So he gave his glasses an unnecessary
rub and took three sips of water in quick succession.

The waiter placed the soup before him, and while he was occupied with
it he had time to gather himself together. Some of the fellows, he
noticed over his glasses, leaned over or else slipped way down in
their chairs in the same purposely reckless manner of under-classmen
days. But he held his little shoulders back and used his spoon very
daintily. He would show them that he had good table manners.

Stehman now began to chat with him in his easy familiar way. But the
big fellow's manner always seemed to indicate that he was mindful of
how much higher was Stacy's class rank than his own.

He was more at ease now, only whenever the conversation flagged he
could never think up anything to renew it with. He suspected that he
was blushing, and there really was no reason for blushing. These were
all his own dear classmates, some of whom he knew quite well, and they
all seemed kindly disposed toward him and included him in their
general remarks and even addressed him sometimes in particular. He
made up his mind that he must say something to Dougal Davis across the
table.

He took a drink of water and wiped his lips and cleared his throat and
spoke. "Dougal, have you poled up Billy's history for the written
recitation?" Which was the very sort of thing he meant to avoid. But
it was too late now.

"No, but I expect to put a wet towel around my head and hit it up
until three o'clock to-night," Dougal answered, sincerely.

And Stacy thought he was joking. He therefore laughed, saying, "Like
fun you are."

He never could tell when some of these fellows were in earnest, and
Dougal Davis was something awful to him anyway because he stood higher
in the class than Stacy himself, and yet had time to be mixed up with
half a dozen outside interests of college life and did a comfortable
amount of loafing besides.

"I suppose you have it all down fine, Stace?" asked Timberly,
agreeably, "and will pound out a first group as usual."

"Naw," boldly replied Stacy, "I've barely looked at it. Don't intend
to bother with it." That was the way to talk.

But it was all wasted, for just then Lamason came in with a suit-case
in his hand and his town clothes on, and everybody was crying "Yea-a"
in loud, shrill tones, and some one began singing "Oh, to-day is the
day that he comes from the city," and all joined in, even little
Stacy, though he did not know the words and blushed and closed his
mouth again when any one looked in his direction.

Meanwhile Lamason, without smiling, or seeming to be aware of the
noise, said, "Bring me some dinner, Henry, please," and taking a
_Princetonian_ from his pocket began to read an editorial on the lack
of lamp-posts on the south campus, and paid no more attention to the
remarks about his good-looking clothes than to Timberly, who was
painstakingly mussing up his nicely brushed hair. It impressed Stacy.
Except that they no longer considered it funny to throw things or to
be profane without necessity, the fellows seemed to be as free and
jolly as in under-classmen days. He had supposed that there would be
some dignity about a great fine elective club with white curtains at
the window and a board of governors.

While beginning upon his roast beef the waiter placed a small, narrow
glass by his plate. He heard the "pop" of a drawn cork behind him. He
had understood that the club constitution forbade alcoholic beverages.
The waiter was filling his glass. He heard something hiss and sizzle,
but he did not like to look because it would be so obvious. This would
be a good opportunity to show these fellows that he was not such a
shark as they supposed. Still, after keeping out of temptation so many
years, he did not like the idea of running the risk of becoming a
drunkard now. But, perhaps, it would not be wrong to taste a little of
it.

"Are you fond of Apollinaris, Ray?" asked Stehman, emptying his glass
at a gulp. "I'm a disgusting guzzler of it."

"Oh, yes, I'm--I like it very much," said Stacy. Stehman asked him to
have another piece of roast just to keep him company, and without
giving time for answer, Stacy heard him say, "Two second,
Henry--rare." Jack made him drink another bottle of Apollinaris, too,
though it pricked his tongue, and he said he did not want it, and he
felt that he was imposing upon his friend when he saw him write out
another voucher for the amount.

Most of the table had finished by this time. They were smoking with
their coffee. Those who could afford it were smoking cigars and those
who had used up their credit with the Cigar Committee were solacing
themselves with pipes. Some there were who did not smoke at all.

"Our crowd," Jack explained, "makes it a matter of principle never to
leave the table for a half hour or so. It's good for the digestion."

Three or four of the fellows were leaning back with their heads on the
backs of chairs or on one another's shoulders. One was slouching with
his elbow on the table and with his other hand he played with the
salt-cellars. And some looked perfectly contented and happy, and some
looked grave or sour, and all were beautifully and completely
indolent, and everything seemed comfortable and happy and Bohemian to
Stacy, and he thought it fine to eat his dessert with the smoke
floating about it.

Dougal Davis opposite was blowing fat, well-formed rings aimed at the
top of Stacy's Apollinaris bottle, while Linton, without looking up,
was informing him, in picturesque, though hardly complimentary
language, that he had a mouth splendidly adapted to ring-blowing.
Davis kept on sending rings across the table, and paid no attention.
Stacy wondered whether they were on bad terms with one another.
Perhaps it was rude in him to listen. They seemed so much in earnest.

It was difficult to understand these fellows. Some of them he knew to
be as hard students as himself, and yet they seemed to be as much in
with the crowd as the others. Someone would say something in a most
impressive, sober way, and nobody seemed to notice it, or else
everyone laughed. Of course he knew that what they were saying during
dinner about their extreme poverty was meant humorously, even by those
of the fellows who tutored or wrote for the papers to help themselves
along. But what troubled him was that he could not catch the drift and
join in and be like the rest of them. Once, when everybody laughed
heartily, and Pope bowed his head and said, "I acknowledge that I am
sat upon," Stacy laughed, too, and said "Pretty good," though he did
not know what it was, and hoped that no one knew he was bluffing.

From another part of the house came the pounding of billiard-cues and
a few emphatic remarks, varied at intervals with a yell or a loud
laugh. In another room three or four voices were singing, perhaps
unconsciously, and the strong final notes reached the dining-room.
Upstairs someone was exclaiming, "I had next on that!" From the
lounging room came the notes of a piano, and Stacy said, "That
'Pilgrim's Chorus' is a beautiful thing, isn't it, Jack?" for Stacy
knew.

He had enjoyed his dinner, and was perfectly self-possessed. He could
look about the room at everyone without flinching. Henry brought the
coffee in very pretty cups, with the club design on them. The buttons
came in at Stehman's ringing. "Jackson, get me a ---- Ray, you don't
smoke, do you?"

"Oh, yes, I do," Stacy replied.

"Oh, I beg your pardon--bring some Perfectos, Jackson--please pardon
me, I forgot entirely that you smoked. I must have mixed you up with
someone else. I thought sure you did not smoke."

He seemed so cut up about it and his voice so pathetically apologetic
that Stacy felt sorry for him, and had to say, "That's all right,
Jack. You see I have just begun. That is, I haven't been smoking very
long, you know, on account of my eyes." But he hoped the others did
not hear.

"Will you have a cigarette first?" Stehman asked.

"No, I prefer a cigar," said Stacy, in a fine, deep voice. Stehman
lighted a cigarette.

Horatio had never smoked but one cigar before, and he was not certain
about how much of the end to bite off. But it seemed to draw all right
when the buttons held a match for him. It did not make him feel the
least bit sick. He thought he held it between his first and second
fingers rather well.

His host began to talk about the Dean's English again, and Stacy
changed the subject. Of course Jack meant it out of consideration for
him, but Stacy could talk about other things than his studies.
Presently Jack began again. "What collateral reading are you doing in
the Public Law course, Ray---- What's that you're saying, Timber?"

"Oh, nothing," said Timberly, smiling satirically. "We are just amused
a little bit at your posing as a heavy poler. That's all."

But Jack only frowned, and turned again to Stacy, who knew the others
were paying attention, and so made answer, "Don't intend to read
anything. I've quit taking notes on the lectures, too. A syllabus at
the end of the term will have to do me." That ought to show them.

Nobody said anything for a moment, and when he looked up he could not
tell from their faces what they thought of his remark, though Linton
seemed to wear a quizzical smile. But then that fellow always seemed
to be sneering or else looking oblivious.

Then Smith, who was a track athlete, went on with his conversation
with Pope. He was venturing the opinion that Princeton's prospects for
the spring were poor. He was a young man who thought he had a dignity,
and he liked to have people pay attention to what he said. He had
reason to suppose that his opinions on athletics amounted to
something. So he was rather astonished, as were Stehman and the rest
of the table, when Stacy's high voice burst in with, "No, now, you
don't mean it, Smithie. You are joking, aren't you?" There was no
reason why he should not be familiar and play horse like the rest.

At first there was such a pause that he felt himself blush, and he
feared he had offended Smith, who had stopped talking and was blushing
a little, too. Then suddenly Timberly burst out with a snorting laugh,
and then Davis and then the whole crowd, even Linton, and Stacy
himself, because he had made such a hit, laughed modestly, though
still blushing, at which they all laughed still more. He did not know
it was so funny as all that. That was not half as witty as he could
be, as he would show them.

But just then Stehman interrupted and claimed attention. "Timber," he
called down the table, "I heard a new one to-day on Jimmie McCosh."
Stehman then told a story about the Doctor's falling on the slippery
stones on McCosh walk, and what he said when he could not get up. Like
most imitations of dear old Jimmie's Scotch, Stehman's sounded like a
poor Irish brogue. It was not a very good story, but the fellows
imagined how it would sound if told well, and then laughed because it
was good old Jack Stehman. Stacy thought he could do better than that.

Everything was quiet. Now was the time. He cleared his throat. "Say,
fellows, this is the way the president talks in chapel." His voice was
high and unnecessarily loud. He arose and took hold of the lapels of
his little coat and raised his brows and compressed his lips and
looked side wise through his glasses and repeated very quickly in a
strange voice, "The seven Arabic numerals do not form a sufficient
basis for crystallization about which the cardinal virtues may
cluster." Then he promptly sat down and began to puff vigorously upon
his big cigar.

The fellows smiled surprisedly and looked at each other. Then they
laughed. They stopped a moment; then one by one they began to laugh
again, as if the thing were growing on them. Finally they roared and
kept on roaring.

At home they always applauded when he got that off, although his
mother thought it wrong in him, but they did not pound on the table
and scream and slap each other on the back, as these fellows were
doing now. It must have been because this audience was more familiar
with the original. But he hardly heard them.

"Say, fellows, I'll tell you the story of the little boy who stole the
jam!" he exclaimed, excitedly. Before Stehman and one or two others of
this same crowd he had tried once in freshman year to tell this same
story, and failed for lack of courage. He was not the least bit
frightened this time.

He leaned back in his chair and imitated the boy's voice and blew
smoke between sentences and gesticulated with the cigar in his hand;
and when he had finished everyone pounded and screamed and applauded
as before, while he only shut his lips tight and tried to look
serious, as all good _raconteurs_ should. Would not this be fine to
write to Fannie about?

"Good! Good!" they were shouting to him. "Give us another, Stace.
You're a good one. Do the Dr. Patton act again. These fellows haven't
seen it."

"No, we haven't seen it. Let her go."

Stacy raised his eyes from the table-cloth. Those of the juniors that
had left and some of the seniors, hearing the racket, had come in to
see what was up. The piano had ceased. Fellows were pushing into the
room with cues in their hands and their coats off. Some of them were
sitting on the table. Some had their arms about one another's
shoulders. Leaning against the door-post, with a pipe in his mouth and
a merry twinkle in his eye, stood a senior named Bangs, whom Stacy, in
freshman year, feared more than anything on earth. He had never, until
this moment, forgiven him.

Before Bangs and over half the active membership of the club did
little Stacy, who used to cross the street to avoid being looked at,
jump up on a chair and with greater gusto than ever, with his funny
little mouth twisted up, with his voice strained to produce a peculiar
resonance, repeat part of a sermon once preached by the president of
the college. And when he had finished, his hearers were doubled up on
the floor with laughter.

Throughout all this Stehman alone seemed unappreciative. He laughed in
a nervous way. Once he said, "Let's go sit by the fire." Could it be
possible that his good friend Jack, who was accustomed to being the
most popular, was--no, he would not think that of him.

"Do something else," they were crying. "Go on. Go on. Please!"

If he wanted to he could double them up once more, this time with an
imitation of Jimmie Johnson's stuttering, but he absolutely declined.
He knew that brevity was the soul of wit. "Stacy, you ought to go on
the stage!" one of the seniors exclaimed.

But he only answered, "Naw. That don't amount to anything. Shoot." And
then they all began laughing once more at the mere remembrance of it.

Jack arose to go. Stacy picked up the huge cigar, which had gone out,
and jamming it firmly between his teeth, strode after his host. He
walked past the fellows, who were still laughing, as modestly and with
as unconscious an expression as Jack Stehman himself wore on the
football field when running back to his place after making a
touch-down and the crowd was cheering.

In the hall he said, "I think I'll have to go now, Jack." His voice
was joyously nervous. He could not hold in much longer.

"Must you go, Ray?"

"Yes. I must finish a letter. Good-night, Jack, old man. I've had a
bully time."

The buttons was helping him on with his coat, and he repeated,
"Good-night, Jack, old man. I've had a bully time." His voice nearly
broke.

Then the door closed, and Stehman, who was angry, turned toward the
convulsing crowd by the fire and said, in a calm voice, "I greatly
admire what you fellows have done this evening. You are indeed typical
Princeton men. Oh, you have the true spirit."

"Fine poler, your quiet, inoffensive, young friend," some one rejoined
with a chuckle.

"Not ashamed--as you were reminding us the other night--not ashamed of
being a poler either," said the fellow Stehman had jumped on for being
a kid.

"Wow!" cried Bangs, with a groan of laughter. "I haven't had so much
horse since sophomore year."

Then Linton spoke. "Jackie, dear, don't look that way. It's not nice.
And do not chew a rag because your little poler did not develop as you
wanted him to. You must learn to part with your ideals----"

"And, Jack, you must admit," interrupted Davis, "that it was absurdly
comical. It was mean to laugh, but how could we help it? His standing
up there and kicking up his poler antics, like an old cow, and
thinking all the time that he was----"

The rest was cut short by Stehman's bringing his big fist down upon a
table by the window. "But, Dougal," he thundered, "that doesn't make
any difference. He was my guest. Because he tried to bring himself
down to our tone you fellows let him make a fool of himself, and sat
there and laughed at him, like a set of snobs. Jackson, get my coat."

"You needn't talk so loud," growled a sarcastic-faced post-graduate.
"The people across the street don't care to hear about it."

"Don't go away with your back up, Jack," Linton shouted after him
good-naturedly. "And you need not worry about little Stacy. The best
time he ever had in college was with us snobs here to-night, and he's
probably chuckling to himself now on his way across the campus about
the big tear he made."

But little Stacy was not doing anything of the sort. One of his new
Blucher shoes had come untied when he had jumped up on the chair to do
the president act, and he stopped to tie it by the light of the club
window. And it was wide open.




THE HAZING OF VALLIANT


This story begins with a girl. She was small and had a nose that
turned up and a quiet appreciation of the ridiculous. All summer long
she sat on the sand without a veil and was nice to two little boys in
clean duck trousers and buzz-saw hats which blew off sometimes.

One of these was eighteen years old and had a complexion that women
envied and felt like kissing. He was small and dainty and smelt like
good soap. His name was Valliant. The other was a little older,
considerably bigger, and much more self-assertive. Except for his duck
trousers he wore orange and black with his class numerals on
everything. That might have made but little difference. But the girl
decided that she would like it more if they would become angry for her
sake, which they one day did.

After that whenever the little one was alone with her his voice was
soft and his manner thoroughly abject. She liked this. She liked his
sweet-and-cleanness also. The other, whose name was Buckley, had an
untamed, defiant way of tossing his shoulders, like an unbroken
stallion. She liked that still more. When she sat out dances with him,
she put him where the arc-light on the veranda would play upon his
eyes, which were good, and talked about the other boy's nice manners.

Best of all she liked to have both about her at once. The sophomore
breathed lungfuls of cigarette smoke and told her how hard his class
would haze the freshman in the fall, and how cold the canal was on a
frosty night, while the sub-freshman only gazed out over the legs and
arms splashing and gleaming in the surf, and tried to smile in a way
to show Buckley that he was not taking offence. For what could a
sub-freshman do?

Then the girl would poke the end of her red parasol in the sand and
say: "I think it would be just too mean of you to haze Mr. Valliant.
He is such a good friend of mine." This was because it is woman's
nature to take the part of the weak and oppressed.

But one day the sophomore made a remark about "pretty pink-cheeked
boys," which had been better left unsaid. Then arose the younger one
and shaking impressively a slender, pink-nailed finger, he spoke.
"You had better not try to haze me, Will Buckley. Do you hear what I
say?" Which was the very worst thing he could have said. Besides it
was decidedly fresh.

But he was very much in earnest and quite angry and his young voice
broke in the middle. The sophomore laughed mirthfully and the girl
became genuinely sorry for a moment, despite the humor of the
situation; and as she watched his dainty legs retreating over the
dunes toward the cottages it repented her of having stirred up enmity
between the two, and she resolved from that day to make up for it.
This she did by being always good to the little one in the presence of
the big one, which seems short-sighted in her.

Thus did one small girl amuse herself throughout the week, and then,
when Saturday evening came and the children were left to burn
cigarettes by themselves, she entertained the men with it, who came
down to spend Sunday. For her nose turned up and she was good at
mimicry. She won't be mentioned again.

       *       *       *       *       *

In the glorious old days of untrammelled class activity when everyone
recognized that there were certain duties owed the freshman by the
sophomore class, as Hall talk was due them from the upper-classmen
(another good old custom now defunct), you had only casually to drop
word to a freshman on the way to recitation to wait for you when night
came, back of Witherspoon--as you would bid a classmate come to a
spread in your room--and he would turn up promptly and smilingly, take
his little dose meekly and cheerfully, and go to bed a better boy for
it and brag about it every time he dined out in Christmas holidays.
But all that is changed now.

Even in the days of which this is written, which were only
comparatively modern times, one had to play a very careful game to do
any hazing. The freshman was beginning to hesitate about putting out
his light when you yelled up at him from the street. People were
putting strange notions in his head. He was beginning to think he had
a personality. They were telling him he had rights. The old glory had
departed along with Rushes and Midnight Cane Sprees and Horn Sprees
and Fresh Fires to make room for a University spirit and linen shirts.
At the present rate of retrogression--mark the prediction--it will not
be many years before the freshman will be allowed to wear the orange
and black and the sophomore a silk hat! When that day comes, may it
be that a certain Old Grad. will have attended his last reunion.

Twice had Buckley waited near the house where Valliant ate his dinner.
But it's quite light after dinner in September. He had gone to the
house where he roomed, and asked the landlady if any of the gentlemen
wanted to join the Y. M. C. A. But that, like the _Nassau Lit._ and
_Princetonian_ subscription-list-game, had been played out; the door
was closed in his face. Then for three successive nights he waited in
an alley near by, and on the third night the freshman came. But with
him an upper-classman friend.

Buckley said things and kept in the shadow. But the freshman had good
eyes and said as he took out his keys, "Oh, is that you, Mr. Buckley?
Why, how do you do? Aren't you coming up to see me?" That was horribly
fresh.

"Not now," Buckley growled. "Which is your room?" Excusing himself
from the upper-classman, who was enjoying all this, the freshman led
Buckley into the alley-way, and pointed up at the wing of the house.
It was a large one and many people lived in it. "That room up there
next to the one with a light in it. See?" he said in polite, friendly
tones. This was decidedly fresh.

Buckley said he would come up later on in the evening, which, of
course, he had no intention of doing, and saying "Good-night"
good-mannerly enough, he slinked off, and the freshman took his friend
up the stairs, which smelled of damp carpets.

The next night Buckley got his gang together. They blew smoke in one
another's faces and decided that a little exhibition of oarsmanship in
a basin of water with toothpicks would do to warm up with. Then a
cross-country jaunt would be appropriate, running, walking, and
crawling to the canal. Here, as the freshman was proud of his shape,
he would be given an opportunity of displaying it while the moon
reflected in the water. And, if he felt cold after that, he could
climb a telephone pole for exercise--they didn't want to be
inconsiderate of his comfort--and sing "Nearer my home to-day, to-day,
than I have been before," at the top of it. Then with a few
recitations and solos on the way back he could be put to bed. This
would be a good night's work.

It was nearly two o'clock when they carried the ladder into the
alley-way. They laid it down in silence.

For several reasons this was to be a right nervy go. A young professor
and his young wife had a suite of rooms in the house. But it wasn't
that which troubled them. This was. The moon shone full and strong
upon the clear, blank wall of the house, and it was in plain view from
a certain spot a distance of about two blocks away. Across this spot a
certain owl-eyed proctor was pretty sure to pass and repass off and on
all night.

That was the reason they were sitting on the ladder waiting for a
signal from Colston, who was over by the certain spot watching for the
certain proctor.

"Buck, which is the freshman's room?"

"It was the one next to the light and the light was in the room over
the side-door."

"Second or third story?"

"Sist! not so loud. Why, let's see, the third."

"Yes," said Haines, "don't you see the window's open up there. None of
the family would do that. Town people would never air----"

"Listen!"

A whistle came from the silent distance, the first bar from "Rumski
Ho," then a silence, then the same bar repeated. And by this they knew
that the proctor had walked into the open space and out of it again,
and that if they hurried they could put the ladder against the house,
send a man up it and take it away again before the proctor crossed
the open space once more.

Buckley started up. The others leaned against the bottom round to
steady it. Then he came back for a moment. "Don't take it away until I
get all the way in--until I wave my hand. There's plenty of time. Keep
cool," he whispered, as he nimbly began his ascent. For his descent he
was to rely upon the stairs, the freshman, and his own persuasive
powers, for what are freshmen and stairs made for?

Buckley was a right devilish young man, and typically a sophomore. The
year before he had climbed the belfry of old North and stolen the
bell-clapper and gained class-wide renown. Already this term he had
mounted the water-tower and painted the freshman numerals green. The
very night before this he had run around the eaves of Reunion, which
is no easy trick, with "Bill," the night proctor, behind him, and when
he dropped off the bottom round of the fire-escape into the arms of
another proctor, he had wriggled out again. Still there are sensations
peculiar to scaling a ladder stretching toward the black of an open
window, with a moon throwing shadows of yourself and the rounds of the
ladder against the dull bricks of an old-fashioned house, while old
North strikes two in the distance. Buckley felt them.

The ladder did not quite reach, and he had to stand on the top round
and stretch for the sill. Then he pulled himself up, got one foot
over, took a longer grip on the inside of the window, dragged the
other foot up, as you would climb a high board fence, and was in the
room with both feet. He leaned out and waved his hand. The top of the
ladder silently swung out from the wall and swooped down in silence.
Buckley turned and started across the room.

He could feel the heavier atmosphere of indoors. A small clock was
ticking somewhere. He detected a faint scent of mouchoir powder, and
was just remarking to himself half consciously that it was just like
that pretty-faced freshman, when from somewhere there came a soft
voice, saying, "Is that you, dear?"

Then, before all the blood near his backbone had time to freeze into
little splinters of ice, he said, "Shsss," and stepped out of the
moonlight and into the shadow, which is the best thing to do in case
you are ever in a similar situation. Buckley's instinct made him do
it.

Across the silence the soft voice floated again and mingled with the
moonlight, "Oh, I'm not asleep. But why did you stay so long, Guy,
dear?" There was another sound. It was the squeaking of a bed-spring.

Then, as Buckley's knees stiffened tight against each other, he spied
coming toward him something white, with two black streaks hanging half
way down, which as the thing came into the moonlight, he saw to be
long braids of dark hair. Also, the light showed a tall, slender
figure clothed in but one garment, which was white, and a face which
was young and beautiful. Buckley had never seen a woman dressed that
way before, and he closed his eyes.

But he felt it coming nearer and nearer. He stood up perfectly
straight and rigid in the darkness as two arms reached up and met
about his neck. The arms were soft, and they smelt good.

Buckley did not budge, and the soft voice began, in a sort of whisper,
"You have not forgiven me yet?" It began to sob, and he felt the
sobbing against his orange and black sweater. "You know I did not mean
it. Won't you--forgive her? Won't you forgive--her?" And Buckley fully
realized that he was in the thick of some romantically ghastly
mistake, and that the only thing he could do to make it worse would be
to speak or show his face.

For fully half a minute he stood thus motionless, with his arms at
his sides, gathering himself together, and trying to think what to do.
And when he had made up his mind what to do he gritted his teeth and
put both arms about the Clingy Thing.

And when he had done that the Clingy Thing began to purr in soft,
plaintive tones, which undoubtedly were sweet, and would probably have
been appreciated by Buckley if he had not been so rattled. "Tell me
that you _do_ forgive me. Say it with your own lips."

Buckley said nothing with his lips. He was biting them.

"Guy, speak to me!"

Buckley didn't.

"Speak to me, my husband!" A soft, fragrant hand came gently up along
his cheek, which tingled, and over his eyes, which quivered, and
pushed back the hair from his brow, which was wet. Suddenly she raised
her head, gave one look at his face with large, startled eyes, then,
with a shuddering gasp, she recoiled.

But Buckley was not letting go. This is what he had been preparing
for. Keeping one arm about her waist he threw the other around the
neck in such a way that he could draw it tight if necessary, and said
in one breath, "For heaven's sake, don't scream--I can explain!"

"Ugh! Oh, let go! Who--let me go or I'll screa-ch-ch-ch."

But Buckley didn't let her do either. He pressed on the windpipe,
feeling like three or four kinds of murderers as he did so. Then, as
she struggled with feeble, womanly might, Buckley did the fastest
thinking he had ever done in all his nineteen years. The door of the
room--was it locked? The stairs--where were they? The front door--was
the night-latch above the knob? Was it below? Would it stick? All this
time she would be screaming, and the house was full of men. He would
be caught. He was in for something. But was he hurting her? He began
to talk.

"Oh, please, if you scream it'll only make things awfully awkward. I
got in here by mistake. I can explain. I'm not going to hurt you. Oh,
please, keep quiet."

She tried again to wrench away from his grasp, and Buckley drew her
back with ease, feeling half sorry for her poor little strength.
"Promise me you'll not cry out and I'll let go."

"Yes, yes, I promise," said the scared voice. "Anything. Only let me
go."

Buckley released his grasp. She fled across the room. He thought she
was making for the door. He sprang toward it to keep her from running
downstairs and arousing the house. But she only snatched up an afghan
or something from the sofa, and holding it about her retreated to the
dark part of the room.

Buckley couldn't see her now, but he heard her moan, "Oh dear, oh
dear!" in a muffled tone, and he felt that she must be cowering in the
corner farthest away from him, and it made him have all sorts of
contempt for himself. Then he talked again, standing with his back
against the door and looking toward the dark. "I don't know who you
are," he began in a loud, nervous whisper, "but whoever you are, I
wish you wouldn't cry. Please be calm. I want to talk to you."

"I don't want to hear you--I don't want to hear you."

"Not so loud, or we'll be heard."

"Oh, oh, how can you trade upon my necessity? Haven't you a grain of
manhood, a spark of kindness in you----"

"Yes, yes, lots," said Buckley. "Listen to me. Please listen. It's all
a big mistake. I thought I was coming to my own room----"

"Your own room!"

"I mean my classmate's room--I mean I thought a freshman roomed here.
I wouldn't have made the mistake for anything in the world. You
aren't half as sorry I got in your room as I am--Oh, yes, you are!--I
mean I'm awfully sorry and wish to apologize, and I hope you'll
forgive me. I didn't mean anything----"

"Mean anything!"

"Really I didn't. If you'll only let me go down and promise not to
wake the house before I get out, why, no one will ever know anything
about it, and I'll promise not to do it again. I'm awfully sorry it
happened." Buckley started for the door.

"Mrs. Brown--Mr. Brown, help! murder!"

"Oh, for heaven's sake don't!" cried Buckley.

"I will. Just as soon as I get breath and strength enough I mean to
wake the house, the neighbors, the whole town if I can."

"No, you won't!" Buckley started across the room.

"Stop!" she cried.

He stopped. The voice was commanding. It seemed already quite strong
enough to scream. He said: "You promised not to scream."

"But you forced me to promise."

"Are you going to scream?"

"I am." She was getting her breath.

"Oh, don't; please don't. If I wanted to, I could hurt you. I don't
want to hurt you. Ah, have pity on me!"

The bold, bad sophomore was down on his knees, with his hands clasped
toward the dark, where the voice came from. He was very sorry for
himself.

"You stay right there in the moonlight."

"Right here?"

"Right there. And if you dare to move, I'll scream with all my might."

Buckley first shivered and then froze as stiff as if a hair-trigger
rifle were pointing at him. "How long must I stay here?" he asked,
without moving his head.

"Until my hus-- Until daylight," returned the voice.

"Until daylight!" repeated Buckley. There was something impressive in
the deep, rich voice of this tall young woman, and whoever she was,
Buckley could tell, from the refined tones, that she was a lady. He
could just make out the gleam of her face and of one arm in the dark
corner.

Outside, the crickets were scratching in the warm, still night. It was
after two o'clock. A moon was shining in his left eye. And he, William
Buckley, was kneeling, with his hands stretched imploringly toward a
girl whom he had never seen before, in the third story of an
old-fashioned Princeton house, which he had entered for the first
time by a ladder which, by this time, was resting serenely against a
freshly painted house in Mercer Street, whither it had been borne by
four classmates, who were now at the corner of Canal and Dickinson
Streets, as per agreement, and cursing him for taking such a long time
to pull one small freshman out of bed. Meanwhile, the moon was
approaching the window-post.

"Please, oh, please, whoever you are," he began, in earnest, pleading
tones, "won't you forgive me, and let me go?"

There was no answer.

"I am a gentleman. Indeed I am! I wouldn't harm a girl for the world.
Please let me go. I'll be fired--I mean expelled from college for
this. I'll be disgraced for life. I'll----"

"Stop!" The voice seemed to be calm now. "While it may be true that
you did not break into my room with intent to rob or injure a
defenceless woman, yet, by your own confession, you came to torment a
weaker person. You wanted to haze one of the freshmen in this house;
that was it. And when my husband----"

"Oh, have mercy on me. Won't you have mercy?" Then he began to tell
her what a good boy he had always been, and how he had always gone to
church, and how fond his mother was of him, and that he was the pride
and ambition of the family, and similar rot, showing how completely
scared to death he was. "Just think what this means to me," he
concluded. "If I'm fired from college, I'll never come back. I'll be
disgraced for life. All my prospects will be blighted, my life ruined,
and my mother's heart broken."

She gave a little hysterical sob, as if the strain were too great for
her. "Yes, for your poor mother's sake; yes, go!" she exclaimed.

"Oh, thank you with all my heart. My mother would, too, if she could
know. I don't deserve to be treated so well. I shall always think of
you as my merciful benefactress. I can never forgive myself for
causing you pain. Oh, thank you."

Buckley, the sophomore, who had strode into that room so manfully, in
the full pride of his sophomorish strength and orange and black,
grovelled across the room and out of the door, then tip-toed his way
down the hall stairs, silently pulled back the latch of the front
door, and sneaked off, with his tail between his legs.

The outside air did him good, and by the time he reached his impatient
class-mates he had thought up a fairly good lie about the freshman's
being ill, quite seriously ill, and about his stopping to look after
him a bit, which they admitted was the only thing to do under the
circumstances, though it was blamed hard lines, after all the trouble
they had taken. "Better luck next time, Buck," they said, and went to
bed.

By the ten o'clock mail next morning Buckley received a letter in
strange handwriting. It said: "Just as a tall woman looks short in a
man's make-up, so does a short man look tall in a woman's make-up, and
you should know that blondes are hard to recognize in brunette wigs. I
could have done more artistic acting if you had come up earlier, when
I had on my full costume. You ought to know that a real girl wouldn't
have behaved quite that way. You see you still have a number of things
to learn, even though you are a soph. Sort of hard luck, all this,
isn't it, old man? Hoping that the rouge will wash off your lips and
that you will learn to forgive yourself, I am your merciful
benefactress, H. G. Valliant."

This is the freshest thing I ever heard of.

There was a P. S. which said: "Whether or not this thing gets out
rests entirely with you and your hazing friends."

Of course it did get out, as all such things do; but Valliant was not
bothered again by sophomores, though he ought to have been hazed up
and down and inside-out and cross-wise by the whole college.

You can see him if you attend the next production of the Dramatic
Association.




HERO WORSHIP


Near Old Chapel he used to linger on the way from recitations, buying
things from old black Jimmie and pretending to be amused by his
stuttering conversation while he watched the passers-by. And when The
One came along for whom he waited, he said to himself, "Oh, he's
wearing his brown shooting-coat to-day," and turned and gazed after
him until out of sight, wondering what lecture he had at that hour and
how he would get along at it. Then passing on slowly across the campus
he turned out upon the street.

When he reached his room, Darnell said to another freshman that lived
in the house, "I saw Lawrence to-day. He was walking with his arm
around Nolan. He passed right by me." And he could also have told just
how he nodded to the fellows along the walk and how he swung his legs.
Darnell thought that Lawrence's gait was just right. So was his manner
of dressing. Somehow Darnell could not make his corduroy coat hang in
that way. It lay back all right, but it would not stay snugly up on
his shoulders as Lawrence's did.

He used to see him quite often now, for by this time he had learned at
what hours Lawrence's lectures came. Which was more than the senior
himself knew, for he had always to look at the schedule tacked up on
the back of the door over the faculty and absence committee summonses.

Darnell remembered the first time he saw Lawrence. It was on the
morning of the first day of the term, while he was sitting in the
office of the old Nassau Hotel, quietly waiting for his mother and
trying not to appear green and thinking that everyone who came in was
a sophomore and wanted him. It was raining, he remembered, and people
came scurrying in with their trousers turned up and mackintoshes on.
Lawrence came in alone.

He came with his impressive stride and a very long paddock coat and a
new kind of shooting-cap which he brought back with him from
Piccadilly the first of the month. He frowned and glanced about the
room. And when he found the two faces he was looking for and strode
across to where a worried-faced gentleman in a silk hat was reading
the paper beside a freshman with a grinning face, he said, holding
out his hand, "So you have arrived." It was just the patrician tone
of voice that Darnell had expected when he saw the face.

When Lawrence stretched out his hand his long coat fell open and
disclosed an orange monogram of many closely intertwined letters
shining against the black of his undercoat. It was worked upon the
breast-pocket, and the freshman wondered what that mysterious insignia
might mean.

He watched him as he jerked his head and blew smoke in the damp air.
The way he tossed the ashes away was perfect. And when Lawrence
suddenly turned and, looking frankly in the freshman's father's eyes,
said with a reserved smile, "You need not worry about that, Mr.
Jansen," and stretched an arm about the freshman's shoulder, Darnell
thought he would rather be that freshman than anyone in the
world--except the owner of the arm.

Then he began to speak again, and Darnell found himself leaning
forward a little. He remembered thinking, "I don't care if it is
impolite to listen."

Lawrence said in a rapid manner, without opening his teeth very wide,
"The team? We brought them down from the island last evening. Sea air
is a good tonic to begin a season's training with, and they are all
in excellent shape. Billy, you must bring your father down to the
field to see my big brown babies." Darnell remembered every word,
though he did not understand quite what it meant at the time.

Soon after getting settled he took pains to pick up an acquaintance
with this freshman. That was the time he first found out that the
senior was one of the Lawrences. The freshman said, "Yes, he's a
mighty fine fellow. He played on his class eleven in his freshman
year." But that was all Jansen said. He did not enthuse as he should
have. He had no more than the ordinary fear and reverence of a
freshman for a senior. There was a man on the team named Stehman. He
was the one this freshman turned and gazed after on the campus.

But now Darnell knew more about him than Jansen did. From the last
year's "Bric-a-brac" he had learned the senior's club and what
committees he was on, and the book opened up now, of its own accord,
to the picture of the Glee Club. He could have told you Lawrence's
middle name and his street and number at home, and his campus address
as well. Whenever the freshman went to night session of Hall he looked
up as he went by to see if the room in West were lighted, and he
wondered what he was doing up there behind those curtains. Once,
while passing by, some one was calling "Hello-o-o, Harry Lawrence!"
and in Lawrence's own voice came a muffled "Hello! Come up." It did
not seem quite right for them to be noisy and familiar with Lawrence
as with ordinary fellows. He did not understand how Lawrence allowed
it.

       *       *       *       *       *

In Jansen's room it was, and Old North was ringing curfew, when
Lawrence shook his hand and said in his peculiar throaty voice, "Glad
to know you," or else "Glad to meet you." He never could be certain
which it was. It was on a Tuesday evening, and he had made a poor
recitation in algebra that day. He noticed that Lawrence was only
about an inch taller than himself.

Darnell looked straight back at him and said, "I think I have heard my
sister speak of you, Mr. Lawrence. She met you down here at the
sophomore reception last June." His voice was perfectly firm and
strong, but his mouth persisted in drooping a little at the corners.
He could not help that.

Lawrence said, "Yes, I remember very well," which delighted the
freshman's sister Louise, when Darnell wrote to her about it, just as
much as if it had been true. "Is your sister coming down to any of
the dances this year?" added the senior.

"No, I don't believe she is. My aunt brought a whole crowd down that
time. Mamma was on the other side, or she would not have allowed it.
Louise is not out yet." Then he dropped his big brown eyes and blushed
because he felt that he was talking too much and because he had said
"mamma" before the senior.

But Lawrence was only looking grave and interested and well-bred, and
he replied, "I see. That's too bad. I wish she could come."

"Yes," said Darnell, "I wish she could come," and then, although he
did not want to, he arose to go, because he thought that Lawrence
wished to talk confidentially with his freshman, Jansen.

Lawrence, who did not care about his going, because he found it as
easy to talk to two freshmen as to one, said, "I hope I'm not driving
you out, Bonnell. Good-night. If your sister should decide to come
down this year, don't forget to let me have a chance at her card
before it's filled. Good-night, Bonnell."

"Oh, I won't," said the freshman. "Good-night."

As if he could forget. As if he would be allowed to forget, indeed!
She, dear little thing, in her own becoming little way, worshipped
him, too. And at Mrs. Somebody's School in Somethingtieth Street, she
used to slip an arm about the waist of her latest everlasting friend,
and whisper something about it on the way upstairs after prayers.

During her evening's acquaintance with him in June she had told the
great, dark, wonderful man that had "a whole tragedy in his face," "a
certain indefinable something" in his manner, and many other things,
too, no doubt, that she had a brother who was coming to college the
next fall, and she asked Lawrence in a very timid, pretty, natural
manner if he would please look out for her brother, who would be a
freshman and only sixteen years old. And Lawrence, who was watching
the way she held her head and approving of it, said, "Of course I
will," and forgot about it during the next dance, which was with a
Newark girl, who asked him how the Sunday night hot-liquor club was
prospering. That was last June.

To be sure Lawrence did not get his name just right, but then many
people did not come that near when they first heard it. Besides, what
of that? Had he not looked at him and addressed him twice? That was
more than most freshmen could say.

But it hurt a little the next day, when Darnell changed his mind
about going to the library because he saw that if he kept on up the
walk he would meet Lawrence coming toward Dickinson's with three other
seniors. For he received only an absent-minded glance without the
movement of an eyelash. But you could not expect Lawrence to remember
all the people he met. And, perhaps, he was worshipped all the more
for it.

On Sunday he used to gaze with his big brown eyes from his seat in the
freshman section way over through the juniors and past some of the
seniors, back to Lawrence's place. Sometimes a big head of football
hair was in the way, so that he could not tell whether he was there.
He was absent so frequently. But when they all arose to sing the first
hymn, then he could see, and then he would recall what the football
column in the paper he had been reading before chapel reported that
"President Lawrence" had done or said, and he wondered whether he
himself had read it and how it felt to see one's own words in type.

He seldom joined in the singing, Darnell noticed, unless it was "Ein
Feste Burg" or "Lead, Kindly Light," and though he could not tell why,
Darnell admired him all the more for his not singing every time. At
any rate, it was just like him to stand there with his hands in his
pockets and his aristocratic head thrown back and look dark and grave
and mysterious. He always looked especially so, Darnell thought, in
chapel. His mien seemed to be haughty and kingly, not merely dignified
and exclusive like that of many upper-classmen. Lawrence when a
freshman could never have been hazed or guyed. He could not imagine
him stooping to haze anyone either.

Lawrence could do anything. Anyone could see that from his eyes and
chin and the straight, firm mouth with the thin lips. Darnell knew
very well that Lawrence could stand high in his class if he wanted to.
Probably he could play football. He was built well enough. Darnell
thought it would not be quite Lawrence's style to play football. He
would hate to see him tackled or rolling in the mud. That would never
do for him. Lawrence, he thought, would not have played on the team if
he were asked. Darnell had been a Princeton man less than a month.

But he had what was far better than playing on the team--the
management of it. And he was just right as he was. He was a dignified,
weighty senior, respected by all and feared by many, no doubt, and a
man, not a boy, who had travelled much and lived much and had had all
sorts of experiences in his younger days. He was old now, nearly
twenty-two.

But the most wonderful thing about him was his composure and his
commanding reserve. He had the look of the gentleman. His manner
seemed altogether impervious to excitement. He was master of every
situation. To have such a man in their classes must have been rather
embarrassing to the professors. Darnell supposed that the other
Lawrences were rather afraid of him when he came home.

His perfect command of himself and of everyone and of everything about
him was what most impressed the freshman. That was the reason that
when his idol fell, it jarred him.

       *       *       *       *       *

On Thanksgiving evening his head was throbbing and his ears ringing
with the echo of horns and cheers, and before his eyes were flashing
little kodak recollections of how the line looked when the ball was
put in play, and how the crowd waved and yelled when the full-back
tried for a goal. But there was a lot of aunts and cousins and
things-in-law for dinner, whom he had to kiss and smile at when they
said, "How you have grown!" He wanted to get near some class-mate and
put his arm about him and talk it all over, like any other healthy
young man after the game. And, as early as he decently could, he
slipped on his big new coat and stole out by the basement door.

He walked down the avenue to Madison Square, getting jostled and
excited once more. Noisy gangs of fours and eights and dozens were
marching and dancing along the street. Some wore orange, others blue.
Some were students at various colleges, most of them had never seen
one.

He went into the Hoffman. Closely packed streams of men were crowding
in and out. The air was hot and there was a confused din of many
voices. He worked his way to the end of the glaring room, but saw none
of his intimates and but few fellows that he had ever seen before.
Most of the crowd were of the sort he had seen on the street, young
men of the town with college ribbons all over them, and such
boisterous noises grated on him, so he started out again. Some hoarse
cheering and husky laughter made him turn and look toward the corner
where the throng was thickest. Then he hurriedly pushed his way
through the crowd to gain a nearer view of what he saw upon the table.

He tried to persuade himself that it was someone else. He did not
understand how he could be among people of this sort.

But there was no mistaking that mouth, though he had never seen the
hair hanging down that way, nor the eyes as they were now. About the
neck was the rim of a hat.

Suddenly two other fellows brushed past Darnell. He looked up and
thought he remembered having seen their faces on the campus. They
seemed to be excited, and they wedged their way roughly through the
crowd to the table. "Leave him alone," one of them was calling out
above the din. Brushing aside some slight interference, they picked up
the heap from the table, half carried it through the crowd, saying, as
they went along, "You're all right, Harry. Brace up, Harry, you're all
right," and paying no attention to the crowd, they hurried across the
room to the Twenty-fourth Street entrance and disappeared.

For a moment the freshman only stared at a long, tall clock and
wondered. Then he suddenly turned and hurried out into the street.

It was no affair of his. The others were there. They were the ones to
take care of him. But the electric light had given him one glimpse,
and for the moment it was very revolting. He turned and walked slowly
home.

He tried to reason himself out of it. It was nothing to feel so queer
over. It was not such a terrible thing, after all, especially after
having the game turn out as it did. Most every young man was
indiscreet at some time or other. Lawrence was a young man like many
others, only he happened to have been indiscreet under unfortunate
circumstances. That was all. It seemed worse than it really was.

But he did not want Lawrence to be like others. That was just the
point. If it had been someone else he would not have cared. But for
Harry Lawrence, Lawrence the superb, his Lawrence, there in that
glaring place--jeered at and made a fool of--by that mob of muckers.
It was all wrong.

"Well," he said to himself, as he went upstairs to his room, "I
suppose I'm too much of a kid, and I'll have to get over my kid ways
of looking at things. The sooner the better."

But all the same, it hurt, and when he was dropping off to sleep, he
was startled into wakefulness again by one of those queer, sudden
pangs which make one ask, "What is it I've lost?"




THE RESPONSIBILITY OF LAWRENCE


I

Many fellows seem to think that all an athletic officer has to do is
to look important and travel about the United States with his team and
make out a bill for expenses.

It's easy enough to carry a japanned tin box, and sell tickets through
a hole where the wind blows, as treasurer. As president it is a fine
thing to make frequent trips to New York, and attend conclaves that
are secret, and make speeches in conventions and read your opinions
next morning in the paper in fine long sentences prefixed with
"President So-and-so said last night," and to be lunched by famous
authorities and interviewed by rapacious reporters who think that
because the public supports football they have a right to see all the
inside workings of intercollegiate diplomacy. All this is the pretty
part of it.

But like all greatness there is a deal of hard hustling and
perspiration and discouragement and annoyance underneath. So much so,
that one seldom has time to tell himself how fine a thing it is to
wear a 'varsity blazer with the orange monogram on the breast-pocket.
And this is usually heavy with bills to pay and memoranda of things to
see to. Besides, the responsibility is tremendous.

       *       *       *       *       *

H. Lawrence, Ninety Blank, had blood-shot eyes this morning, and he
hurried down the clattering iron stairs of West College tying his
neck-tie. As the ugly entry door slammed behind him he did not put his
hands in his pockets and begin to whistle, as he used to do in
under-classman days, because he was not sauntering over to Reunion to
smoke a pipe, or down to Witherspoon to loaf until the next lecture.
He glanced at the clock in old North tower and hit up his pace.

He had given orders to the team to be at the station with their grips
packed at 9.38, and before that time he had to wire a member of the
Graduate Advisory Committee, asking where he could find him that
evening, and to an official of the Manhattan Athletic Club that he
should not be able to consider his proposition at present, and to the
manager of a Southern college football team that he regretted that all
Princeton's open dates were now filled, and to the Jersey City Station
restaurant to prepare a luncheon of training food for twenty men, and
not to roast the beef to death this time. After that he would have to
call upon the dean and find out whether the faculty had decided to let
Harrison play football or not, and find and be nice to another member
of the faculty who was indignant because seventeen grand stand tickets
had not been saved for him and his wife's relatives at the last
Saturday's game, and then hurry to the station by way of the bank,
where he would ask if they had heard anything more about that
protested check, while he was making a good one out for himself, and
then see to it that all the team and subs were flocked together and
pushed into the train and made to stay there until told to get out and
play football. Some of which would have been more properly the duties
of Sinclair, the treasurer, who was not catching on as rapidly as
Lawrence thought he should.

He took long, strong strides and looked straight ahead of him, which
was in the direction of an old shop opposite the gate, with a
picturesquely warped roof which he did not see.

He did not see the fellows along the walk either, and those he did not
cut he nodded to absently without removing his frown. This caused
certain passers-by to shake their heads and say, "Harry Lawrence is
getting a swelled head since he's become so important," especially
those who greatly wanted to be important themselves but weren't, and
so had plenty of time to criticise those who were.

But Lawrence, with a half dozen unopened letters in his pocket which
he would read on the train going up, did not dream of being
criticised. And if he had he would not have felt very badly about it.
He did not have time.

Nor would he have had time to stop and thank his good friends Nolan
and Linton, who, when Lawrence had rushed by with one of those
"How-do's" which make one think that one's name has been forgotten,
had looked worried and then said, "Harry'll kill himself before the
end of the season," while Lawrence tore open a telegram with which the
boy met him in front of College Offices and hurried on. He had no time
for breakfast, because the man had forgotten to wake him, and the
night before he had been handling the files of applications for the
Thanksgiving game seats with Sinclair and dictating to a stenographer
until 2 A.M.

Every evening from eight until midnight there was a reception in his
room, with Sinclair to help receive. It began when they came in from
the club after dinner, with a workman or two from the town waiting in
the entry, who touched their hats and said, "Please, sir, Mr. McMaster
says this bill is correct." Then would come members of the team who
wanted the management to remove conditions for them, and coachers who
wanted to talk serious business and had but a short time to spare, and
some of the fellows who wanted to smoke and chat and seemed hurt when
told to get out; and in addition, the hordes of applicants for seats,
who kept running in and out, incessantly buzzing in the management's
ears like flies, and just as pestiferously merciless, from eight until
twelve, when the door was locked.

These represented all phases of college life, from the professor who
"never incurred any difficulty in getting all the seats he wanted in
previous years" to the young freshman whose mother knew the
management's mother, and thought he might be especially considered for
that reason, and including class-mates who made it a personal matter
of friendship, and thought they ought to be considered ahead of mere
strangers for that reason. Also emissaries from a certain woman's
college, who must have tickets before they are put on sale, because
the poor, timid girls could not stand in line with all those men, and
cousins of members of the team, and many others, all of whom furnished
an excellent reason for being entitled to just a little more
consideration than anyone else. None of which counted them anything in
Lawrence's reign.

But this was not what made Lawrence scowl and look fierce as he
hurried by a little, wistful-eyed freshman, whom he did not see, and
who had been hoping all the way from the First Church gate to the
dean's that maybe this time the senior would recognize him. Lawrence
was used to all this, and he liked it. He liked having a lot of things
to attend to in a short time, to see many people and give orders and
talk fast and feel his brain warm with quick thinking. He enjoyed
responsibility, and he thought it was thrilling to get in a situation
and then take a long breath, so to speak, and command it. Nor was he
too old to fully appreciate his privilege of being on intimate terms
with ancient heroes of the football field, and he was glad to be
thrown with so many other prominent alumni. And he took great
satisfaction in watching the long-headed Advisory men begin to
acknowledge by their attitude that although an undergraduate he had
reliable executive ability and somewhat of independent resource
besides. One of them clapped him on the back one day and said, "Good!
That's the proposition we'll make 'em," and added, "You are your
father's own son, Lawrence."

Except that he would have liked to have a little time to loaf and
enjoy life, he was quite well pleased with being president of the P.
U. F. B. A., and did not care a rap whether the college considered him
arrogant or not. He was attending to his own business and had the
satisfaction of knowing that he was doing it rather well, with the
attendant satisfaction of having had the honorable position given him
by the vote of the college body without his or his friends'
boot-licking one of them for it. And that is one of the most
satisfactory feelings in the world.

The thing that troubled him was a letter in his pocket. That was the
reason that when the ninth old grad. approached him on the field and
said, "Say, Lawrence, just between us now, what do you think of the
chances with Yale?" he replied, curtly, "How do I know?" and hurried
on up the side lines. This was decidedly fresh, and he jumped on
himself afterward because he did not believe in letting private
affairs interfere with business. Usually he could stand a dozen old
graduates.

The letter had come the day before. It was from his father and
enclosed Lawrence's November allowance. He never received but one
letter a month from the governor, and it nearly always contained two
statements: "Enclosed please find ..." and "Your mother and all are
well," both of which make very agreeable reading.

This time the letter was not dictated, but written in the Colonel's
own small, straight hand, and there was an extra paragraph. It ran
thus: "Had I known what this official position of yours involved, the
amount of time, the number and variety of interruptions, and the
vulgar prominence that your name and movements occupy in the press, I
should never have given my consent, which, as you may remember, I did
reluctantly, to your acceptance of it. In my opinion what you are
learning at college could better be acquired at home: a little of
business down-town with me, your _other accomplishments_ up-town in
the clubs and other places with your friends." This was not the sort
of letter to do any good.

"'Your other accomplishments'--now what the devil does he mean by
that, I wonder?" thought Lawrence. And then he folded the letter and
tossed it into a pigeon-hole marked "Unanswered," and turned his
attention upon a large blue-print marked "Stand B" and tried to assure
himself that the reason his mind kept jumping back to pigeon-hole
"Unanswered" was because he was sorry at being too busy to study, and
disliked having such a low stand in class. But it wasn't his class
standing that kept him awake until old North struck five.

After this when in New York he did not go up-town to dine with the
family as often as formerly. When he did his father merely said,
"Judge Hitchcock told me he saw you on Broadway last Wednesday," and
similar remarks in a casual tone.

"Yes, sir," Harry would reply, with his attention on the crest on his
plate.

Then each would wonder what the other meant, until Helen would
interrupt with, "By the way, I saw by the _Tribune_ this morning that
'President Lawrence of Princeton' says that Yale will beat Harvard at
Springfield. So it's all right then, Winston." He was her husband,
Yale '86, and Helen was a good sister, who had a large intuition and
knew things.

On Thanksgiving Day the College of New Jersey went up to New York
feeling quite certain of winning the game. The alumni said we would
win. The heelers doubled their bets. The coachers were sure we'd win.
Most of the authorities conceded the victory to Princeton. The team
were confident of winning. Yale won.

During the dinner after the game, Lawrence was dignified and silent.
People thought he was rattled, if anyone thought about anything else
than the one big, sad fact. He presided gracefully though. He was very
good to look at. The dinner, which is usually very long, was wound up
early, few being unwilling, and Lawrence helped put one of the
blubbering backs to bed who had taken too much for a training stomach
and head. Then he went downstairs, saying, "Now, then, my
responsibility is over with. I am going to have a good time."


II

He had done it hard because he did everything hard. It had lasted
several days and ended in a hospital in West Philadelphia, where he
had three stitches put in his forehead. Now he was back in his old
room in West College, with a pipe in his mouth, drumming on the arms
of his chair and staring straight at his feet, which were upon the
roller-top desk. Dark rings were under his eyes and he told himself
that he had had a good time.

He was thinking that it was quite a storybook coincidence that they
should have come together, those two letters. They were so different
and yet so much the complement of each other.

The first was from his father. He had torn it open with his pen, as he
would any other letter, and though he saw that it was several pages in
length and knew intuitively that it would not be like any other letter
he had ever read, he had deliberately rolled up the envelope to get a
light for his pipe from the fire, and he had stretched out in the
chair again as he was before, with his legs sprawled out in front and
elbows resting on the arms, holding the letter before his face.

Then he had commenced to smoke very hard, and presently stopped
rocking back and forth as he read the words written in that clear,
even hand, without a flourish or a superfluous mark, words that had
caused him to gnaw the mouth-piece of his pipe as they burned their
way into him. And all the while he pictured to himself a tall figure
in a smoking-jacket trimmed with white braid sitting up straight and
rigid at his desk in the corner of the cosey inner room of the office
in William Street, and recalled how once, when an absconding clerk had
left a temporary cloud on the name of the firm, the old, steely eyes
had flashed under the lowering brows as the old gentleman had taken
his seat at the breakfast-table, where he ate nothing.

The letter sounded very like the governor. There was no mistaking its
meaning. It was a succinct and comprehensive report of dissatisfaction
at the younger Lawrence's methods, with a list of debts of filial
affection and memoranda of overdraws on parental patience covering the
last three years, and accompanied by a brief prospectus for the
unpromising future. It was the sort of a letter he would have fancied
a stately old gentleman like his father that was proud of his name
writing to a son like himself that had disgraced it.

Only it would have been just as well, Lawrence thought, to have
omitted that part of the letter. He was quite willing to admit most of
the hard things his father said of him because they were facts, but
this about dishonorable cowardice and the family name was going a
little too far, and he told himself that he did not quite see how he
could stand that from anyone. And he sat up straight and pressed hard
on the arms of his chair and looked very like the indignant old
Colonel who had written the words.

It was uncalled for, it was unjust, it was ridiculous. If his father
would stop to think of things as they really were in this world,
thought Lawrence, Ninety Blank, these little shortcomings of his would
not appear a bit worse than those of some of the very same young men
in town whose industry and clean business ability the Colonel so much
admired, and whom he spoke of as the hope or flower or something of
Manhattan's commercial supremacy or something.

It was merely that he happened to be indiscreet the last time he was
having a good time. He had made a little too much noise, and the echo
had reached a number of people in town. That was all. It was hard
luck, but it did not amount to enough to become dramatic over. Merely
because his great-grandfather did something and his grandfather was
something was no reason, as far as he could see, why the Lawrences
should have unique moral standards. The governor was certainly getting
old.

Then he had carefully arranged the leaves of the letter in order,
mechanically folded and put them in a pigeon-hole of the desk, and
opened and spread out the other letter before him. But he did so
unconsciously, for he was staring straight out ahead of him into the
face of the future, which had expressionless features. His father had
concluded with "Signify to me at once your intention of a complete
change in your career, or, notwithstanding your nearness to
graduation, I shall take you out of college and put you at work in Van
Brunt's." That is not the way a boy likes to be written to.

"Oh, no, I don't think I'd do all that if I were you." He could not
abide his father's tone when he spoke of _taking_ him out of college
or _putting_ him at work, or doing anything with him. He was still
young enough not to fancy being considered young.

And then the actuality of the situation occurred to him, and he was
reminded that although twenty-one he had not a cent of his own, and
that there was no place in the world to go to or a thing that he could
do to make money enough to even pay his debts.

"Picture of a young man taken out of college because he is bad." He
smiled broadly at himself in the glass over the mantelpiece. But it
wasn't very funny.

And it was at this point that he dropped his eyes to read his father's
words once more, and was startled for an instant to see a strange
handwriting, and then remembered the other letter. He was again
startled by the first words that met his glance. "Haven't you had
enough of college?" At the top of the paper was the name of a La Salle
Street, Chicago, firm. It was not so very queer after all. It was only
that it was so startlingly apropos. He read the letter in eager gulps.
Then he read it again.

It was from his friend Clark, who had been so kind to him when he was
out there. And now he was still more kind. It was singular that the
offer should come just now, on that very day, at that very hour. He
would wire back his acceptance that afternoon. "Now, of course, it is
too bad to make you stop in the middle of your last year," the letter
ran, "but we can't hold it open after the first of January. I know
what a big concession you consider it for a New Yorker to come to
Chicago, but you know better than to be prejudiced. You know the crowd
you'll blow with and the clubs you'll be in, and as the situation is
something extraordinary to be offered to so young a man, I hope you'll
wire me your acceptance at once. The mature judgment you showed in
conducting...." These words came to his heated brain like a cool
lake-breeze. This was what he wanted more than anything else in the
world just now, to get away from his present surroundings, and to
start anew, where he would be his own master, making his own money and
disposing of it as it suited him, and responsible to no one for the
use he made of it or his time. He wanted to be free.

The bell in Old North broke in on him. He looked at the clock on the
mantelpiece, and was surprised to see that it was only four, and that
it must have been but a half hour since he received those two letters.
Then he remembered that he had a lecture at that hour. It made him
smile to think of it.

But, it occurred to him, it would be a right good idea to go--he would
be going to few enough more--anything to get out of the close
atmosphere of the room and interrupt the current of his thought. For
his thoughts were chasing each other about in a circle, and they would
not stop, although he pressed his forehead with both hands, as he used
to do during the football season. Lately his brain had taken to
behaving in a very queer manner, and a fellow he knew at the College
of Physicians and Surgeons had told him that if he did not stop
worrying about things he would have neurasthenia or something as ugly
sounding as that.

As he opened the entry door and stepped out into the open air of the
campus, the old bell began throbbing, clear and strong, in his ears.
It somehow recalled freshman year and how he used to run to reach his
seat before it stopped ringing.

He was in the crowded quadrangle now, with fellows all about him with
books or note-books under their arms, whistling and singing and
hallooing and scraping their feet along the walks just as they had
always done. Over in front of Reunion was the usual crowd kicking
football and squabbling over their points. The side over by College
Offices was shouting exultingly "Nine to seven!" and a fellow on the
side near by was announcing with equal conviction, as he turned the
ball over in his hands to punt, "Eight to seven." Lawrence found
himself saying "Eight to seven," and mechanically watched the ball as
it sailed through the air and lodged up in one of the second-story
balconies, and stopped to listen to them set up the cry, just as he
knew they were going to, "Thank you, up there, please, thank you-u-u!"

It struck him as queer that all this was going on just as it always
had, without a single variation to show that this day was different
from other days. It seemed odd to think that he was not to be a part
of this any more. It somehow seemed more odd than sad. He told himself
that it would be a great relief to fly far away from it all.

Down the walk came a group of his own class-mates, carelessly
slouching along from lecture, laughing and joking, with their arms on
one another's shoulders. It was Linton and Nolan and Stehman and
others. "Hello, there, Harry!" they said and passed on down the walk.
Lawrence turned and watched them. He had replied to their salute in
his usual manner. It had seemed natural and his voice was in perfect
imitation of heartiness, and yet he could not help thinking how little
difference it would make to him if they all fell down dead. The sight
of them bothered, Nolan's bow legs annoyed him. He hoped he would
never see Nolan again. And this was Billy Nolan!

The bell was echoing and re-echoing in his ears, and each stroke
fairly made him jump. The sight of so many people and the knowledge
that there were others behind him were beginning to give him a feeling
of distress. He felt that he could not stand having so many people
press close to him. It was somehow rattling him. Everything he saw
hurt, and he only wanted to get far away from it all. For he told
himself that he hated the campus and its life, and everything that had
to do with it. The very expression of the buildings was offensive to
him. He wanted to upset the wheelbarrow and its sticky contents when
old black Jimmie touched his hat to him, and he felt like kicking two
innocent seminoles that hurried past with quick, conscientious steps
that made their coat-tails flap behind. All of this was nervous
nonsense, and he knew it.

He left the crowded walk and walked over toward the cannon and leaned
against a nearby elm-tree. Then he fixed his gaze steadily upon the
top of the old cannon and tried to think of nothing else. He had
learned to take himself in hand this way during his overworked
football season. "It isn't so bad as all this," he said aloud to
himself. "You are still rocky and your blamed nerves are getting in
their work again. That's all it is. Now, then, hold on. You aren't a
hysterical little school-girl, you know."

In a moment he started on toward Dickinson Hall again. "We are going
to a lecture now," he explained to himself in a whisper, "and we're
going to hear lots of interesting things. We can talk over all those
other matters later on. There's plenty of time, plenty of time."

He took a long, full breath, as though to hold on tight, and threw up
his head and looked squarely into a pair of brown eyes that were
gazing intently at him. It was That Freshman.

He had often wondered why he was constantly running across this same
little freshman with the sensitive mouth and the large, thoughtful
eyes. He did not know his name, but he enjoyed observing from the
patronizing height of a senior an air of delicate refinement in the
features and movements of the boy. Sometimes when in a good humor he
nodded to him. But just now the peculiar wistful gaze breaking in on
him in his tossed-up state of mind seemed eerie. For an instant he had
a feeling of guilty fright, as if caught doing something. And then,
because angry with himself for being startled by a freshman, he
blurted out, in a husky voice, "Oh, what do you want?"

The under-classman blushed and stepped back. He said something
incoherent ending with "Why--er--nothing-- I beg pardon." He attempted
a smile, failed, colored more than ever, dropped his eyes in
embarrassment, and with a sort of shiver turned on his heel.

The senior, with his own harsh voice still echoing in his ear, stood
there with his hands in his pockets watching the younger boy shrinking
before him. Then something inside of him was touched. He felt how
brutally rude he had been, and he wanted to make amends for it. He
felt more than that. He wanted to be kind to this boy with the refined
face; he wanted to be tender toward him, to protect him, or something
queer and wild like that. Though he did not acknowledge it to himself
tears were ready to come to his dark, blood-shot eyes with the dark
rings under them, and he had an impulse to throw his arm about the
freshman's shoulder and say: "You dear little fellow!" Neurasthenia
could account for some of this.

As it was he turned and followed the freshman from the side of the new
bulletin-elm, where this took place, to the corner of the Old North.
Here, hardly realizing what he was doing, he touched his shoulder and
said, in a gruff voice, though he did not mean it to be, "Don't you
want to take a walk?"

But even if he had stopped to think about its being an odd thing to
do, it would have made no difference. He was hardly in a mood for
considering conventionalities.

After awhile he found himself walking with the freshman way out toward
the Prep. school. To the left was the old view of rolling fields and
the gentle hill. Underfoot were the uneven stones of the old walk with
water-puddles in the hollowed-out places. And there beside him walked
the freshman, talking in a natural tone about a fine tennis-player
that he thought was coming to college next year. It was all quite as
if it were an ordinary occurrence.

Lawrence could remember the freshman's look of surprise as they
started across the campus, and he recollected murmuring some apology
for his rudeness by saying that he thought it was someone else at
first. Then he must have started the conversation by asking the
freshman what recitation he had just had. But after that it was all a
blank until now. He was under the impression that he had been nodding
to people, but he could not remember who they were or anything about
them except a big-visored, faded crimson cap that someone had on.
Probably he had been carrying on the conversation automatically with
the freshman, but it must have been all right, for the boy did not
look as though anything strange had happened. But a very great deal
had.

Perhaps it was a sort of hypnotism, though very likely it could be
explained as nothing of the kind, but at any rate from the moment his
thoughts had been stopped with a jerk at meeting the freshman they had
taken a different turn. With the boy at his side and his gentle voice
in his ears Lawrence had begun thinking about another red-cheeked boy
he had known once; and it seemed much more than four years ago. He
felt again the very expression of those old bright days at school when
he took prizes and played on the eleven. He remembered the old field
and how the afternoon sun used to reflect from one of the windows near
by. There came back to him the very odor of the polished desk in the
school-room where he scratched H. L. L., and all the little details of
those dear old days of happy monotony and innocent amusements. He felt
again the old excitement of an approaching vacation. He remembered how
he used to check off the days on the calendar over the mantelpiece,
and he remembered the first trip he took home alone and the blue
serge suit he wore, of which he was so proud, and how he wondered who
would meet him at the station, and best of all, how he used to jump
out of the carriage and run up the steps of home and meet the one that
came out into the hall to meet him. Joyously and innocently he used to
look up into the soft gray eyes that seemed to say, "I am proud of my
boy." But that was a peculiar thing to think of just now. A passage in
his father's letter occurred to him. "Of course I did not, nor shall I
advise your mother of all this"--he had had to turn the page, he
remembered, to find the rest of it--"it would break her heart." "Of
course," he said to himself, hurriedly, "it wouldn't do at all." Then
he thought he did not care to dwell upon old times any more. It was at
this point that he awoke, so to speak, and found himself walking with
this freshman whose name he did not know.

But instead of everything springing back to actuality immediately as
one would suppose, it took some time to hammer things into seeming as
they really were in their proper proportions. It was like trying to
act sober. He began by paying conscious attention to what his young
friend was saying.

After all he was only a freshman. He talked like any other fellow
except that his voice was more gentle, and he had a deferential manner
when addressing him. Though rather young to be in college and of
unusual appearance, there was not enough about him to affect a fellow
in such a queer sentimental way.

And yet he did. To Lawrence he seemed different from everyone else in
the world. He had never experienced this peculiar melting feeling
toward anyone before. What was more, he liked it, and he had no
thought of laughing himself out of it. He had an undefined idea that
it was doing him good. He felt like clinging close to this companion
who was younger and seemed so many times better and purer than
himself.

Then suddenly the senior was struck by something he had not remarked
before. He waited a moment to make sure. Then it came again. There was
no mistaking it this time. The refined voice was dragging in profanity
at absurdly frequent intervals, with every other sentence almost. He
had very likely been doing so all along. And the odd part of this was
that every word of it was making Lawrence wince and shiver like seeing
a respectable woman drunk. It was none of his business. It was all
nonsense. The expletives were not very bad ones anyway. But he did
not care to stand any more of this; and as abruptly as he had proposed
the walk he said: "Oh, excuse me, I have an engagement," and turned
rapidly toward the campus. Perhaps neurasthenia had a hand in this
also.

He did not stop to see how the freshman took it. He did not want to
think of him now. He fairly ran up Nassau Street with a feeling as
though someone was after him. He rushed past the fellows along the
walk and nearly bumped into the three old professors starting off with
the Irish setter for their sedate evening stroll. He was trembling
when he reached his room, and he slammed the door and threw himself
down on the rug before the fire.

He knew something was coming. He knew what it was, too, but he was
going to fight it off as long as he could. He drew the end of the fur
skin up over his head and pressed hard with both hands, as though that
would keep him from thinking of what he did not want to think. Then he
rubbed the back of his hand across his wet brow and tried to sneer the
thing away as he had always been able to do at other times. But this
was not at all like any of the other times, and it would not work.
Besides his nerves were in no shape for a fight of this sort, and he
soon gave up. He let his head fall back against the rug and he lay
there flat on the floor while the aching thoughts came soaking over
him. All this had been accumulating for many days. The freshman had
set it off.

And it was not as if he had only a little to feel sorry over. He could
not even say, "I'm no worse than most fellows," for he had gone quite
far indeed, much farther than anyone in the world, except two or
three, had any idea of, and he had things to remember that very few
older sinners than he would often care to think about. It seemed so
certain to him now, as he lay there breathing hard and staring at the
fire as though expecting it to jump out at him, that these
remembrances were never going to let up on him for a single moment; as
long as he lived, no matter how he might live in the future, these
unforgetable things were, from this time on, to rise up and spoil
every bit of sweetness in life for him.

But that was not what hurt the most. It was just and reasonable that
all that should be as it was. It was the thought of his people at home
that was making him squirm and roll over toward the desk and then back
again toward the fire. What had they done to deserve this? He could
not understand. Aside from all consideration of right and wrong, or
wisdom and folly, he was astounded at the thought of how a fellow
could be so dead, dead unkind. It would not seem possible at first. He
kept asking himself, "Is this really true? Is it really true?"

For an hour he lay there on the floor, with his remorse and his sick
nerves, telling himself the kind of a fellow he was, while the rest of
the college went to dinner.

After this came the reaction, the natural instincts of love and
yearning for the home that he had left. He told himself how that
vacations would come, and little Dick, the prep., would come, and
Helen and all would come out there to the old place on Long
Island--all but one. His place at the table would be vacant. No, there
would be no place for him. They would avoid mentioning his name. They
would change the subject when visitors referred to him. After awhile
visitors would learn not to refer to him. He would be known as "the
one that went to the devil."

All his self-reliance had been squeezed out of him. He did not care to
be independent now. He did not want to be free. He wanted--oh, how he
wanted!--a place to go to and people to care about him, like everyone
else. He shrank from the thought of standing alone. He did not feel
equal to it. He felt himself to be nothing but a boy, after all, a
bad, foolish, wilful, sick boy, and he wanted to run home and, just
for once, let his throbbing head fall into his mother's lap and have
her hands smooth the ache out of it. But of course he could do nothing
of the sort.

The more he thought of it the more impossible it appeared. Why, for
four years--he half arose from the rug and his face became hot at the
thought of it--for four years he had been doing things that she would
not believe him capable of; not if he told her himself. No, he was not
going to sneak into the home-fold like a cowardly prodigal, bleating,
"I have been a bad little boy, papa. Take me back, and I'll promise
not to be bad any more." He was not that kind. He deserved his husks,
and he meant to chew them, even though they stuck in his throat. To
keep away, he showed himself, was one means left him to regain a
little of the self-respect that he had lost.

Then he arose with something of his former indifference and laughed at
himself a little. "You've felt sorry for yourself long enough," he
said aloud; "what you've got to do now is to make the best of it." He
started toward the desk to take the first steps toward making the
best of it. He stopped in the middle of the room and looked about at
the pictures and the pipes and the books. "I'm done with college," he
said, briskly. "Now I feel better."

He lighted a pipe to show himself how much better he felt, and began
to word a telegram to Clark. That would finish a good day's work, he
thought. A very long day it seemed, too. Some things were hazy and
dream-like. That walk with the freshman-- But he did not want to think
about that, and he wrote down "W. G. Clark, care West, Houston & Co."

Yet, though he tried not to listen, there began coming up to him the
tones of the gentle voice dragging in profanity with such pathetic
pains. "But I don't want to think about that!" Lawrence exclaimed. But
all the while he wrote the message he heard the timid voice with the
incongruous words.

"I wish you wouldn't do that," he said aloud. "It bothers me. Why do
you want to do that?" He dipped his pen in the ink and held it there.
Why did he? Then it came over him with a blush of shame that it was
doubtless to find favor in his sight. Most people would have guessed
it before.

And then something flashed through his mind, something that he had
heard early in the term. A freshman named Jansen, whom he had looked
out for when he first arrived, had told him of a freshman that was
always talking and asking questions about him. Lawrence had entirely
forgotten this, and the recollection of it made him start up from his
seat. This accounted for the freshman's haunting him on the campus,
gazing at him, imitating his style of dress even.

It was quite ridiculous. He tried to sneer it out of his mind. But he
could not. He was finding that there were some things that could not
be sneered away. But that was not all.

A big question met him like a huge, choking wave--"What will this
boy's future be?" And Lawrence pleaded, "Oh, let me alone! Never mind
all that."

The wave drew back and another came drenching over him--"Will he do as
you have done?"

"Don't, please don't!" cried Lawrence. There came up before him in his
sick mind lurid, revolting scenes, and in them a fair-faced boy with a
sensitive mouth learning to like it all. Then came a third wave--"Who
will be responsible? What are you going to do about it?" This was a
little too much for Lawrence. He felt powerless to think it out just
now. He would need time for this. Unconsciously he stepped back to
the rug. He lay there, very quiet, almost motionless, until far into
the night.

Then he arose, a very different boy from Lawrence the President,
greatly feared of under-classmen, and felt his way through the dark to
the bedroom. Here he locked the door and prayed to God, as he had been
brought up to do.

The next morning one of the clerks, harrying by the ticker where
Colonel Lawrence seemed to be bending over the tape, suddenly
exclaimed, "Why, what is it, sir? Nothing serious, I hope?"

Old Colonel Lawrence, drawing himself up and gazing straight ahead of
him as he crumpled a telegram in his hand, made answer, "No. My son is
coming home to spend Sunday with me. That is all."

The clerk did not know that they were tears of joy.




FIXING THAT FRESHMAN


I

Lawrence, Ninety Blank, wearily knocked four under-classmen off the
walk on the way from the railway station to West College. Then,
feeling better, he dragged himself up the entry stairs, threw his
suit-case at the bedroom portière with a sigh of relief and himself on
the divan with a sense of having done his duty.

The Glee, Banjo, and Mandolin Clubs had just returned from their
Christmas holiday tour through the South. The trip had been a success
both in the money and the fine impression the clubs had made, which
latter would advertise the college. And that is the object of this
enterprise and is too valuable for the trustees to abolish.

They had travelled in a special train of private cars lent by the
parents of some of the members. They had had a very good time, because
a Glee club trip is always bound to have that, and because Southern
people know how to help young men in this respect about as well as
any people in the world. Lawrence was glad it was over.

He had not intended to go on the trip this year. He had been on the
club since he was a freshman. He knew all there was to know about it,
and there could be little novelty in this sort of thing for him. But
that was not the reason.

Of course it was not. Harry Lawrence enjoyed travelling about the
country with a rollicking lot of congenial fellows, and being made
much of by old grads., and admired before the glare of foot-lights by
millions of attractive girls, and dancing with them afterwards until
three o'clock in the morning, like any other normal, healthy young
man. It was not because he was _blasé_. He wasn't that sort of fool.

In the first place Lawrence had suddenly gone home, early in December,
with something pronounced by a little, short doctor with mild blue
eyes which saw everything to be a form of neurasthenia. This was
brought on by overwork and worry and other causes. He had held a
position of considerable responsibility during the football season. He
had worried over it a good deal.

Although, when he reached home, he braced up with astonishing
rapidity, he conceived a notion that instead of flying over the United
States at the rate of ever so many miles an hour, he would like very
well to sit still and yawn by the fireplace at home with slippers on.

His mother opened up the old place on Long Island for a part of every
winter, and he thought he could put in a very comfortable
old-fashioned vacation out there with her. He had an idea that it
would do him good to take some long tramps over the meadows with a gun
and a dog, and to spend whole afternoons on a horse with pure country
air whistling in his ears. Perhaps, if he felt right cocky, he might
borrow some pinks of his brother-in-law and ride to the hounds with
his Ass-cousins on New Year's Day. And the evenings would pass
pleasantly enough in fighting with Helen, his married sister, across
the table, and in guying his kid brother Dick, the prep.; and then he
meant to have many long after-dinner smoke-talks with his father, with
whom he had recently become acquainted. It was on this last account,
as much as any, that he wanted to stay at home.

But one of the second basses had the grip and another a dead
grandmother, and that side of the stage was weak anyway. So Doc.
Devereaux, the leader of the club, followed his two letters and three
telegrams out to Compton on the Sound, and grabbed Lawrence by the
coat-collar. He had brought with him a reprieve from the little
blue-eyed doctor, stating that Lawrence could go if he would promise
to keep on with the hot and cold baths, and to eat tremendously.
Devereaux begged and pleaded, and put it on grounds of personal
friendship. When he shed tears, almost, and said, "For the honor of
old Nassau won't you, Harry?" Lawrence looked bored and said he would
think about it. But only upon condition that Doc would stay for dinner
and spend the night at Compton, which he did.

When Colonel Lawrence came out from town and had comfortably finished
his dinner, and in his stately fashion had taken out a long black
cigar, Harry, who had been waiting, said, "Now then, father," and told
him why Devereaux was there, and asked him what to do about it.

Lawrence, Fifty Blank, knocked the ashes off, looked at Lawrence,
Ninety Blank, and took three puffs of smoke. "Well, Harry," he said,
"if the college needs you, there is but one way of looking at it."
Lawrence, the younger, said "Yes, sir," and packed his suit-case.

Having decided to do his duty, he made up his mind that while he was
about it he would enter into the spirit of the thing and have a good
time. Of course this was not as satisfactory to himself as wearing a
long face and telling himself what a martyr he was, but it was
pleasanter for his friends.

These trips are not only good fun, they are part of one's education.
They are very broadening. Lawrence wanted to be broad-minded. The only
times he had travelled in his own country were with the Glee Club, and
he thought every young man ought to know something of his fatherland.

He held that most New Yorkers were narrow-minded in this respect, and
he did not intend to be. New York ways of doing things were good
enough for him, because they were the best, but he wanted to see how
other Americans looked at things; and this showed a generous spirit.

On a previous trip he had visited a portion of the Western section of
his country, and had brought back several new ideas. For instance, he
was pleasantly surprised to meet girls with the same innate ideas that
he had supposed were the exclusive possession of his friends at home.
That was broadening. Also he had it impressed upon him that young
women living in little towns he had never heard of before had
characteristics, not necessarily innate, which were calculated to make
very young men realize that even members of college dance committees
have a thing or two to learn. Which was still more broadening.

And now he was in Virginia, surrounded by much dazzling full-pulsed
Southern loveliness. He was meeting people that had been brought up to
consider themselves the aristocracy of the American side of the world,
and they had been cherishing this idea for generations before New York
was more than a trading-post of miserly, Indian-cheating Dutchmen.
They had never heard of the Lawrences of New York and were rather
sorry for anyone that had to live there. And this was broadening. This
was not to be about the Glee Club trip, nor about what Lawrence would
have done if he had not gone, but what happened afterward, and if you
read this story you may skip to here: Lawrence lay on the divan.

He put his hands back of his head and tried to tell himself how sick
he was of teas and club receptions and convivial old grads. and
applause and dances and chicken-salad and girls. Cinders were in his
hair. What he wanted most in all the world was, first, someone to
carry him to a Turkish bath, second, someone to dress him in his
campus clothes, and third, Billy Nolan to put an arm around and call
names.

But this reactional feeling he knew was inevitable, and he took it, as
he did his sensation of dirtiness and indigestion, as part of the
game. There was something else to make him fidget and frown on the
divan.

Lawrence had come back to the slushy old sunshiny campus a very
different fellow from the one that used to climb the stone steps from
the station, but he had had a month in which to become accustomed to
it. Besides, that was nothing to be sour about. He was very well
pleased with being a different sort of a fellow, and had made up his
mind to remain so. In fact, all during the trip he had been thinking
that he could put in a peaceful, comfortable time now for the rest of
his life, if it were not for one thing.

And as he started across the campus with a roll of corduroys under his
arm, and the intention of taking a bath at the club, the very first
thing he saw was that One Thing.

There was a "Hunt's Discourse" under his arm, and he was running to
reach his seat before the bell stopped ringing, like any other
freshman. But he was different from every other freshman in the world,
to Lawrence.

This boy, like some of every freshman class that ever cheered itself
hoarse, was beginning to do things his father had not sent him to
college for. And the senior had an idea that his own example was what
had started the boy; and this, when you stop to think of it, was
extremely conceited in him. He thought he could make the freshman
stop, and this, when you stop to think of it, was a hasty conclusion.

He thought about it during the time occupied in splashing and
spluttering at the club, and most of the time that he was shivering
and whistling and putting on his ugliest sweater and oldest corduroys
and most disreputable slouch hat, and his brown shooting-coat with
quail blood on it. He even thought of it several times while his hands
were deep down in his pockets and his shoulders were slouched forward
and a pipe was in his mouth and an arm was around Jim Linton and they
were floating about the campus calling hello to everybody that was
back.

The first thing undertaken by Lawrence, the entirely different, was
the purchasing of some fine large text-books. For his foremost duty
was of course toward himself.

He had never bought any books since freshman year, but he knew where
they were to be found, and a poler named Stacy gave him a list of the
ones he required.

They were all nice new copies, with the book-store smell about them.
He did not like second-handed ones, and then, too, he was going to
pole very hard and he might wear them out. Besides, his book bill had
never been large--except in his letters--and he thought he could
afford the extravagance in his senior year.

He took great pleasure in writing his full name on the fly-leaf with a
blotty pen, Henry Laurence Lawrence, Jr., in a flourishless hand like
his father's. They made quite an imposing pile on the table, and he
felt proud of it. He showed them to the fellows that dropped in that
evening to say, "Glad to see you back," and ask him what he thought of
Southern girls. This took until 2 A.M. So he could not attend to that
other matter until the next day.

He set the alarm-clock before going to bed and said, "Now, then,
to-morrow I fix my freshman."

He jumped out with only six hours' sleep, though he had just finished
a long journey and his nerves required more rest, all to make chapel
and see his freshman. He saw him.

Although he said only, "How do you do?" in a serious tone, he knew
that he was doing his duty, and felt so pleased with himself that he
went to town that afternoon and took a Turkish bath at his place in
Twenty-eighth Street--this was the only way to get the cinders
out--and stole some clean linen from his brother-in-law's top bureau
drawer, and dined with the family at home. Then, because he had not
been with them during Christmas, and because he was to be a poler for
the rest of his college course and would have few such chances, he
stayed over Sunday and was given a pensum for too many unexcused
absences when he came back.

On Monday, however, he saw his freshman again. It was on Nassau
Street. This time Lawrence said, "Hello there!" He saw him once more
on Tuesday, coming out of Whig Hall, and said, "How are you, Darnell?"
and smiled a little. He saluted the freshman in various ways every day
but one for a week.

This delighted the freshman very much, but somehow had no effect upon
his morals. Lawrence felt like a man wasting breath, and he did not
believe in wasting breath on under-classmen. This young Darnell was
decidedly unappreciative. Besides it was unwarrantably fresh in him
to give all this trouble to a senior, and Lawrence made up his mind to
some day tell him so.

If it had been a good hard jumping-on that were needed, Lawrence
thought he could have managed, but this thing required tact and
delicacy, which he hadn't. Some fellows, like Jim Linton, would not
have minded a queer, unconventional situation of this sort. Lawrence
was not that kind. He knew as little about telling a fellow that he
was on the verge of making a fool of himself as he did about informing
people that they had souls, or that they should study hard. It made
him blush to think of it.

Besides, what force would this sort of thing have coming from
Lawrence, Ninety Blank? That was the disadvantage of having a
reputation like his. Nor could he very well halt the freshman on the
campus and say, "See here. Stop this. I am a good boy now. You also
must be a good boy." Ugh!

The mid-year examinations would be on in a week or two, or three, and
for the present he was simply obliged to leave off reforming the
freshman--especially as he had decided that it would look nice this
time for his report to go home without any conditions on it. It was
his duty to pole.

Study, after all, is what one comes to college for. It would doubtless
have displeased his parents if they knew that he was wasting valuable
opportunities, which come but once, over a little freshman who was no
relative of the Lawrences.

He poled very hard and was conditioned in nothing. So hard did he
work, indeed, that when the long, nervous strain was over there was
very little stuff left in him. At the senior dance, which came on the
evening after the last examination, he ran three girls' cards, and
tried to make each think that she was the only reason he had come.
This has been tried before. The next day he felt a slight touch of the
old trouble.

He became alarmed about himself, felt his pulse, and decided that he
needed a rest. He spent three days and ten of his new term cuts at
Lakewood. The One of the three girls was there spending Lent.

When he came back to the campus he bumped against that freshman by the
lamp-post in front of South Reunion. He was walking with a sportive
young class-mate named Thompson, who was a typical little fool, and
Darnell said "Hello, Lawrence!" in a tone which just missed being
fresh, and seemed to mean "See, I'm not such a poler as you thought."
For five minutes Lawrence forgot there was a place called Lakewood,
where tall pines murmur.

That evening he heard things about his freshman that he did not want
to hear. They were not very bad, but quite enough so to make Lawrence
look up his address in the catalogue. He didn't know how to talk to
freshmen. They nearly all looked alike. But he rang the door-bell.

It was Saturday evening and Darnell was not in. Lawrence frowned and
held that freshmen had no business leaving their studies at night. He
shook his head and went back to Jim Linton's room. The freshman had
not returned when he called again at eleven.

Lawrence now thought that he had a right to be indignant. He had left
a comfortable room, a game of whist, and three class-mates, who gave
him many abusive epithets for it, all to talk to this freshman. And
see how he was treated! Besides, it wasn't as if Lawrence wanted
anything of him. What pleasure was it to him to talk to a little ass
freshman? But he was doing his duty anyway.

It did not discourage him. He was not that sort of a fellow. He only
shook his head and arose early the next morning, which was Sunday. He
hurried through breakfast without stopping to read the papers, and
marched straight to the freshman's room on the way to morning service.

Darnell was in bed with a throbbing brow and a slight attack of
remorse. Lawrence sat down on a trunk which would have held the
freshman's clothes if he had taken them off, and cut a good sermon by
the dean in order to give himself the chance of preaching one himself.

"Of course it is not strictly any of my business, but I think you are
making a big mistake.

"You must know that it is no great pleasure for me to go out of my way
to call a man a fool. But you see I have been through all this myself
and I know very nearly all there is to know about it. I have been a
great fool in college, and if I can do anything that will prevent
another from making the mistakes I made, I ought to go ahead and risk
hurting his feelings. Oughtn't I? There's nothing hypocritical in
that. Is there?

"This thing of wild oats, Darnell, is all wrong, all nonsense, all
Tommy-rot. You know that as well as I do. Of course many people say--
But those that say such things are either brutes with no finer
sensibilities, or else they are liars, or else they never had any wild
oats. They don't know what they're talking about.

"Now, of course, I'm only a very young man, after all. Older men, many
of them, would laugh and call me a young prig, I suppose. But I know
what I'm talking about as regards myself, Darnell. I know the things I
have to think about and cannot forget. I know the things that come up
and stare me in the face and make me ache. I know-- But never mind all
that.

"This is what I want to ask of you: Tell me--you've had your little
taste of it now, the glamour is rubbed off, you find there is not
quite so much in it as you thought--tell me honestly, my boy, do you
believe it pays? Don't you think that one morning like this, with a
head such as you have now, and the thoughts inside of it, with a sight
of those photographs over there on the bureau, is enough to
counterbalance all the fun there is in a month of last nights?"

To this long speech the freshman made no reply, because Lawrence did
not say a word of it aloud. In fact most of those grand-stand remarks
were not thought out until late that night in bed, while rolling over
trying to get to sleep. He would not have voiced them to the freshman
anyway. Of course not.

It certainly was "not strictly his business" to walk into the room of
a nodding acquaintance and call him a fool in long sentences. Lawrence
knew that. And it would have been even worse taste to open up his own
bosom and drag out his own private worries and dangle them before the
eyes of another. It is only in certain short stories that such
absurdities are performed by reserved young men. Lawrence was not that
kind of a fool.

The Sunday morning conversation ran something like this, while
Lawrence tied and untied the freshman's four-in-hand neck-tie about
the foot-post of the bed:

"The Fifty-seventh Street Harrisons? Yes, very well. Were they down
there?... Is that so?--to Clint Van Brunt? But I don't like her so
well as her sister. Grace is a smooth dancer though.... At Sherry's
last winter...." And similar nonsense until the conversation swung
round to the prospects of the baseball team, which had recently begun
practice in the cage. Then they both woke up and said something.

And throughout it all the freshman was wondering why the mighty senior
honored him with a visit, and longing for a drink of very cold water.

Lawrence told himself that this call was merely to break the ice. You
couldn't expect him to talk about such serious things when they were
hardly acquainted. Could you?

He went again within a few days. He thought he ought to strike while
the iron was hot. It was in the evening this time, and the freshman
was brighter and better looking. Lawrence liked him more than ever,
only he wished that he would not be quite so deferential toward him.
Also he greatly wished that he would not consider it necessary to tack
those superfluous words to his remarks. It bothered him. They seemed
to come out of the refined mouth side wise. Sometimes they stuck, as
it were, and hung there while Lawrence shivered. And the more obvious
Lawrence made it that he did not consider such emphasis essential to
his own observations, the more frequently did Darnell drag it in. This
was to show the senior that he need not refrain on his account.

This time Lawrence remained until midnight. They did not once mention
the people they both knew in town. They talked about tramping in the
Harz Mountains.

It was evident on his third visit that the freshman considered
Lawrence's frequent coming due to approval of his development. He
stuck it on worse than ever. Lawrence was discouraged and looked it.

The freshman, wondering why his senior friend was so silent, suddenly
lifted his big brown eyes. Lawrence was gazing mournfully at him.
Naturally this made him feel queer. He became rattled and blushed.
Lawrence became rattled and nearly did; and then arose, left abruptly,
and kicked himself all the way up Nassau Street, and all along the
stone walk past the dean's house, by Old North, in front of Reunion,
and into West, where he sneaked up to bed. He did not call again for a
month.

Meanwhile the freshman was doubtless running as fast as his legs could
carry him, with Thompson and others of that ilk, to the devil. And H.
L. Lawrence, Ninety Blank, who by wicked example had started him
going, was doing nothing to stop him. Which was the very best thing he
could have done.

For this is a sort of a disease, and if it's there it's bound to
manifest itself, like other things that break out at about this age.
Any fatherly, well-meaning interference, such as a fellow like
Lawrence might offer, would have had directly the opposite of the
desired effect. If you do not believe this, it clearly indicates that
you do not understand it.

Lawrence did not. He, poor devil, skulked off and tried to forget
about the freshman, like a rejected lover, and, again like one, he
could not, even though he went across the street to avoid meeting
those big eyes.

Once more he took a long breath and sneaked off to the freshman's room
with a brave lot of kind, smiling advice which he practised saying on
the way over. In a moment he came running back to the campus, shouting
for joy. The freshman was not at home.

He yelled "Yea" with all his might and danced three times about the
cannon, all alone, like a man back on the campus in midsummer. Then
because it was Princeton someone else yelled "Yea-a!" from over by
Clio Hall. Then Jack Stehman raised his window and yelled "Cork up!"
because he felt like it. Someone in East yeaed back in a shrill voice.
Tommy Tucker stepped out upon his balcony in Reunion and echoed it
mightily. Someone blew a horn, a big Thanksgiving game horn. Others
took it up. Windows were thrown open all over the campus. Many voices
sounded the ancient cry of "Fresh fire! Heads out!" Shotguns banged.
Fire-crackers exploded. Bugles sounded. Distant Dod took up the echo.
Witherspoon Hall was already doing its part.

Within two minutes Lawrence was joined by a score of fellows who
danced with him about the cannon, yelled "Fresh fier-r-r! Heads out!"
until they had brought everyone out they could, then called "Leg pull.
All over!" and ran back to their rooms again, feeling that they had
done their duty. Windows slammed shut again. A voice from down in
Edwards Hall answered "All over!" Every one went on where he left off.
All felt refreshed and strengthened for their duties, and Lawrence
leaned alone against the cannon. But he too felt better.

He decided that this was a species of Providential interposition, a
sort of vision as it were, the interpretation of which was that any
man who would allow a little fool freshman to destroy the happiness of
the culminating year of the best period of life in the dearest spot on
earth would be an unmitigated ass.

He now fell to distracting his mind with work and other things, and
realized the beauty of existence, as all undergraduates should.
Besides the beauty of existence there were others that he was in the
habit of dwelling upon during sunset rambles through the woods down
toward the canal; pretty little foolish thoughts which young men who
are still students and have yet to choose an occupation have no
business in thinking. But the way her hair swept back from that brow
of hers on either side of the chaste part and then swirled-- But that
will do. Lawrence and his affairs already occupy too much space.

And as suddenly as they were interrupted in that paragraph were his
walking-time thoughts cut short whenever that confounded freshman
loomed up with an arm about the Thompson boy, followed by a brindle
bull-dog and a trail of cigarette-smoke.


II

Gussie Thompson was an angel-faced child with pretty ringlety hair,
and he had come to college from a strict boarding-school with the
intention of making a bad man of himself. And when a boy wants badly
to go to the devil there is no reason why he should find it very
difficult. In this thought I find I have been anticipated by Virgil.

But though the descent is easy it does not follow that it is always
graceful. Thompson, who was conscientiously trying to do it properly,
had his discouragements and sour balls just as often as the poler who
sat in the next seat and wore trousers that were too short.

People persistently considered Gussie disgustingly good, when in
reality he was very bad and smoked big black cigars with red and gilt
bands about them. And indeed it is discouraging to walk down to the
football practice with the gang, breathing cigarette-smoke at every
fifth step, and then have some class-mate you have nothing to do with
ask you, before all the fellows, to lead class prayer-meeting the
next Sunday. But all that was over long ago.

He now wore the dark bad expression without any conscious effort. No
one asked him where the Greek lesson was any more. He seldom had to
blow his breath in fellows' faces. And at the club he was no longer
obliged to blink and say, "How do I look this morning?" they asked of
their own accord, "Full last night, Gus?" just as some people say
"Good-morning."

One evening, at about the beginning of the season known to some as
"bock beer time," he was in his room surrounded with a few of his own
sort, and a knock came at the door. But it was not a very loud one, so
he did not take the trouble to answer until there came a second knock,
an emphatic one. Then he emptied a lungful of cigarette-smoke and
shouted, "Come in and shut your damn racket." He looked up.

Lawrence was framed in the door-way, Lawrence the senior, with his
'varsity sweater and his impressive air.

On the campus Lawrence generally nodded to Thompson, when he
remembered him. Once, not long ago, he had walked up the rear stairs
of Dickinson with him and said, "What do you fellows have at this
hour?" and Gussie wondered when the clubs held their first elections.

With his words of apology and welcome Thompson felt a wave of
satisfaction at having a gang about the table with cards and beer-mugs
on it. He was glad he had strung the champagne-corks over the
mantel-piece.

All of the gang had arisen, and yet this was a Princeton room. If the
senior observed the unusual mark he showed little gratitude, for
without seeming to be aware of their presence he said, in his gruff
voice, "When will you be at leisure, Thompson?" and looked at his
watch.

He was the sort of senior that could do these things, and it had the
desired effect. They all remembered that they had engagements and
picked up their caps and said, "So long, old man," and got out. This
was not done constrainedly but as a perfectly natural thing. And
Gussie beamed.

The door slammed and the freshman said, "Have a drink, Lawrence."

The senior said, "No, I thank you," and then contradicted himself,
"Yes, I will take a little of that." He did not approve of little boys
having whiskey in their rooms and big cut-glass decanters on their
bookcases, but he remembered something. "That's good whiskey,
Thompson." Lawrence sipped and whiffed and held his glass to the
light, "excellent whiskey." He gravely smacked his lips. "It reminds
me of some Bourbon they once gave us down in Kentucky, on the Glee
Club trip--in Louisville, I think it was. They called it Pendennis
Club."

Thompson pushed a cigarette-case across the table. "That's Pendennis
Club," he replied, simply. "A friend of mine down there sends it to
me. I find you can't get good liquor in our part of the country. It's
all rot-gut." He twisted his pretty brows into a scowl and emptied his
small lungs of smoke aimed at the ceiling.

"I see," said Lawrence, looking interested.

"You know what they say about Kentucky," the freshman proceeded, "for
good whiskey, fast horses, and pretty women."

"Yes," said Lawrence.

The freshman refilled his guest's glass with Pendennis Club and his
own lungs with cigarette-smoke, which he allowed to seek the free air
of the room slowly, with his head tipped back and a mouth twisted
scornfully as he had once seen another devil of a fellow do it, who
said, "I don't give a damn for the girl." All of which was lost on
Lawrence, who was rubbing his chin and looking in the other direction
and wishing he had not come.

"By the way, Thompson, speaking of horses, how did you come out
playing the races last fall? I often saw you on the train going up--"
this was a lie--"when I was slaving over football. Luck stay by you?"

Then the freshman leaned back and said things about Futurity Stakes
and plunging at Morris Park and a lucky sixteen-to-one shot,
intermingled with a brave lot of profanity and considerable cigarette
smoke. Lawrence wore the look of a man listening, and thought up what
to say next.

"By the way, Thompson," only it was not by the way to anything but his
own thoughts, "where's your friend Darnell? I didn't see him with the
others in here."

"No," said the devil of a fellow, "he won't own up to it, but he's a
good bit of a poler at heart, Lawrence."

"I did not think it of him," said Lawrence, sincerely. "He's a blame
nice fellow though, isn't he?"

"Right. He's the best friend I have. He's pretty young and has a lot
of things to learn, but he's a mighty nice man. Awfully clever chap,
too. Wish I had his brains. I believe he comes from very nice people
in New York, doesn't he?"

"Yes. Thompson, you are dead right in saying he's too young."

A beam of pleasure shot across his young host's face, which was seen
by Lawrence, who now felt all right, and began to talk.

"He's entirely too young, Thompson, and the deuce of it is that he
doesn't realize how very young he is. A fellow like that never does.
You know what I mean. And as far as I can see--I think you had the
same thing in mind a moment ago--he is about to make a fool of himself
unless he is very careful. He's entirely too nice a fellow, Thompson,
for anything like that to happen." Lawrence leaned back and put his
feet on the table.

"You see," he continued, "Darnell tries to do things that you fellows
do, who are more mature, and he doesn't seem to realize that he is
only a boy. Now with you and me it is different. We are older and know
things and have been around a bit and-- You know what I mean. We can
do a lot of things and have a good time and be none the worse for it,
but as for Darnell, why, he's a kid, Thompson, a mere kid."

Thompson breathed cigarettes and looked judicial.

Lawrence moved his chair around so that he could lean an elbow on the
table. He looked at the fire through the glass of liquid in his hand.
"Thompson, I'm in a hole. A bad hole, too. I'm going to tell you
about it and maybe ask your advice. I don't mind telling you because I
know you can keep your mouth shut. I came here this evening for that
very purpose.

"You know I know Darnell's people and all that. Well, I know his
sister quite well." That happened to be a lie. "And last commencement
when she was down here she asked me to look after her brother when he
entered in the fall." That happened to be true, though Lawrence had
forgotten it. "She's a pretty good friend of mine, and whenever I see
her"--he could not have distinguished her from the other little girls
in the school up-town--"she always asks me about her brother. And,
well, Thompson, a fellow hates to lie to a respectable woman, you
know."

"Only a cad will lie to a decent girl," said the other,
sympathetically.

"Certainly. Now, Thompson, I'll tell you what I think I'll do. I am
going to very frankly ask you to help me out of this hole." Lawrence
looked closely at the freshman. Then he went on, talking rapidly now
with his eyebrows tucked down and the words coming between his teeth.
Thompson had seen him do it before and had practised it in his room
alone.

"You can do it or not, just as you please, but you are the only one
whom I'd care to ask to do it. You are the only one I'd trust with it.
In fact, you are the only one that _could_ do it. Thompson, you know
yourself that you have more influence over Darnell than any man in the
class."

"Oh, I don't know," the freshman feebly protested.

"Well I do. He has as much as told me so. I am going to ask you very
frankly to-- I don't know what your views are," the senior interrupted
himself, "but I believe in having all the fun in the world I can for
myself as long as I mind my own business. But I'd just as soon, when I
have the chance--" Lawrence looked down at the whiskey which he was
gently swishing around in his glass. He made his voice sound as if
embarrassed. "Well, dammit, I'm no saint, but you know it says
somewhere that saving one soul will wipe out a multitude of sins or
something of that sort."

"God knows we have enough of them," said the devil of a fellow, who
now hurled the butt of his cigarette at the fire and arose from his
seat. He threw back his head and spoke.

"Lawrence, you needn't say any more. I can give you my answer now." He
plunged his hands in his pockets and began striding up and down the
room and scowled as he strode.

"Lawrence, I am a peculiar man, and I think my own thoughts and lead
my own life according to my own ideas. I keep this room here open to
everyone who desires to enter. My whiskey and tobacco is anybody's who
wants it. And as long as my guests mind their own business my room is
theirs. But when certain members of my class, certain milksops and
sanctimonious Gospel sharks come up here and tell me that I am doing
wrong and tell me what it is my duty to do, I very frankly tell them
to go to hell." He looked around the walls at the Saronys and a French
print or two as if to call them to witness, then went on:

"Lawrence, I perceived your drift from the start, and at first, I must
confess, I was somewhat taken aback, Lawrence, by your approaching me
on such a subject."

The one listening with a bland look of attention on his face and his
feet on the table considered this rather fresh, but said nothing.

"But only for a moment," the freshman continued, "only for a moment, I
assure you. You talked to me like a man to a man, a real man, not a
Gospel shark or a poler, but a man who knows things and yet gives a
fellow credit for some good impulses. I appreciate your situation
exactly. I have been placed in similar ones myself. I know how it is.
And I'm glad you came up here to-night. You rushed in where angels
would not have dared, and I'm damn glad you did." He stopped walking
the floor. "Now I'm not accustomed to this sort of thing, Lawrence, as
you must know, and I won't promise much. But I give you my word, I'll
do my best for Darnell."

Lawrence took the hand Thompson dramatically held out to him. He
restrained another impulse, an ungrateful one, and said, "Thompson, I
always thought I understood you better than your own class-mates did."
And Gussie blushed.

The senior arose. "Gus,"--he called him Gus--"I appreciate to a nicety
the delicacy of your position in this matter. Please don't let it
inconvenience you in any way. I shall always be grateful to you for
what you have undertaken this evening, and if I can ever be of service
to you, please command me." Some of this was sincere. "I have an
engagement now. Good-night. No, I thank you, no more to-night. Come up
and see me some time, Gus. Good-night."

"Good-night, Harry," said the other. "Wish you would drop up often."

"I know that," thought Lawrence, as he closed the door, "only I
wouldn't say 'Harry' very often if I were you."

Left alone, Thompson took a gulp of whiskey straight without wincing
very much, stretched out in a big chair and planned how to follow his
friend Lawrence's suggestions, wrinkling his brows and looking no
doubt very much like the man of the world that he read about as he did
so.

Meanwhile Lawrence was saying to himself, "Still, it's all in a good
cause," and hurrying along the street with his coat-collar turned up,
like a man ashamed of himself.

"This time next year," he was thinking, "I'll be out of college and
hustling in the big world which recent graduates are always telling me
I know nothing about. I suppose I shall have to get used to
boot-licking and getting pulls. That's business. But just at present I
don't like the taste." So he hurried up the street for a
counter-irritant, while the mood was on him.

A few moments later he was saying, "The fact of the matter is,
Darnell, I'm in a pretty bad hole, and I think I'll ask your advice."

"_My_ advice?" said Darnell.

"Yes, if you do not object to giving it."

"I think you know what I mean," said the freshman, "don't you?"

"Yes," said Lawrence, "I know what you mean." He also knew he was
finding it a different matter talking to this freshman.

"Well, I'll tell you about it anyway," he went on. "Last year, when
your friend Gus Thompson's sister was down here for the sophomore
reception--what?" The freshman's big eyes were making him nearly
blush.

"Why, Gus is an only child, you know. You must mean his cousin."

"Did I say sister? I meant cousin. His cousin, of course--she's a
smooth girl, his cousin. Well, his cousin got at me and asked me to
look after him when he entered college and see that he poled and all
that. Sort of queer thing, wasn't it? But I promised to do it, and you
know you hate to lie to a--well, I hate to deceive her about it."

Then Lawrence went on to point out that while he, Darnell, had plenty
of fun in life, he kept up in first division at the same time, which
was the way to do, whereas that boy Thompson, who seemed rather
immature, had two conditions and was in a good way to being dropped;
and he, Darnell, had considerable influence over Thompson--oh, yes,
he had: Gus had only that evening referred to Darnell as his best
friend, and so on. But Lawrence forgot to say damn this time.

When he finished, the freshman turned toward the senior two
fine-looking eyes filled with surprise and some other things which
caused Lawrence to feel like a hypocrite, which he was.

"Why," replied Darnell, "of course, Lawrence. To be sure I don't know
how well I can succeed, but I'll be very glad to try it. And,
Lawrence, I think I ought to tell you that I appreciate your trusting
me in a thing of this nature, only----"

"Oh, that's all right," said Lawrence, arising.

"Only, Lawrence," continued the freshman, who seemed to have something
to say, "why didn't you tell me this was what you wanted long ago? I
would have been willing, I think, without your cultivating my
acquaintance so long."

"See here," said Lawrence, with his hand on the door-knob, "to be
right honest, I never dreamed of asking you to do anything of the sort
until this very day. If I cultivated you it was for yourself and
because I like you. I never told anyone _that_ before. Good-night."

On his way across the campus Lawrence stopped and told an innocent
old elm-tree this: "The man that first said '_Similia similibus
curantur_' was very much of a fool. I feel more like a fellow cribbing
in exams than I did before." Then he kicked the elm and shouted
"Hello-o, Billy Nolan, are you up there?" and ran up the stairs to
smoke a good-night pipe and talk about senior vacation. He felt better
in the morning.

It was one evening about a week after this that young Thompson came
running up to Lawrence's room with a scowl on his face, and talked
like an important man in a hurry.

"Why, he's dead easy! I'll say, 'Aw, let's get out of here, this beer
is rotten.' 'All right,' he'll say, 'let's wander over to the room.'
Minute we get there he proposes that we pole the Greek or something.
See his idea? He thinks he'll sour me on being quiet, but, ha, ha! I
fool him every time--how? Why I just sit down and pole to beat the
band until too late for him to join the gang. See? Oh, but he's easy!
I have made up my mind to keep that boy from making a fool of himself,
and when I make up my mind to a thing, I don't believe in crawling.
Besides, poling won't hurt me any."

"Oh, no, Thompson," said Lawrence sympathetically. "I don't see how it
can hurt you."

Darnell came in a little later and sat down in the very same chair and
had this to say: "Lawrence, Gus Thompson is a queer fellow. You know
he doesn't go with the crowd any more, and because _he_ is sour and
doesn't care to have any good times, he tries to interfere with my
enjoyment too. He's always proposing that we stay in the rooms--you
know we room together now. I thought I could look after him better in
that way-- Well, when he kicks on poling I start to join the gang, and
then he says 'All right, let's pole.' He must be jealous about me. But
that's the way I work him. He's so easy."

"Yes," said Lawrence, "lots of people are."




THE SCRUB QUARTER-BACK


Tommy Wormsey was a meek little boy with an ugly face, mostly covered
with court-plaster, and he would rather fall on a football than eat.

When he came trotting out upon the field, the college along the side
lines always smiled at the way he tipped his head to one side with his
eyes on the ground, as though he was ashamed of himself and of his funny
little bumpy body, stuck into a torn suit and stockings which weren't
mates and had holes in them. When he skimmed over the ground and dived
through the air and brought down a two-hundred-and-something-pound
guard, with his knotty little arms barely reaching about the big
thighs, it looked very absurd, and when he jumped up again, yelling
"3--9--64" in his shrill earnest voice, and ran sniffling back to his
place, with his sorrowful face seeming to say, "I know I oughtn't to
have let him slide so far, but please don't scold me this time," the
crowd laughed uproariously, which hurt his feelings.

But he paid very little attention to anything except the scrub
captain's orders and the admonitions of the coachers, to whom he said,
"Yes, sir," and "I'll try it that way, sir." He was afraid of them,
and looked down at his torn stockings when they spoke to him. Those of
the crowd along the ropes who knew everything, as well as the other
spectators who only knew a few things, said that Freshman Wormsey had
more sand and football instinct than any man on the field. But they
did not know what a coward he was at heart.

More than once when a 'varsity guard had broken through and jumped on
him, and the scrub halves had fallen on him from the other direction
to keep him from being shoved back, and the other 'varsity guard and
the centre, who were not light, had thrown themselves upon these, and
one of the ends had swung round and jumped on the top of the pile on
general principles, Wormsey, at the bottom, said "ouch!" under his
breath, if he had any. He weighed 137 pounds stripped.

At night, after the trick practice with checkers at the Athletic Club,
he always hurried back to his room, and stacked the pillows and sofa
cushions up in the corner of the room, with the black one in the
centre, and taking his place on one knee in the opposite corner,
socked the ball into the pile. Every time he missed the black one in
the centre he called himself names.

Sometimes when he did this he became excited, and sprang forward and
knocked down chairs and tables and things. But he paid no attention to
that. He only bit his nails and fell to passing again, and kept it up
sometimes until eleven o'clock, which was a whole hour later than he
had any business to be out of bed.

But there were days when it became tiresome, this constant pound,
pound, pound, fall down, get up and pound again, and once in a while
there came dark times when he felt that it all didn't pay, which was
very unpatriotic thinking; and the next day, when the crowd yelled,
"Well tackled, Wormsey!" he wondered how he could have been such a
mucker as to think it. But it was rather hard work for a
seventeen-year-old boy whose bones weren't knit to play two
thirty-minute halves every day as hard as they were doing now, and
then practise place kicks and catching punts afterward, besides
keeping hold of all the signals and systems and stuff that were
drummed into his little head every evening, along with the rest of the
second eleven, in the room across the hall from the one where the
'varsity were learning their systems and signals and tricks.

It's all well enough for them. They have their 'varsity sweaters with
the big P on them, and have their pictures printed in the papers, and
are pointed out and praised and petted and fondled and fussed over
like blue-ribboned hunters at the horse show; but for the poor,
faithful, unappreciated scrub it's a different story. There's none of
the glory, and all work and grind and strain at the top notch of
capacity. And nothing at the end of it but thanks and the
consciousness of doing one's duty by the college. So about this time,
when they were approaching that critical stage in training which is
like getting one's second wind in a cross-country run, he used to have
some terrible times with himself. If anyone knew what muckerishly
cowardly thoughts he had, he was afraid they'd fire him from college.

He was ashamed of himself, but he couldn't help it. He was getting
sick of training, sick of getting up at seven o'clock in the morning
and hurrying down to breakfast while the alarm clocks were going off
in East and West colleges, and the frost was still on the grass. Every
day, as soon as the morning recitations were over, no matter what kind
of weather, he must jump into the 'bus at the corner of Dickinson
Hall, drive down to the grounds, undress and dress again, and hobble
out upon the field, and get his poor little body bumped and pounded
and kicked and trampled on, and the rest of his personality yelled at
by the captain, and scolded by the coachers, who stand alongside in
nicely creased trousers, with canes in their hands, and call out,
"Line up more quickly, scrub," which is hard to do when one's lungs
are breathless, especially when one is a quarter-back, and needs a
certain amount of wind to scream out the signals in a loud enough tone
to keep from being sworn at. And that's the way they make football
stuff.

To-day he let Hartshorn drag him five yards and missed one tackle
outright, and he was discouraged. After the line-up, while they were
practising him at catching punts, he seemed to have such bad luck
holding the ball; and once, in trying for a wild one when he had run
over by the cinder track, grunting and straining, and had put up his
little arms, only to feel the ball bounce off his chest, he gnashed
his teeth so loud and said "Oh, dear!" in such a plaintive whimper,
like a child waking from a bad dream, that two pipe-smoking seniors,
who were trooping out in the rear of the crowd, smiled audibly and
said something about him. He could not hear what it was. He only
heard them laugh, and it nearly broke his heart. But all that he could
do was to call them things under his breath, and run sniffling back to
his place again.

The trouble with the boy was he had worked so hard and worried so much
that he was over-trained, and so, naturally, there was not much ginger
left in him. And the reason the keen-eyed trainer did not see this and
lay him off for a few days was that Wormsey thought it his duty to
make up in nerve what he lacked in ginger; and he was too bashful to
tell anyone how difficult it was to make himself play hard, and how
that he no longer felt springy when he jumped out of bed in the
morning, and that he slept all the afternoon after practice, instead
of studying, as all football men should.

He went into the field-house the next day, unbuttoning his coat and
hating football. He hated the ill-smelling dressing-room. He was sick
of training, sick of rare beef and Bass's ale and bandages and
rub-downs, and the captain's admonitions and the coacher's scoldings.
He thought he would give anything not to be obliged to play that day.
He was sore all over, and his ear would be torn open again, and he
didn't like having the blood trickle down his neck; it felt so
sticky.

It was a hot, lazy, Indian-summer day; and his muscles felt exhausted.
He felt as much like exerting them as one feels like studying in
spring term directly after dinner, when the seniors are singing on the
steps. As he came hobbling out of the field-house he laced his little
jacket, and made up his mind that after the practice he would tell the
captain that he could not spare the time from his studies to play
football, patriotism or no patriotism. This was not necessary, because
he was tumbled over in the opening play, and remained upon the ground
even after the captain cried "Line up quickly," with his ugly little
face doubled up in a knot.

"There goes another back," said the scrub captain, pettishly, snapping
his fingers. "Rice, you play quarter; and Richardson, you come play
half in Rice's place."

Another sub and William, the negro rubber, picked Wormsey up, the
doctor following behind, and turning back to see the play, which had
already begun again, for he wanted to see how the new system was
working.

As they approached the field-house he saw the two fellows who had
laughed at him the day before standing apart down at the end of the
field. One of them was tapping his pipe against the heel of his shoe,
and saying, "I didn't know that that little devil could be hurt. He
always--" But just then the 'varsity full-back made a long "twister"
punt, and he interrupted himself with an exclamation about that. It
sounded like a reproach to Wormsey, and he began to feel that he had
somehow gotten hurt with malice aforethought. And this made him so
ashamed that when they reached the field-house the trainer, sponging
his face, said, encouragingly: "That's all right, me boy. Don't feel
badly. You'll be out again in a couple of weeks. I've been meaning to
lay you off for a while, anyway. I'll tell you for why; you're a
little stale, Tommy, a little stale."

Every day now Wormsey trudged down to the field on crutches--they had
to be sawed off at the bottom first--and watched the practice from a
pile of blankets on the side-lines. It was a fine thing, he told
himself, to watch the others do all the work while he sat still with
four 'varsity sweaters tied about his neck. This was a great snap; he
was still on the scrub, was at the training table, and would have his
picture taken, would go to the Thanksgiving game free, and yet did not
have to get pounded and pummelled.

He was made a good deal of now. The coachers patted him on the back
and said "My boy" to him. He had a lot of sympathetic adulation from
admiring classmates. Upper-classmen whom he had never seen before, but
who somehow knew him, came up and said, "How's the leg, Tommy?" At
which he hung his head and sniffled, and said, "Getting along pretty
well, thank you," and then grinned, because he didn't know whether
they were guying him or not.

In a few days he could walk with a cane, and he put on his football
clothes because they were more comfortable. He limped after the teams
up and down the field, and squatted down to see how the 'varsity made
their openings, and he learned how to tell, by the expression of his
legs, on which side the quarter was going to pass the ball, which
nobody else in the world could tell. Also, by carelessly daily
sauntering into the cage during the preliminary practising, with a
guileless smile on his face, he found out the 'varsity signals, which
he had no business to find out.

Sometimes he became very much excited during the scrimmages, and once,
when Dandridge, the wriggly 'varsity half-back, kept on squirming and
gaining after he had been twice downed, Wormsey screamed, as he hopped
up and down on one foot, "Oh, grab--grab him! _Please_ grab him! Oh!
oh!" so loud that all the field heard it and laughed at him. Then he
realized what a fool he had made of himself and kicked himself with
his good leg, and limped slowly up the field to study the next play.

But conceited as it was, he really thought that he would have stopped
that runner if he had been there. He imagined just how it would feel
to have once more the thrill of a clean tackle, sailing through the
air, and locking his arms tight, and squeezing hard, and both rolling
over and over, while the crowd yelled in the distance. And he thought
it would be fine to get out there again, and run his hands through his
hair, and call out the signals, and plunge the ball home into the
back's stomach, and then pitch forward, and push and strain and sweat

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/43587