ARCHER RECEIVES
The middle of September was past. The school authorities had survived
the worst of the confusion of registering, allotting rooms, smothering
complaints, turning away unpromising applicants, evading the tearful
entreaties of parents, arranging schedules, laying down rules.
The second-hand furniture dealers were sold out, having reaped a
cash harvest of a hundred per cent on goods bought of the mortally
impecunious three months before. The student dealers in fountain pens
and athletic supplies were making hay in dazzling sunshine. Football,
the great industry of autumn, clamored for devotees. The first notes of
the year-long wail over the food at Alumni Hall already floated in the
air. With screech of bearings and groan of ill-fitting machinery, the
Seaton mill had begun its one hundred and twenty-third manufacturing
season. Would the product be worth while? It depended quite as much
on the quality of the raw material provided as on the process of
manufacture.
Sam Archer came to Seaton with vague but highly colored expectations,
due in no small measure to the entertaining reminiscences of adventure
and romance which his Uncle Fred delighted to tell. Uncle Fred had
preceded him in school by twenty-odd years. The school had been smaller
then, and the life simpler. The boys still boarded around the village
in private houses, the sports were general affairs requiring no
special training, the school itself formed a big fraternity with few
distinctions except such as come naturally to superior personality.
Uncle Fred, being a bright, friendly, whole-souled fellow, learning
easily and possessing a natural aptitude for games of all kinds, had
been a conspicuous figure in the school. He looked backward upon his
Seaton days as the happiest period of his life; Sam looked forward to
his with an eagerness born of long-fondled hopes.
Sam moved into 7 Hale, to which he had been assigned, and waited to
see what kind of a comrade this appointed room-mate was to be. When
two days went by without sign of a Peck, he called at the office and
learned that the absentee was expected on the morrow; his coming,
however, depended on the results of the examinations which he was
taking in Cambridge; if he did not appear, another room-mate would be
provided.
Ruminating dolefully on this uncertainty about a most important matter,
Sam reached home in time to catch a caller who was just turning
from the door. It was Bruce, a good-looking fellow of the ruling
oligarchy--likewise captain of the track team. He had been pointed out
to Sam on the first day of school.
“Hello!” called Bruce. “Do you live in this entry?”
“Yes,” responded Sam, “in Number 7. My name’s Archer.”
“Then you’re the fellow I’m looking for. Where’s Duncan Peck?”
Sam opened the door for his caller. “He hasn’t come yet. I’ve just been
to the office to see about it. They didn’t seem sure that he’d come at
all.”
“I’m awfully afraid that he won’t, myself. He wrote me that he had
to make twelve points to get back. I don’t believe he can get twelve
points in twelve years.”
“Won’t you sit down?” asked Archer, politely.
“No, I thank you. I’ve got to get home.” The visitor gave a glance at
Sam’s lanky figure. “--Do anything in athletics?”
“Not much,” replied Sam, modestly. “I played football and baseball in
the high school, but our teams wouldn’t be called anything here. I ran
the high hurdles too.”
“Did you?” The track captain’s interest became keen immediately. “What
time have you made?”
“Nothing very good. Eighteen seconds was my best.”
Bruce’s eagerness languished. “You ought to do better than that. If you
don’t play football, get Collins to help you this fall.”
When the next day passed and no Peck appeared, Sam quietly moved the
furniture of the stay-away to the other bedroom, and took up his
quarters in the corner room, which possessed obvious advantages
over its mate. The reasoning here was as straight as Euclid. This
unknown quantity, Peck, as original occupant, enjoyed a prior claim
to the desirable room. Against all later comers the Archer claim
took precedence. Any claim, however good, is strengthened by actual
occupancy. If Peck wasn’t coming, Sam might as well have the room as
give it to some one else.
That evening Archer received a call from three inhabitants of his
“well.” They came in boldly, addressed him jauntily, and proceeded
to throw the sofa pillows at each other and his own surprised self.
Presently one grabbed a baseball bat and called for a game with the
pillows. Another seized a tennis racquet and began to whack a ball
with indefinite recklessness, but largely at Archer’s head. When one
of the missiles narrowly escaped the shade of his new lamp, Sam, whose
ire had been rising, waded into the chief offender, threw him down and
beat him hard with the pillow, was pulled off by another, on whom he
immediately turned with the same vigor, gave cuffs and received them,
and was finally, after a hard struggle, subdued by the combined efforts
of the three. After this the trio let him up, shook hands with him,
assured him that he was “all right,” and departed suddenly. They had
hardly time to escape into a room close at hand, and Sam to pick up his
cushions and the tennis ball, when an ominous knock was heard at the
door, and Mr. Alsop appeared.
“What’s all this noise, Archer?” he began sharply. “Don’t you
understand that no rough-housing is tolerated in this building?”
“Yes, sir,” panted Sam, non-committal.
“What’s been going on here?”
“I’ve had some visitors.”
Mr. Alsop eyed him sternly. “Who were they?”
Now this was a very wrong question for Mr. Alsop to put. If he had
possessed half as much common sense as energy and devotion to supposed
duty, he would never have asked it. He counted on the newcomer’s
inexperience, and hoped to get a grip on two or three unruly characters
in his well, which would help him in maintaining order in his
territory later on. He did not consider that in extorting evidence
from the new boy he would be exposing the thoughtless betrayer to
months of annoyance and contemptuous treatment at the hands of the
mischief-makers. Fortunately Archer’s instinct was truer than the
instructor’s.
“I don’t know their names,” he said.
“Describe them!”
“I don’t think I can, sir.”
Mr. Alsop threw at the incompetent a glance of scorn. “Well, you can
send them to me.”
Archer’s look glanced from Mr. Alsop’s angry face to the door of his
bedroom, thence to the floor, thence squarely back again to the teacher.
“I’d rather not, sir.”
There was a moment’s silence. Mr. Alsop had shot his bolt; he was
not prepared to make an issue of the refusal of a boy to betray his
associates. “You can at least tell them that if this thing is repeated,
you are likely to get into serious trouble!--You can do that without
offending your sense of honor, I hope?” he added, with an accent of
sarcasm.
“Yes, sir.”
The teacher turned and retraced his way to his rooms downstairs. Two
doors were pushed quietly open as he reached a lower floor. From each
emerged a studious boy holding a finger between the leaves of a book.
The pair crept to the stair railing, heard the steps descend the last
flight, and a door close. Then they scurried for Archer’s room.
“What did he say?” demanded the first eagerly as soon as the door was
shut behind him.
Archer began an account of the conversation.
“Did you give us away?” interrupted number two.
“Wait till I am through, can’t you?” responded Sam. “No, of course I
didn’t.”
“Shut up, Lordie, and let him tell it!” commanded the other. “We want
it all.”
Archer finished his repetition, omitting nothing.
“You’re the right stuff,” declared the one called Lordie. “Just like
the old sneak to try to get it out of you because you’re new. Last year
he got little Roberts fired for nothing at all. He thinks he’s the
whole institution--faculty, trustees, and all.”
The door opened abruptly. Number three rushed in and closed the door
softly behind him. “Look out! he’s coming again!”
Numbers one and two dived for the bedroom. Number three settled into a
chair and opened an Anabasis which lay on the top of a pile of books on
the table. There was a gentle tap at the door.
“Come in!” called Archer. Mr. Alsop entered.
“Visitors again so soon?” he asked, seeking to cover his suspicion with
an air of pleasantry. “You seem to have made friends early, Archer.”
He glanced at the book which lay open on the lap of number three. “I
didn’t know you took Greek, Taylor.”
“I don’t,” answered Taylor. “I just picked the book up. Looks hard,
doesn’t it?”
“I don’t think it is really any harder than a modern language, if the
modern language is seriously studied. In fact, many teachers are of the
opinion that the college requirement in Greek is easier than that in
German.”
Neither Archer nor Taylor disputed or commented on this opinion. “Won’t
you sit down, sir?” said Archer, suddenly recalling his obligation to
a guest.
“No, I thank you,” replied Mr. Alsop. “I returned to speak of something
which I ought to have emphasized when I was here a few moments ago.
The responsibility for order in the dormitories is really laid upon
the students themselves. Every student is expected to see to it that
no unseemly disturbance is made, and that nothing is done to interfere
with the studies of others. The whole matter is left in your hands, and
you are put on your honor to do nothing unworthy of the dignity and
name of the school. It’s in the dormitory life that the spirit of the
school especially shows itself. We trust you to conduct yourselves like
gentlemen, without being watched, and put you on your honor to do so.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Archer, conscious of a peculiar feeling, a mixture
of approval of the theory and suspicion as to the practice.
“That is all that I wanted to say. Good night!”
The boys echoed the salutation piously, and the room was left in
momentary quiet. Soon the two hidden worthies emerged from the bedroom,
and pranced across the floor, chuckling.
“My eye!” cried Lord. “Did you ever hear such stuff? He puts you on
your honor, and then tries to make you tell who rough-housed you, and
comes sneaking up here to see if he can’t catch some one. That’s a good
one!”
“Just go and tell him something in confidence and see what would
happen!” exclaimed Fowle (so his name proved to be; his mates called
him “Birdie”). “He’d bring it all up before the faculty, and you’d be
fired like a shot, as Murphy was last year. That’s _his_ kind of honor.”
“Are they all like that?” asked Archer, in consternation. He had been
taught to respect his teachers.
“No, only about half,” said Lord. “There are some I’d be willing
to tell anything to, and do ’most anything for. There are others
who aren’t worth wasting cusses on. Alsop thinks he’s the greatest
man since Washington--and what is he?” He snapped his fingers
contemptuously.
“When’s Peck coming?” demanded Taylor, abruptly.
“He was due yesterday, if he passed his exams.”
“Too bad if he doesn’t come. He’s an awfully good fellow and lots of
sport. Know him?”
Archer shook his head. Fowle took occasion, while his friends were
intent on this conversation, to make a good shot at Lord with a sofa
pillow. Lord seized the pillow, but made a wild return. Fowle jeered.
The fracas seemed in a fair way to begin again when Taylor interfered,
and with forceful prophecies of the fate that would befall them all
if they got to rough-housing again, persuaded the pair to “quit their
fooling” and take themselves off.
That same afternoon Mr. Peck’s stenographer brought him a telegram,
which ran thus:--
“Got ten points what shall I do send money quick.”
The father dictated immediately the following answer:--
“Go back to Seaton try again will send check there.”
The next day Archer saw his room-mate.