JOHN MARVEL
ASSISTANT
BY THOMAS NELSON PAGE
ILLUSTRATED BY
JAMES MONTGOMERY FLAGG
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1909
COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
Published October, 1909
TO
THOSE LOVED ONES
WHOSE NEVER FAILING SYMPATHY HAS
LED ME ALL THESE YEARS
[Illustration: "To ply your old trade?" I asked.]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. MY FIRST FAILURE 1
II. THE JEW AND THE CHRISTIAN 5
III. THE FIGHT 16
IV. DELILAH 26
V. THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE 36
VI. THE METEOR 44
VII. THE HEGIRA 55
VIII. PADAN-ARAM 67
IX. I PITCH MY TENT 84
X. A NEW GIRL 103
XI. ELEANOR LEIGH 114
XII. JOHN MARVEL 138
XIII. MR. LEIGH 147
XIV. MISS LEIGH SEEKS WORK 154
XV. THE LADY OF THE VIOLETS 172
XVI. THE SHADOW OF SHAM 186
XVII. THE GULF 198
XVIII. THE DRUMMER 215
XIX. RE-ENTER PECK 227
XX. MY FIRST CLIENT 245
XXI. THE RESURRECTION OF DIX 259
XXII. THE PREACHER 275
XXIII. MRS. ARGAND 286
XXIV. WOLFFERT'S MISSION 305
XXV. FATE LEADS 319
XXVI. COLL MCSHEEN'S METHODS 339
XXVII. THE SHADOW 354
XXVIII. THE WALKING DELEGATE 361
XXIX. MY CONFESSION 381
XXX. SEEKING ONE THAT WAS LOST 398
XXXI. JOHN MARVEL'S RAID 416
XXXII. DOCTOR CAIAPHAS 430
XXXIII. THE PEACE-MAKER 453
XXXIV. THE FLAG OF TRUCE 465
XXXV. MR. LEIGH HAS A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE MADE HIM 493
XXXVI. THE RIOT AND ITS VICTIM 507
XXXVII. WOLFFERT'S NEIGHBORS 517
XXXVIII. WOLFFERT'S PHILOSOPHY 527
XXXIX. THE CONFLICT 539
XL. THE CURTAIN 563
ILLUSTRATIONS
_"To ply your old trade?" I asked_ Frontispiece
_Wolffert ... was cursing me with all the eloquence of a rich
vocabulary_ 20
_"Hi! What you doin'?" he stammered_ 60
_"But you must not come in"_ 140
_"Perhaps, you are the man yourself?" she added insolently_ 302
_"Speak her soft, Galley"_ 412
_"I suppose it is necessary that we should at least appear to be
exchanging the ordinary inanities"_ 468
_I am sure it was on that stream that Halcyone found retreat_ 556
JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT
I
MY FIRST FAILURE
I shall feel at liberty to tell my story in my own way; rambling along
at my own gait; now going from point to point; now tearing ahead; now
stopping to rest or to ruminate, and even straying from the path
whenever I think a digression will be for my own enjoyment.
I shall begin with my college career, a period to which I look back now
with a pleasure wholly incommensurate with what I achieved in it; which
I find due to the friends I made and to the memories I garnered there in
a time when I possessed the unprized treasures of youth: spirits, hope,
and abounding conceit. As these memories, with the courage (to use a
mild term) that a college background gives, are about all that I got out
of my life there, I shall dwell on them only enough to introduce two or
three friends and one enemy, who played later a very considerable part
in my life.
My family was an old and distinguished one; that is, it could be traced
back about two hundred years, and several of my ancestors had
accomplished enough to be known in the history of the State--a fact of
which I was so proud that I was quite satisfied at college to rest on
their achievements, and felt no need to add to its distinction by any
labors of my own.
We had formerly been well off; we had, indeed, at one time prior to the
Revolutionary War, owned large estates--a time to which I was so fond of
referring when I first went to college that one of my acquaintances,
named Peck, an envious fellow, observed one day that I thought I had
inherited all the kingdoms of the earth and the glory of them. My
childhood was spent on an old plantation, so far removed from anything
that I have since known that it might almost have been in another
planet.
It happened that I was the only child of my parents who survived, the
others having been carried off in early childhood by a scourge of
scarlet fever, to which circumstance, as I look back, I now know was due
my mother's sadness of expression when my father was not present. I was
thus subjected to the perils and great misfortune of being an only
child, among them that of thinking the sun rises and sets for his
especial benefit. I must say that both my father and mother tried
faithfully to do their part to counteract this danger, and they not only
believed firmly in, but acted consistently on, the Solomonic doctrine
that to spare the rod is to spoil the child. My father, I must say, was
more lenient, and I think gladly evaded the obligation as interpreted by
my mother, declaring that Solomon, like a good many other persons, was
much wiser in speech than in practice. He was fond of quoting the
custom of the ancient Scythians, who trained their youth to ride, to
shoot, and to speak the truth. And in this last particular he was
inexorable.
Among my chief intimates as a small boy was a little darkey named
"Jeams." Jeams was the grandson of one of our old servants--Uncle Ralph
Woodson. Jeams, who was a few years my senior, was a sharp-witted boy,
as black as a piece of old mahogany, and had a head so hard that he
could butt a plank off a fence. Naturally he and I became cronies, and
he picked up information on various subjects so readily that I found him
equally agreeable and useful.
My father was admirably adapted to the conditions that had created such
a character, but as unsuited to the new conditions that succeeded the
collapse of the old life as a shorn lamb would be to the untempered wind
of winter. He was a Whig and an aristocrat of the strongest type, and
though in practice he was the kindest and most liberal of men, he always
maintained that a gentleman was the choicest fruit of civilization; a
standard, I may say, in which the personal element counted with him far
more than family connection. "A king can make a nobleman, sir," he used
to say; "but it takes Jehovah to make a gentleman." When the war came,
though he was opposed to "Locofocoism" as he termed it, he enlisted as a
private as soon as the State seceded, and fought through the war, rising
to be a major and surrendering at Appomattox. When the war closed, he
shut himself up on his estate, accepting the situation without
moroseness, and consoling himself with a philosophy much more
misanthropic in expression than in practice.
My father's slender patrimony had been swept away by the war, but, being
a scholar himself, and having a high idea of classical learning and a
good estimate of my abilities--in which latter view I entirely agreed
with him--he managed by much stinting to send me to college out of the
fragments of his establishment. I admired greatly certain principles
which were stamped in him as firmly as a fossil is embedded in the solid
rock; but I fear I had a certain contempt for what appeared to me his
inadequacy to the new state of things, and I secretly plumed myself on
my superiority to him in all practical affairs. Without the least
appreciation of the sacrifices he was making to send me to college, I
was an idle dog and plunged into the amusements of the gay set--that set
whose powers begin below their foreheads--in which I became a member and
aspired to be a leader.
My first episode at college brought me some _éclat_.
II
THE JEW AND THE CHRISTIAN
I arrived rather late and the term had already begun, so that all the
desirable rooms had been taken. I was told that I would either have to
room out of college or take quarters with a young man by the name of
Wolffert--like myself, a freshman. I naturally chose the latter. On
reaching my quarters, I found my new comrade to be an affable,
gentlemanly fellow, and very nice looking. Indeed, his broad brow, with
curling brown hair above it; his dark eyes, deep and luminous; a nose
the least bit too large and inclining to be aquiline; a well-cut mouth
with mobile, sensitive lips, and a finely chiselled jaw, gave him an
unusual face, if not one of distinction. He was evidently bent on making
himself agreeable to me, and as he had read an extraordinary amount for
a lad of his age and I, who had also read some, was lonely, we had
passed a pleasant evening when he mentioned casually a fact which sent
my heart down into my boots. He was a Jew. This, then, accounted for the
ridge of his well-carved nose, and the curl of his soft brown hair. I
tried to be as frank and easy as I had been before, but it was a
failure. He saw my surprise as I saw his disappointment--a coolness took
the place of the warmth that had been growing up between us for several
hours, and we passed a stiff evening. He had already had one room-mate.
Next day, I found a former acquaintance who offered to take me into his
apartment, and that afternoon, having watched for my opportunity, I took
advantage of my room-mate's absence and moved out, leaving a short note
saying that I had discovered an old friend who was very desirous that I
should share his quarters. When I next met Wolffert, he was so stiff,
that although I felt sorry for him and was ready to be as civil as I
might, our acquaintance thereafter became merely nominal. I saw in fact,
little of him during the next months, for he soon forged far ahead of
me. There was, indeed, no one in his class who possessed his
acquirements or his ability. I used to see him for a while standing in
his doorway looking wistfully out at the groups of students gathered
under the trees, or walking alone, like Isaac in the fields, and until I
formed my own set, I would have gone and joined him or have asked him to
join us but for his rebuff. I knew that he was lonely; for I soon
discovered that the cold shoulder was being given to him by most of the
students. I could not, however, but feel that it served him right for
the "airs" he put on with me. That he made a brilliant exhibition in his
classes and was easily the cleverest man in the class did not affect our
attitude toward him; perhaps, it only aggravated the case. Why should he
be able to make easily a demonstration at the blackboard that the
cleverest of us only bungled through? One day, however, we learned that
the Jew had a room-mate. Bets were freely taken that he would not stick,
but he stuck--for it was John Marvel. Not that any of us knew what John
Marvel was; for even I, who, except Wolffert, came to know him best,
did not divine until many years later what a nugget of unwrought gold
that homely, shy, awkward John Marvel was!
It appeared that Wolffert had a harder time than any of us dreamed of.
He had come to the institution against the advice of his father, and for
a singular reason: he thought it the most liberal institution of
learning in the country! Little he knew of the narrowness of youth! His
mind was so receptive that all that passed through it was instantly
appropriated. Like a plant, he drew sustenance from the atmosphere about
him and transmuted what was impalpable to us to forms of beauty. He was
even then a man of independent thought; a dreamer who peopled the earth
with ideals, and saw beneath the stony surface of the commonplace the
ideals and principles that were to reconstruct and resurrect the world.
An admirer of the Law in its ideal conception, he reprobated, with the
fury of the Baptist, the generation that had belittled and cramped it to
an instrument of torture of the human mind, and looked to the millenial
coming of universal brotherhood and freedom.
His father was a leading man in his city; one who, by his native ability
and the dynamic force that seems to be a characteristic of the race, had
risen from poverty to the position of chief merchant and capitalist of
the town in which he lived. He had been elected mayor in a time of
stress; but his popularity among the citizens generally had cost him,
as I learned later, something among his own people. The breadth of his
views had not been approved by them.
The abilities that in the father had taken this direction of the
mingling of the practical and the theoretical had, in the son, taken the
form I have stated. He was an idealist: a poet and a dreamer.
The boy from the first had discovered powers that had given his father
the keenest delight, not unmingled with a little misgiving. As he grew
up among the best class of boys in his town, and became conscious that
he was not one of them, his inquiring and aspiring mind began early to
seek the reasons for the difference. Why should he be held a little
apart from them? He was a Jew. Yes, but why should a Jew be held apart?
They talked about their families. Why, his family could trace back for
two thousand and more years to princes and kings. They had a different
religion. But he saw other boys with different religions going and
playing together. They were Christians, and believed in Christ, while
the Jew, etc. This puzzled him till he found that some of them--a
few--did not hold the same views of Christ with the others. Then he
began to study for himself, boy as he was, the history of Christ, and
out of it came questions that his father could not answer and was angry
that he should put to him. He went to a young Rabbi who told him that
Christ was a good man, but mistaken in His claims.
So, the boy drifted a little apart from his own people, and more and
more he studied the questions that arose in his mind, and more and more
he suffered; but more and more he grew strong.
The father, too proud of his son's independence to coerce him by an
order which might have been a law to him, had, nevertheless, thrown him
on his own resources and cut him down to the lowest figure on which he
could live, confident that his own opinions would be justified and his
son return home.
Wolffert's first experience very nearly justified this conviction. The
fact that a Jew had come and taken one of the old apartments spread
through the college with amazing rapidity and created a sensation. Not
that there had not been Jews there before, for there had been a number
there at one time or another. But they were members of families of
distinction, who had been known for generations as bearing their part in
all the appointments of life, and had consorted with other folk on an
absolute equality; so that there was little or nothing to distinguish
them as Israelites except their name. If they were Israelites, it was an
accident and played no larger part in their views than if they had been
Scotch or French. But here was a man who proclaimed himself a Jew; who
proposed that it should be known, and evidently meant to assert his
rights and peculiarities on all occasions. The result was that he was
subjected to a species of persecution which only the young Anglo-Saxon,
the most brutal of all animals, could have devised.
As college filled rapidly, it soon became necessary to double up, that
is, put two men in one apartment. The first student assigned to live
with Wolffert was Peck, a sedate and cool young man--like myself, from
the country, and like myself, very short of funds. Peck would not have
minded rooming with a Jew, or, for that matter, with the Devil, if he
had thought he could get anything out of him; for he had few prejudices,
and when it came to calculation, he was the multiplication-table. But
Peck had his way to make, and he coolly decided that a Jew was likely to
make him bear his full part of the expenses--which he never had any mind
to do. So he looked around, and within forty-eight hours moved to a
place out of college where he got reduced board on the ground of
belonging to some peculiar set of religionists, of which I am convinced
he had never heard till he learned of the landlady's idiosyncrasy.
I had incurred Peck's lasting enmity--though I did not know it at the
time--by a witticism at his expense. We had never taken to each other
from the first, and one evening, when someone was talking about
Wolffert, Peck joined in and said that that institution was no place for
any Jew. I said, "Listen to Peck sniff. Peck, how did you get in?" This
raised a laugh. Peck, I am sure, had never read "Martin Chuzzlewit"; but
I am equally sure he read it afterward, for he never forgave me.
Then came my turn and desertion which I have described. And then, after
that interval of loneliness, appeared John Marvel.
Wolffert, who was one of the most social men I ever knew, was sitting in
his room meditating on the strange fate that had made him an outcast
among the men whom he had come there to study and know. This was my
interpretation of his thoughts: he would probably have said he was
thinking of the strange prejudices of the human race--prejudices to
which he had been in some sort a victim all his life, as his race had
been all through the ages. He was steeped in loneliness, and as, in the
mellow October afternoon, the sound of good-fellowship floated in at his
window from the lawn outside, he grew more and more dejected. One
evening it culminated. He even thought of writing to his father that he
would come home and go into his office and accept the position that
meant wealth and luxury and power. Just then there was a step outside,
and someone stopped and after a moment, knocked at the door. Wolffert
rose and opened it and stood facing a new student--a florid,
round-faced, round-bodied, bow-legged, blue-eyed, awkward lad of about
his own age.
"Is this number ----?" demanded the newcomer, peering curiously at the
dingy door and half shyly looking up at the occupant.
"It is. Why?" Wolffert spoke abruptly.
"Well, I have been assigned to this apartment by the Proctor. I am a new
student and have just come. My name is Marvel--John Marvel." Wolffert
put his arms across the doorway and stood in the middle of it.
"Well, I want to tell you before you come in that I am a Jew. You are
welcome not to come, but if you come I want you to stay." Perhaps the
other's astonishment contained a query, for he went on hotly:
"I have had two men come here already and both of them left after one
day. The first said he got cheaper board, which was a legitimate
excuse--if true--the other said he had found an old friend who wanted
him. I am convinced that he lied and that the only reason he left was
that I am a Jew. And now you can come in or not, as you please, but if
you come you must stay." He was looking down in John Marvel's eyes with
a gaze that had the concentrated bitterness of generations in it, and
the latter met it with a gravity that deepened into pity.
"I will come in and I will stay; Jesus was a Jew," said the man on the
lower step.
"I do not know him," said the other bitterly.
"But you will. I know Him."
Wolffert's arms fell and John Marvel entered and stayed.
That evening the two men went to the supper hall together. Their table
was near mine and they were the observed of all observers. The one
curious thing was that John Marvel was studying for the ministry. It
lent zest to the jokes that were made on this incongruous pairing, and
jests, more or less insipid, were made on the Law and the Prophets; the
lying down together of the lion and the lamb, etc.
It was a curious mating--the light-haired, moon-faced, slow-witted
Saxon, and the dark, keen Jew with his intellectual face and his
deep-burning eyes in which glowed the misery and mystery of the ages.
John Marvel soon became well known; for he was one of the slowest men
in the college. With his amusing awkwardness, he would have become a
butt except for his imperturbable good-humor. As it was, he was for a
time a sort of object of ridicule to many of us--myself among the
number--and we had many laughs at him. He would disappear on Saturday
night and not turn up again till Monday morning, dusty and disheveled.
And many jests were made at his expense. One said that Marvel was
practising preaching in the mountains with a view to becoming a second
Demosthenes; another suggested that, if so, the mountains would probably
get up and run into the sea.
When, however, it was discovered later that he had a Sunday-school in
the mountains, and walked twelve miles out and twelve miles back, most
of the gibers, except the inveterate humorists like myself, were silent.
This fact came out by chance. Marvel disappeared from college one day
and remained away for two or three weeks. Wolffert either could not or
would not give any account of him. When Marvel returned, he looked worn
and ill, as if he had been starving, and almost immediately he was taken
ill and went to the infirmary with a case of fever. Here he was so ill
that the doctors quarantined him and no one saw him except the
nurse--old Mrs. Denny, a wrinkled and bald-headed, old, fat woman,
something between a lightwood knot and an angel--and Wolffert.
Wolffert moved down and took up his quarters in the infirmary--it was
suggested, with a view to converting Marvel to Judaism--and here he
stayed. The nursing never appeared to make any difference in Wolffert's
preparation for his classes; for when he came back he still stood easily
first. But poor Marvel never caught up again, and was even more
hopelessly lost in the befogged region at the bottom of the class than
ever before. When called on to recite, his brow would pucker and he
would perspire and stammer until the class would be in ill-suppressed
convulsions, all the more enjoyable because of Leo Wolffert's agonizing
over his wretchedness. Then Marvel, excused by the professor, would sit
down and mop his brow and beam quite as if he had made a wonderful
performance (which indeed, he had), while Wolffert's thin face would
grow whiter, his nostrils quiver, and his deep eyes burn like coals.
One day a spare, rusty man with a frowzy beard, and a lank, stooping
woman strolled into the college grounds, and after wandering around
aimlessly for a time, asked for Mr. Marvel. Each of them carried a
basket. They were directed to his room and remained with him some time,
and when they left, he walked some distance with them.
It was at first rumored and then generally reported that they were
Marvel's father and mother. It became known later that they were a
couple of poor mountaineers named Shiflett, whose child John Marvel had
nursed when it had the fever. They had just learned of his illness and
had come down to bring him some chickens and other things which they
thought he might need.
This incident, with the knowledge of Marvel's devotion, made some
impression on us, and gained for Marvel, and incidentally for Wolffert,
some sort of respect.
III
THE FIGHT
All this time I was about as far aloof from Marvel and Wolffert as I was
from any one in the college.
I rather liked Marvel, partly because he appeared to like me and I
helped him in his Latin, and partly because Peck sniffed at him, and
Peck I cordially disliked for his cold-blooded selfishness and his
plodding way.
I was strong and active and fairly good-looking, though by no means so
handsome as I fancied myself when I passed the large plate-glass windows
in the stores; I was conceited, but not arrogant except to my family and
those I esteemed my inferiors; was a good poker-player; was open-handed
enough, for it cost me nothing; and was inclined to be kind by nature.
I had, moreover, several accomplishments which led to a certain measure
of popularity. I had a retentive memory, and could get up a recitation
with little trouble; though I forgot about as quickly as I learned. I
could pick a little on a banjo; could spout fluently what sounded like a
good speech if one did not listen to me; could write, what someone has
said, looked at a distance like poetry and, thanks to my father, could
both fence and read Latin. These accomplishments served to bring me into
the best set in college and, in time, to undo me. For there is nothing
more dangerous to a young man than an exceptional social accomplishment.
A tenor voice is almost as perilous as a taste for drink; and to play
the guitar, about as seductive as to play poker.
I was soon to know Wolffert better. He and Marvel, after their work
became known, had been admitted rather more within the circle, though
they were still kept near the perimeter. And thus, as the spring came
on, when we all assembled on pleasant afternoons under the big trees
that shaded the green slopes above the athletic field, even Wolffert and
Marvel were apt to join us. I would long ago have made friends with
Wolffert, as some others had done since he distinguished himself; for I
had been ashamed of my poltroonery in leaving him; but, though he was
affable enough with others, he always treated me with such marked
reserve that I had finally abandoned my charitable effort to be on easy
terms with him.
One spring afternoon we were all loafing under the trees, many of us
stretched out on the grass. I had just saved a game of baseball by
driving a ball that brought in three men from the bases, and I was
surrounded by quite a group. Marvel, who was as strong as an ox, was
second-baseman on the other nine and had missed the ball as the
center-fielder threw it wildly. Something was said--I do not recall
what--and I raised a laugh at Marvel's expense, in which he joined
heartily. Then a discussion began on the merits in which Wolffert
joined. I started it, but as Wolffert appeared excited, I drew out and
left it to my friends.
Presently, at something Wolffert said, I turned to a friend, Sam
Pleasants, and said in a half-aside, with a sneer: "He did not see it;
Sam, _you_--" I nodded my head, meaning, "You explain it."
Suddenly, Wolffert rose to his feet and, without a word of warning,
poured out on me such a torrent of abuse as I never heard before or
since. His least epithet was a deadly insult. It was out of a clear sky,
and for a moment my breath was quite taken away. I sprang to my feet
and, with a roar of rage, made a rush for him. But he was ready, and
with a step to one side, planted a straight blow on my jaw that,
catching me unprepared, sent me full length on my back. I was up in a
second and made another rush for him, only to be caught in the same way
and sent down again.
When I rose the second time, I was cooler. I knew then that I was in for
it. Those blows were a boxer's. They came straight from the shoulder and
were as quick as lightning, with every ounce of the giver's weight
behind them. By this time, however, the crowd had interfered. This was
no place for a fight, they said. The professors would come on us.
Several were holding me and as many more had Wolffert; among them, John
Marvel, who could have lifted him in his strong arms and held him as a
baby. Marvel was pleading with him with tears in his eyes. Wolffert was
cool enough now, but he took no heed of his friend's entreaties.
Standing quite still, with the blaze in his eyes all the more vivid
because of the pallor of his face, he was looking over his friend's head
and was cursing me with all the eloquence of a rich vocabulary. So far
as he was concerned, there might not have been another man but myself
within a mile.
[Illustration: Wolffert ... was cursing me with all the eloquence of a
rich vocabulary]
In a moment an agreement was made by which we were to adjourn to a
retired spot and fight it out. Something that he said led someone to
suggest that we settle it with pistols. It was Peck's voice. Wolffert
sprang at it. "I will, if I can get any gentleman to represent me," he
said with a bitter sneer, casting his flashing, scornful eyes around on
the crowd. "I have only one friend and I will not ask him to do it."
"I will represent you," said Peck, who had his own reasons for the
offer.
"All right. When and where?" said I.
"Now, and in the railway-cut beyond the wood," said Wolffert.
We retired to two rooms in a neighboring dormitory to arrange matters.
Peck and another volunteer represented Wolffert, and Sam Pleasants and
Harry Houston were my seconds. I had expected that some attempt at
reconciliation would be made; but there was no suggestion of it. I never
saw such cold-blooded young ruffians as all our seconds were, and when
Peck came to close the final cartel he had an air between that of a
butcher and an undertaker. He looked at me exactly as a butcher does at
a fatted calf. He positively licked his chops. I did not want to shoot
Wolffert, but I could cheerfully have murdered Peck. While, however,
the arrangements were being made by our friends, I had had a chance for
some reflection and I had used it. I knew that Wolffert did not like me.
He had no reason to do so, for I had not only left him, but had been
cold and distant with him. Still, I had always treated him civilly, and
had spoken of him respectfully, which was more than Peck had always
done. Yet, here, without the least provocation, he had insulted me
grossly. I knew there must be some misunderstanding, and I determined on
my "own hook" to find out what it was. Fortune favored me. Just then
Wolffert opened the door. He had gone to his own room for a few moments
and, on his return, mistook the number and opened the wrong door. Seeing
his error, he drew back with an apology, and was just closing the door
when I called him.
"Wolffert! Come in here a moment. I want to speak to you alone."
He re-entered and closed the door; standing stiff and silent.
"Wolffert, there has been some mistake, and I want to know what it is."
He made not the least sign that he heard, except a flash, deep in his
eyes, like a streak of lightning in a far-off cloud.
"I am ready to fight you in any way you wish," I went on. "But I want to
know what the trouble is. Why did you insult me out of a clear sky? What
had I done?"
"Everything."
"What! Specify. What was it?"
"You have made my life Hell--all of you!" His face worked, and he made a
wild sweep with his arm and brought it back to his side with clenched
fist.
"But I?"
"You were the head. You have all done it. You have treated me as an
outcast--a Jew! You have given me credit for nothing, because I was a
Jew. I could have stood the personal contempt and insult, and I have
tried to stand it; but I will put up with it no longer. It is appointed
once for a man to die, and I can die in no better cause than for my
people."
He was gasping with suppressed emotion, and I was beginning to gasp
also--but for a different reason. He went on:
"You thought I was a coward because I was a Jew, and because I wanted
peace--treated me as a poltroon because I was a Jew. And I made up my
mind to stop it. So this evening my chance came. That is all."
"But what have I done?"
"Nothing more than you have always done; treated the Jew with contempt.
But they were all there, and I chose you as the leader when you said
that about the Jew."
"I said nothing about a Jew. Here, wait! Did you think I insulted you as
a Jew this afternoon?" I had risen and walked over in front of him.
"Yes." He bowed.
"Well, I did not."
"You did--you said to Sam Pleasants that I was a 'damned Jew.'"
"What! I never said a word like it--yes, I did--I said to Sam Pleasants,
that you did not see the play, and said, '_Sam, you_--' meaning, you,
tell him. Wait. Let me think a moment. Wolffert, I owe you an apology,
and will make it. I know there are some who will think I do it because I
am afraid to fight. But I do not care. I am not, and I will fight Peck
if he says so. If you will come with me, I will make you a public
apology, and then if you want to fight still, I will meet you."
He suddenly threw his right arm up across his face, and, turning his
back on me, leaned on it against the door, his whole person shaken with
sobs.
I walked up close to him and laid my hand on his shoulder, helplessly.
"Calm yourself," I began, but could think of nothing else to say.
He shook for a moment and then, turning, with his left arm still across
his face, he held out his right hand, and I took it.
"I do not want you to do that. All I want is decent treatment--ordinary
civility," he faltered between his sobs. Then he turned back and leant
against the door, for he could scarcely stand. And so standing, he made
the most forcible, the most eloquent, and the most burning defence of
his people I have ever heard.
"They have civilized the world," he declared, "and what have they gotten
from it but brutal barbarism. They gave you your laws and your
literature, your morality and your religion--even your Christ; and you
have violated every law, human and divine, in their oppression. You
invaded our land, ravaged our country, and scattered us over the face of
the earth, trying to destroy our very name and Nation. But the God of
Israel was our refuge and consolation. You crucified Jesus and then
visited it on us. You have perpetuated an act of age-long hypocrisy, and
have, in the name of the Prince of Peace, brutalized over his people.
The cross was your means of punishment--no Jew ever used it. But if we
had crucified him it would have been in the name of Law and Order; your
crucifixion was in the name of Contempt; and you have crucified a whole
people through the ages--the one people who have ever stood for the one
God; who have stood for Morality and for Peace. A Jew! Yes, I am a Jew.
I thank the God of Israel that I am. For as he saved the world in the
past, so he will save it in the future."
This was only a part of it, and not the best part; but it gave me a new
insight into his mind.
When he was through I was ready. I had reached my decision.
"I will go with you," I said, "not on your account, but on my own, and
make my statement before the whole crowd. They are still on the hill.
Then, if any one wants to fight, he can get it. I will fight Peck."
He repeated that he did not want me to do this, and he would not go;
which was as well, for I might not have been able to say so much in his
presence. So I went alone with my seconds, whom I immediately sought.
I found the latter working over a cartel at a table in the next room,
and I walked in. They looked as solemn as owls, but I broke them up in a
moment.
"You can stop this infernal foolishness. I have apologized to Wolffert.
I have treated him like a pig, and so have you. And I have told him so,
and now I am going out to tell the other fellows."
Their astonishment was unbounded and, at least, one of the group was
sincerely disappointed. I saw Peck's face fall at my words and then he
elevated his nose and gave a little sniff.
"Well, it did not come from _our_ side," he said in a half undertone
with a sneer.
I suddenly exploded. His cold face was so evil.
"No, it did not. I made it freely and frankly, and I am going to make it
publicly. But if you are disappointed, I want to tell you that you can
have a little affair on your own account. And in order that there may be
no want of pretext, I wish to tell you that I believe you have been
telling lies on me, and I consider you a damned, sneaking hypocrite."
There was a commotion, of course, and the others all jumped in between
us. And when it was over, I walked out. Three minutes later I was on the
hill among the crowd, which now numbered several hundred, for they were
all waiting to learn the result; and, standing on a bench, I told them
what I had said to Wolffert and how I felt I owed him a public apology,
not for one insult, but for a hundred. There was a silence for a second,
and then such a cheer broke out as I never got any other time in my
life! Cheers for Wolffert--cheers for Marvel, and even cheers for me.
And then a freckled youth with a big mouth and a blue, merry eye broke
the tension by saying:
"All bets are off and we sha'n't have a holiday to-morrow at all." The
reprobates had been betting on which of us would fall, and had been
banking on a possible holiday.
Quite a crowd went to Wolffert's room to make atonement for any possible
slight they had put on him; but he was nowhere to be found. But that
night, he and Marvel sat at our table and always sat there afterward. He
illustrated George Borrow's observation that good manners and a
knowledge of boxing will take one through the world.
IV
DELILAH
My career at college promised at one time after that to be almost
creditable, but it ended in nothing. I was not a good student, because,
I flattered myself, I was too good a fellow. I loved pleasure too much
to apply myself to work, and was too self-indulgent to deny myself
anything. I despised the plodding ways of cold-blooded creatures like
Peck even more than I did the dullness of John Marvel. Why should I
delve at Latin and Greek and Mathematics when I had all the poets and
novelists. I was sure that when the time came I could read up and easily
overtake and surpass the tortoise-like monotony of Peck's plodding. I
now and then had an uneasy realization that Peck was developing, and
that John Marvel, to whom I used to read Latin, had somehow come to
understand the language better than I. However, this was only an
occasional awakening, and the idea was too unpleasant for me to harbor
it long. Meantime, I would enjoy myself and prepare to bear off the more
shining honors of the orator and society-medalist.
At the very end I did, indeed, arouse myself, for I had a new incentive.
I fell in love. Toward the mid-session holiday the place always filled
up with pretty girls. Usually they came just after "the exams"; but
occasionally some of them came a little in advance: those who were bent
on conquest. At such times, only cold anchorites like Marvel, or
calculating machines like Peck, stuck to their books. Among the fair
visitants this year was one whose reputation for beauty had already
preceded her: Miss Lilian Poole. She was the daughter of a banker in the
capital of the State, and by all accounts was a tearing belle. She had
created a sensation at the Mardi Gras the year before, and one who could
do that must be a beauty. She was reported more beautiful than Isabelle
Henderson, the noted beauty of the Crescent city, whom she was said to
resemble. Certainly, she was not lacking in either looks or
intelligence; for those who had caught a glimpse of her, declared her a
Goddess. I immediately determined that I would become her cavalier for
the occasion. And I so announced to the dozen or more fellows who
composed our set. They laughed at me.
"Why, you do not know her."
"But I shall know her."
"You are not on speaking terms with Professor Sterner"--the Professor of
Mathematics at whose house she was stopping. The Professor, a
logarithmic machine, and I had had a falling out not long before. He had
called on me for a recitation, one morning after a dance, and I had
said, "I am not prepared, sir."
"You never are prepared," he said, which the class appeared to think
amusing. He glanced over the room.
"Mr. Peck."
Peck, also, had been at the dance the night before, though he said he
had a headache, and caused much amusement by his gambols and antics,
which, were like those of a cow; I therefore expected him to say,
"unprepared" also. But not so.
"I was unwell last night, sir."
"Ah! Well, I am glad, at least, that you have some sort of a legitimate
excuse."
I flamed out and rose to my feet.
"Are you alluding to me, sir?"
"Take your seat, sir. I deny your right to question me."
"I will not take my seat. I do not propose to sit still and be insulted.
I demand an answer to my question."
"Take your seat, I say. I will report you to the Faculty," he shouted.
"Then you will have to do so very quickly; for I shall report you
immediately." And with that, I stalked out of the room. The Faculty met
that afternoon and I laid my complaint before them, and as the students,
knowing the inside facts, took my side, the Faculty held that the
Professor committed the first breach and reprimanded us both. I was well
satisfied after I had met and cut the Professor publicly.
I now acknowledge the untowardness of the situation; but when the boys
laughed, I pooh-poohed it.
"I do not speak to old Sterner, but I will speak to her the first time I
meet her."
"I will bet you do not," cried Sam Pleasants.
"Supper for the crowd," chimed in several. They were always as ready to
bet as their long-haired ancestors were in the German forests, where
they bet themselves away, and kept their faith, to the amazement of a
Roman gentleman, who wrote, "_istam vocant fidem_."
We were all in a room, the windows of which looked across the lawn
toward the pillared portico of Professor Sterner's house, and some of
the boys were gazing over toward the mansion that sheltered the subject
of our thoughts. And as it happened, at that moment, the door opened and
out stepped the young lady herself, in a smart walking costume, topped
by a large hat with a great, drooping, beguiling, white ostrich feather.
An exclamation drew us all to the window.
"There she is now!" Without doubt, that was she.
"Jove! What a stunner!"
"She is alone. There is your chance."
"Yes, this is the first time you have seen her; now stop jawing and play
ball."
"Or pay up."
"Yes, supper for the crowd: porterhouse steak; chicken, and waffles to
end with."
So they nagged me, one and all.
"Done," I said, "I will do it now."
"You have never seen her before?"
"Never." I was arranging my tie and brushing my hair.
"You swear it?"
But I hurried out of the door and slammed it behind me.
I turned down the walk that led across the campus to the point whither
Miss Poole was directing her steps, and I took a gait that I judged
should meet her at the intersection of the walks. I was doing some hard
thinking, for I knew the window behind me was crowded with derisive
faces.
As I approached her, I cut my eye at her, and a glance nearly overthrew
my resolution. She was, indeed, a charming picture as she advanced,
though I caught little more than a general impression of a slim,
straight, statuesque figure, a pink face, surmounted by a profusion of
light hair, under a big hat with white feathers, and a pair of bluish
eyes. I glanced away, but not before she had caught my eye. Just then a
whistle sounded behind me, and my nerve returned. I suddenly quickened
my pace, and held out my hand.
"Why, how do you do?" I exclaimed with well-feigned surprise and
pleasure, plumping myself directly in front of her. She paused; looked
at me, hesitated, and then drew back slightly.
"I think--, I--. You have made a mistake, I think."
"Why, do you not remember Henry Glave? Is this not Miss Belle
Henderson?" I asked in a mystified way.
"No, I am not Miss Henderson."
"Oh! I beg your pardon--I thought--" I began. Then, as I moved back a
little, I added, "Then you must be Miss Lilian Poole; for there cannot
be more than two like you on earth. I beg your pardon."
I backed away.
"I am," she said. Her mounting color showed that she was at least not
angry, and she gave proof of it.
"Can you tell me? Is not that the way to Dr. Davis's house?"
"Yes--I will show you which it is." My manner had become most
respectful.
"Oh! Don't trouble yourself, I beg you."
"It is not the least trouble," I said sincerely, and it was the only
truth I had told. I walked back a few steps, hat in hand, pointing
eagerly to the house. And as I left, I said, "I hope you will pardon my
stupid mistake."
"Oh! I do not think it stupid. She is a beauty."
"_I_ think so." I bowed low. I saw the color rise again as I turned
away, much pleased with myself, and yet a good deal ashamed, too.
When I returned to "the lair," as we termed Sam Pleasants's room, the
boys seized me. They were like howling dervishes. But I had grown
serious. I was very much ashamed of myself. And I did the only decent
thing I could--I lied, or as good as lied.
"I will give the supper if you will stop this yelling. Do you suppose I
would make a bet about a girl I did not know?"
This took the spirit out of the thing, and only one of them knew the
truth. Marvel, who was present, looked at me seriously, and that night
said to me half sadly,
"You ought not to have done that."
"What? I know it. It was an ungentlemanly thing."
"I do not mean that. You ought not to have told a story afterward."
How he knew it I never knew.
But I had gotten caught in my own mesh. I had walked into the little
parlor without any invitation, and I was soon hopelessly entangled in
the web at which I had hitherto scoffed. I fell violently in love.
I soon overcame the little difficulty that stood in my way. And, indeed,
I think Miss Lilian Poole rather helped me out about this. I did not
allow grass to grow under my feet, or any impression I had made to
become effaced. I quickly became acquainted with my Diana-like young
lady; that is, to speak more exactly, I got myself presented to her, for
my complete acquaintance with her was of later date, when I had spent
all the little patrimony I had. I saw immediately that she knew the
story of the wager, though she did not at that time refer to it, and so
far as I could tell, she did not resent it. She, at least, gave no sign
of it. I asked her to allow me to escort her to a German, but she had an
engagement.
"Who is it?" I inquired rather enviously.
She had a curious expression in her eyes--which, by the way, were a cool
blue or gray, I never could be sure which, and at times looked rather
like steel.
She hesitated a moment and her little mouth drew in somewhat closely.
"Mr. Peck." Her voice was a singular instrument. It had so great a
compass and possessed some notes that affected me strangely; but it also
could be without the least expression. So it was now when she said,
"Mr. Peck," but she colored slightly, as I burst out laughing.
"Peck! Pecksniff? Did you ever see him dance? I should as soon have
thought of your dancing with a clothes-horse."
She appeared somewhat troubled.
"Does he dance so badly as that? He told me he danced."
"So he does--like this." I gave an imitation of Peck's gyrations, in
which I was so earnest that I knocked over a table and broke a fine
lamp, to my great consternation.
"Well, you are realistic," observed Miss Poole, calmly, who struck me as
not so much concerned at my misfortune as I might have expected. When,
however, she saw how really troubled I was, she was more sympathetic.
"Perhaps, if we go out, they will not know who did it," she observed.
"Well, no, I could not do that," I said, thinking of Peck, and then as
her expression did not change, I fired a shot that I meant to tell.
"Peck would do that sort of thing. _I_ shall tell them."
To this she made no reply. She only looked inscrutably pretty. But it
often came back to me afterward how calmly and quite as a matter of
course she suggested my concealing the accident, and I wondered if she
thought I was a liar.
She had a countenance that I once thought one of the most beautiful in
the world; but which changed rarely. Its only variations were from an
infantile beauty to a statuesque firmness.
Yet that girl, with her rather set expression and infantile face, her
wide open, round eyes and pink prettiness, was as deep as a well, and an
artesian well at that.
I soon distanced all rivals. Peck was quickly disposed of; though, with
his nagging persistence, he still held on. This bored me exceedingly and
her too, if I could judge by her ridicule of him and her sarcasm which
he somehow appeared too stupid to see. He succumbed, however, to my
mimicry of his dancing; for I was a good mimic, and Peck, in a very high
collar and with very short trousers on his dumpy legs, was really a fair
mark. Miss Poole was by no means indifferent to public opinion, and a
shaft of satire could penetrate her mail of complacency. So when she
returned later to the classic shades of the university, as she did a
number of times for Germans and other social functions, I made a good
deal of hay. A phrase of Peck's, apropos of this, stuck in my memory.
Some one--it was, I think, Leo Wolffert--said that I appeared to be
making hay, and Peck said, "Yes, I would be eating it some day." I often
wondered afterward how he stumbled on the witticism.
Those visits of my tall young dulcinea cost me dear in the sequel. While
the other fellows were boning I was lounging in the drawing-room
chattering nonsense or in the shade of the big trees in some secluded
nook, writing her very warm poems of the character which Horace says is
hated both of Gods and men. Several of these poems were published in the
college magazine. The constant allusions to her physical charms caused
Peck to say that I evidently considered Miss Poole to be "composed
wholly of eyes and hair." His observation that a man was a fool to write
silly verses to a girl he loved, because it gave her a wrong idea of her
charms, I, at the time, set down to sheer envy, for Peck could not turn
a rhyme; but since I have discovered that for a practical person like
Peck, it has a foundation, of truth.
V
THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE