As soon as we got outside, Berrisford said,--

"What a disappointing little creature! I had an idea he would be very

angry, and he was n't at all."

"Did you want him to be angry?" I asked, rather surprised.

"Why, yes, of course," he answered. "It's so interesting to watch them;

there are so many different ways of losing a temper. Sea-captains are

the most satisfactory, I think. I discovered that last spring on my way

to Europe. I go up to them when they 're very busy--just getting out of

a harbor or something--and exclaim, 'Oh, I say, Captain--shall I steer?'

You can't imagine how furious it makes them." I said I thought I could,

and we parted. He seems to have a great many friends; he has n't spent

a night at home since college opened--a week ago.

Well, I went to see my adviser, who helped me select my studies for the

year. That is to say, he hypnotized me into taking a lot of things I

really don't see why I should know. However, as I don't seem to have

what he called "a startling predilection" for anything (my entrance

exams. divulged this), and as he was a pleasant young man who invited me

to dinner next week, I allowed myself to be influenced by him. He gave

me a lot of little pamphlets with the courses and the hours at which

they come marked in red ink. I 've forgotten what some of them are, as

we have n't had any real lectures yet--just rigmaroles about what books

to buy.

For the first few days the whole college and all the streets and

buildings near it seemed to be in such confusion that I couldn't walk a

block without feeling terribly excited--the way I used to feel when I

was a kid, and we were all going to the State fair or the circus, and

mamma would insist on our eating luncheon although we did n't want a

thing. Along the sidewalk in the Square there was a barricade of trunks

so high that you could n't see over it, to say nothing of huge mounds of

travelling bags and dress-suit cases and queer-shaped leather things,

with banjos and mandolins and guitars and golf-sticks in them. And from

morning till night there were always at least four or five fellows

telling the expressmen that it was "perfectly absurd;" that they simply

had to have their trunks immediately; that the service was abominable,

and that the whole place was a hundred and fifty years behind the times,

anyhow. All of which the expressmen may or may not have agreed with,

for they hardly ever answered back, and just went on digging steamer

trunks and hatboxes out of the ruins and slamming them into wagons to

make room for the loads that kept arriving every little while from town.

It was very interesting to watch so many fellows of my own age or a

little older hurrying about or standing in groups talking and laughing

and looking glad to be here. But at the same time it was sort of

unsatisfactory and hopeless. I didn't like to stay in my room much of

the time, as I had a feeling (I have n't got over it yet) that if I did

I might miss something. Yet, when I went out, I had so few things to do

that, unless I took a walk--which of course leads one away from the

excitement--there was n't much point in my being around at all. No one

stuck his head from an upper window in the Yard and called out,

"Ay-y-y-y-y, Tommy Wood, come up here," when _I_ passed by; and no one

slipped up behind me, and put his hands over my eyes and waited for me

to guess who it was, because, with the exception of Mr. Duggie and Dick

Benton and Berrisford, I didn't know a soul. I often saw Mr. Duggie in

the Square, but as he was always with a crowd or striding along in a

great hurry, and being stopped every few feet by some one who asked him

questions that made him laugh and run away, I got a chance to speak to

him only once. He nodded his head and smiled in a professional kind of

way without in the least remembering who I was. Dick Benton I did n't

have any hesitation in going right up to, as at home I had heard him

solemnly promise mamma that he would look out for me and keep his eye on

me. Of course I don't expect him to do this; but I confess I did feel

sort of disappointed for a minute when he said: "Well, Wood" (he calls

me Tommy at home), "when did you arrive? Getting settled? Got your

courses picked out? Awful bore, is n't it? Well, here 's my car--going

to meet some people in town and am late now. How 's Mrs. Wood? So

glad. Hunt me up when you 're settled. So long." He swung himself on a

passing car and I turned away and stared at a shop window. I must have

stood there several minutes before I realized it was a bakery, and that

there was absolutely nothing to look at behind the glass except three

loaves of bread and a dish of imitation ice cream that had n't been

dusted for weeks (it has just this minute occurred to me for the first

time that I must have been homesick that day and the next. Isn't it

queer, I didn't know what was the matter with me?) I bet I can describe

every article in every shop window in the Square; for there was nothing

for me to do the first few days except to walk up and down and pretend I

was going somewhere. Of course I tried to get the books the various

instructors told me about; but every time I asked for them at the three

bookstores I found either that the last one had just been sold or that

they had n't arrived yet.

Mrs. Muldooney's tables were unfortunately full when I applied and I

have been eating around at the most ridiculous places--ice-cream

parlors, and dairy restaurants where you sit on high stools and grab

things, because you can't get over the feeling that a conductor will

stick his head in the door pretty soon and say, "All Abo-urrrd."

On Bloody Monday night the Freshmen reception took place. I scarcely

know how to touch on that event, as my part in it (or rather in what

followed) was so unexpectedly prominent and terrible.

The old college men at home had let drop all kinds of mysterious hints

about Bloody Monday. In their time, apparently, it was the custom for

the upper-classmen to send grewsome notices to the Freshmen, telling

them what would happen if they did n't have a punch in their rooms on

that occasion. These warnings were written in blood and began and ended

with a skull and cross-bones. Then in the evening there was a rush in

the Yard between the Freshmen and Sophomores. The old graduates knew

perfectly well that the punches had been given up long ago; but I don't

think they liked to admit it even to themselves--although they do groan

a good deal about college days not being what they used to be. From

what they said I could not tell whether there really were such things

nowadays or not, so I wrote a little note to Mr. Duggie and left it on

the stairs, where the postman puts our letters, asking him what to do if

I got a notice, and if there was going to be any rush. He answered:

"The custom, I am sorry to say, is _ausgespielt_; it must have been

great sport. As for the rush--theoretically we don't have it. By the

way, my name (Mrs. Chester to the contrary notwithstanding) is not Mr.

Duggie, but Douglas Sherwin."

At that time I did n't know what the second sentence of his note meant,

but I understand now; it dawned on me during the speeches at the

reception. In some mysterious, indescribable way it was communicated to

me as I sat there in the crowded theatre. Whether it came to me most

from my classmates--packed into the pew-like seats and standing in rows

against the wall--or from the professors who spoke on the stage, I can't

say. I simply became aware of the fact that something was going to

happen--something that wasn't on the program. It was in the air--it

made me restless, and I could n't help thinking of that sultry afternoon

out West when the seven pack-horses stampeded just as we were about to

start; I knew the little devils were going to do something and they knew

it, too, for they all began to buck at the same instant. But I hadn't

said anything about it--and neither had they.

It was just like that while the speeches of welcome were being made in

Sanders Theatre. They were fine speeches; they really did make you

welcome and part of it all--in a way you hadn't thought of before. You

couldn't help being proud that you "belonged," and after the President

had spoken and the fellow next to me yelled in my ear (he had to yell,

the cheering was so loud), "He 's a great man, all right," I felt all

over that he was a great man--everybody did. But nevertheless, there

was something else tingling through the noise and excitement that we

felt just as much. The professors themselves felt it. The elaborate

way in which every one of them ignored the subject of Bloody Monday was

almost pathetic. The Dean in his speech ignored it so radiantly that

the audience actually laughed. Theoretically as (Douglas Sherwin had

said) there would be no rush; the speeches made one quite ashamed to

think of such a thing.

I was n't there when it started, for after the speeches I went with the

crowd into the great dining-hall to be received. It would be nice, I

thought, to be introduced to the distinguished men and to get to know

some of my classmates. Every one was trying to move toward the further

left-hand corner of the vast place, and I soon found myself hemmed in

and carried--oh, so slowly--along with the tide. It was very hot, and as

I am not particularly tall I would more than once have given a good deal

to be out in the fresh night air; but the thought of shaking hands with

the President and the gentleman who invented plane geometry (I did n't

know whether he had anything to do with solid or not; I never studied

it), and another gentleman (a humorist) who wrote a book and called it

The Easy Greek Reader, cheered me up. I knew, too, that mamma would be

glad to hear I had talked to these men. But when, after at least half

an hour of waiting and pushing, I reached the corner of the room, I

discovered that it was n't the distinguished men we had all along been

gasping and struggling for; it was the ice cream. The distinguished men

were lined up away across the room all alone; if it had been rumored

beforehand that they were indisposed with the plague, they could n't

have been much more detached. Every now and then some young

fellow--probably an upperclassman--would snatch a Freshman from the

throng, say something in his ear (it looked as if he were murmuring,

"They 're all perfectly harmless--only you mustn't prod them or throw

things in the cage)", and march him up to be introduced. I watched

these proceedings awhile, and then, as the ice cream in the meanwhile

had given out, I left and started to walk to my room by way of the Yard.

A sound of confused cheering reached me the moment I got outside, and

when I passed through the gate I could see down the long quadrangle what

seemed to be a battle of will-o'-the-wisps--a swaying, shifting,

meeting, parting, revolving myriad of flickering lights and lurid faces.

I ran until I reached the edge of the crowd, and stood for a minute or

two staring and listening. The fellows were surging wildly up and down

and across the Yard with torches in their hands, cheering and singing.

Whenever enough men got together, they would lower their torches and

charge the whole length of the Yard--amid a howl of resentment--like a

company of lancers. Then by the time they had turned to plough back

again, another group would have formed, which usually met the first one

half-way with a terrible roar and a clash of tin torches,--a drench of

kerosene and a burst of flame. Two German bands that never stopped

playing the "Blue Danube" and the "Washington Post" were huddled at

either end of the Yard. Now and then a sort of tidal wave of lights and

faces and frantic hands would swell rapidly toward them, lap them up,

engulf them, and then go swirling back again to the middle. But they

never stopped playing,--even when they became hopelessly scattered and

horribly reunited.

I saw two policemen fluttering distractedly on the brink--pictures of

conscious inefficiency--and felt sorry for the poor things. As I was

standing there wondering where I could get a torch, a slim middle-aged

man with an iron-gray beard bustled up to them, and the three held a

sort of hurried consultation. It ended by the iron-gray man's (he was a

professor) suddenly leaving them and mounting the steps of University

Hall. His expression as he turned to face the crowd was the kind that

tries its best to be persuasive and popular and tremendously resolute

all at once, but only succeeds in being wan and furtive. He filled his

lungs and began to talk, I suppose, as loud as he could; yet all I heard

was an occasional despairing "Now, fellows ... It seems to me, fellows

... Don't you think it would be better..."

No one paid any attention to him, however, and in an incredibly short

time the crowd had crushed itself as far away as it could into the

quadrangle's lower end. I made my way over there, and as I was pushing

into the thick of things a man next to me exclaimed to no one in

particular: "They've sent for Duggie Sherwin, the captain of the team,

as a last resort--he's going to say something from the porch of

Matthews." I saw I never could get near Matthews by trying to forge

straight ahead; so, as I wanted to hear Mr. Duggie (I hadn't known until

that minute what he was), I extricated myself and ran around the edge of

the crowd. Even then I wasn't very near, and, although I could n't hear

a word he said, I could see him--standing on a chair--towering above

everybody and smiling a little as if he enjoyed it. I didn't know what

he said; to tell the truth, I don't think anybody did, except perhaps

the men right around him. Yet in about a minute two or three fellows

began to yell, "All over," "The stuff is off," and "_Now_ will you be

good;" and the crowd fell back a little, attempting to spread out. The

spell somehow was broken; for owing to Mr. Duggie's wonderful influence

we would have dispersed quietly if it had n't been for that flighty

idiot, Berrisford.

I had picked up a torch that some one had thrown away and was moving

along with it when Berrisford dashed up to me with something

round--about the size of a football--wrapped in a newspaper. One of the

sleeves of his coat was gone; he was breathing hard and seemed to be

fearfully excited.

"It's your turn now," he gasped, and thrust the parcel into my hand.

"Why--what is it?--what are we going to do? The rush is over," I

answered, for I did n't understand.

"Of course the rush is over--stupid," he said hurriedly. "We're playing

a game now--'The King's Helmet'--and you 're It. I _was_ It--but I'm

not any more; you are now. Hurry up, for Heaven's sake, or they'll get

it. Here they come--run for all you 're worth; it may mean a lot for the

class." This last and the fact of my catching sight just then of some

men running toward me decided me. I clutched the parcel to my side and

scudded down the Yard. Every one fell back to let me pass, and my

progress was followed by screams of delight. I never had attracted so

much attention before, and from the things that were shouted at me as I

flew along I knew I was doing well. At the end of the Yard I ran smash

into a building, but although somewhat dazed I managed to hang on to the

parcel, turn, and look back. The only person pursuing me, apparently,

was a bareheaded policeman--and he was alarmingly near. But I managed

to pass him, and on my return trip I noticed that I received even a

greater ovation than the one the fellows had given me at first. I did

n't know what it all meant, and I was nearly dead, and suddenly tripped,

staggered, and fell into the arms of a second policeman who handled me

very roughly and seized Berrisford's package. It contained the helmet

of the bareheaded one, who arrived in a moment exceedingly exhausted,

but able, nevertheless, to shake his fist in my face.

The parade to the police station must have been several blocks long--I

heard about it afterward. First there was me with an escort of two

officers, all the muckers in Cambridge, and the Freshman class in a

body, who started a collection on the way over with which to bail me

out. Then there was a German band playing the "Blue Danube," and after

that "a vast concourse" (as Berrisford called it) of Sophomores,

upperclassmen, and law students with another German band playing the

"Washington Post" in their midst.

I was almost paralyzed with fright, and my head ached dreadfully from

the blow I had given it against the building; but although I did n't

show it I could n't help feeling furious at Berrisford. He stayed right

behind me on the way over and kept saying at intervals,--

"It's all right, old man. Don't worry--there's no use worrying; just

leave everything to me."

*III*

Perhaps, after all, my troubles were for the best. It was not my fault

that I fell into the hands of the law; nothing was further from my

thoughts than a desire to be disorderly. Of course the teasing I have

had to endure is pretty hard, and it is most annoying to acquire a

nickname at the outset (everybody calls me "Trusting Thomas" or "Tommy

Trusting"), and although I realize now that I was pretty "easy" to do

what Berrisford told me to, my conscience has been untroubled from the

first. That, after all, is the main thing.

Berrisford, I think, would have tried (as he said) "to smooth it all

over" at the police station, but very fortunately the arrival of the

Regent and my adviser and the iron-gray man at once took the matter out

of his hands. I don't know what they did to the officers, but I was

quickly transferred from the police station to the room of my adviser.

It was more or less impossible to return the money that had been

collected from the class to bail me out with, so just as I left a fellow

with a loud voice proposed amid great cheering to give it to the

Freshman Eleven.

There had been something spectacular and brilliant about my progress

from the Yard to the lock-up that, terrified though I was, I could not

help appreciating in an abject, wretched sort of a way. But the silent

walk down a back street to the hall in which my adviser lives was just

common or garden melancholy. The sidewalk was broad, so we swung along

four abreast. No one followed us, of course, and we went the entire

distance in almost unbroken silence. Once the Regent cleared his throat

and said in hard, cheerful, deliberate tones,--

"I see by the evening paper that Japan will not accede to the request of

the Powers." No one answered for about a minute, and I began to fear

that neither my adviser nor the iron-gray man would take advantage of

the opportunity to exclaim, "What a wonderful little people they are!"

I was vaguely disappointed; for of course when the Japanese are

mentioned one instinctively waits for somebody to say this. However,

just as I was beginning to lose hope and had almost made up my mind to

risk the comment myself, the iron-gray man burst out with, "What a

remarkable little people they are!" and my foolish heart was reassured!

I must say that when we reached our destination and the inquisition

began, they were--all three of them--mighty fair and square. The

circumstances of my capture were decidedly against me, and my defence, I

realized, sounded simply foolish. (At one point my adviser jumped up

abruptly and closed a window; I think he was afraid he was going to

laugh.) There was nothing for me to do but tell my story: how I had

watched the rush from the bottom of the steps; how I had gone over to

hear Mr. Duggie's speech, and how Berrisford (I didn't give his name,

however) had come up to me with the helmet in a newspaper and told me we

were playing a game and that I was It. I felt very earnest and

tremulous when I began, but by the time I finished I could n't help

wanting to shut a few windows myself. That--out of the whole howling

mob--they had succeeded in seizing one miserable, little half-dead

Freshman who had taken no part in the actual disturbance, struck me as

being like something in an imbecile farce. It impressed the others, I

think, in much the same way, although the iron-gray man, after a moment

of silence, said: "Do you really expect us to believe all this?"

"No, sir," I answered; "I don't see how you conscientiously can." But

they decided to believe it, nevertheless. My adviser asked me if I knew

who gave me the helmet, and on learning that I did, he intimated that he

would like to know the man's name. I preferred, however, not to tell;

and they were very nice about that, too. (I shouldn't have told even if

they had chosen to be disagreeable about it.)

As far as I am concerned I don't believe any action will be taken.

There is no end, though, to the ominous rumors of what the Faculty will

do in general. One day we hear that the two lower classes won't be

allowed to play football this year, and the next, that all the Freshmen

are to be put on what is called "probation;" everybody, in an indefinite

sort of way, is very indignant. To tell the truth, I don't see why; but

as all the rest are, I am, too.

Berrisford has been very nice ever since that Monday night. At first I

think it was a desire to "make amends" that caused him to spend so much

time in my room and ask me to do so many things with him and his

friends; but of course he never put it that way. He was very much

worried when I told him that my adviser and the Regent had tried to find

out who had given me the helmet, and he wanted to rush and confess. It

took me a good while to persuade him not to. In fact, I did n't

persuade him exactly, but only got him to agree at length to let Mr.

Duggie decide. Mr. Duggie thought the matter over for a moment, and

said that as my refusal to tell hadn't, so far as he could see, made me

a martyr on the altar of friendship, he thought it would be

unnecessarily theatrical for Berrisford to give himself up.

One day Berrisford asked me where I ate, and when I told him I had been

trying the places in and about the Square, he said: "Why, you silly

thing--why don't you join my crowd at Mrs. Brown's?" He spoke as if the

idea had just occurred to him, but that same morning when he introduced

me to a man who came up to his room, the fellow said: "I hear you 're

coming to our table. That's good." So it must have all been arranged

beforehand. Berrisford 's awfully generous and impulsive and kind, only

he's so scatter-brained and eccentric you never know what he 's going to

do next.

I 've done no end of interesting things since I last wrote in my diary.

I bought a song called "Love's Sorrow" at a music store, had the man

play it for me five or six times, learned the words and then attempted

to sing it at the trial of Glee Club candidates. I 'm sure I sang all

the notes and I remembered the words without a mistake; but something

was wrong. For after I stopped singing the fellow at the piano went on

playing the accompaniment several minutes. And when I took my seat I

heard one of the judges murmur as he wrote something on a slip of paper:

"Fourth heat; Tommy Trusting shows heels to the bunch and wins in a

canter." They told me I would see my name in the "Crimson" when they

wanted me for rehearsal. It hasn't appeared yet and that was some time

ago.

Then one morning I borrowed a jersey and some moleskins from a fellow at

our table and went over to Soldiers' Field to try for the football team.

First we lined up for short sprints of twenty yards or so; then they

divided us into squads and made us practise falling on the ball (I found

chloroform liniment very good for this; but Berrisford maintains that

there's nothing like osteopathy). Afterward we practised place kicks,

drop kicks and punts; candidates for tackle were lined up against one

another and tried breaking through; quarter-backs and centre-rushes

practised passing and snapping back the ball. I tried everything--even

the dummy.

The dummy is an imitation man in football clothes, suspended by pulley

from a wire stretched between posts twenty-five or thirty feet apart.

It is weighted by sand in a bag that is supposed to slide up toward the

pulley as you tackle the thing and grind its nose in the dirt; only it

does n't. What actually happens is that some one pulls the dummy

rapidly from one post to the other, and while the creature is spinning

through the air you hurl yourself at it, cling to it desperately with

your finger-nails and teeth for about the tenth of a second, and are

then flicked off--like a drop of water from a grindstone--into the next

lot. When you return, the coach says he thinks "that will do for this

morning" and enrolls your name in "Squad H." The members of this

squad--it's the largest--are told to report for practice when they see

their names in the "Crimson." All the others have been out every day or

so; but although I've read the "Crimson" carefully every morning I

haven't seen Squad H notified once.

I 've got so that I don't have to look at the printed schedule any more

to see the days and hours of my various lectures. I just go to the

right one when the bell rings as if I had been doing it all my life. In

fact the college world has settled down to a routine of lectures and

recitations, pleasantly broken by football games on Wednesdays and

Saturdays, dining in town now and then, and the theatre afterward. Come

to think of it, I 've been to the theatre rather oftener than "now and

then." At home there are only two; and the things we have there--except

once in a long time--are pretty fierce. But here there are about seven

or eight big ones, and all sorts of continuous performance places, dime

museums and "nickelodeons" besides. You simply have to go pretty often

or you miss something good that everybody 's talking about. Berrisford

goes every night.

I know now what Mr. Duggie meant when he said my allowance would not be

big enough. He said it was generous; there, however, I disagree with

him. I 'm not in the _least_ extravagant, but papa does n't seem to

appreciate how many unexpected things happen that cost money. There was

my new overcoat, for instance. Berrisford was having one made, and I

realized when I saw him trying it on at the tailor's (it's a great,

soft, loose thing; the kind all the fellows are wearing now) that my old

one wouldn't do at all. In fact I had n't cared to put mine on,

although the wind has been pretty sharp once or twice on the way home

from town late at night. The tailor said that now was the time to get a

coat like Berrisford's, as it would be much more expensive later in the

season; so I ordered one. In a certain way it was real economy to do so.

Then, I 've gone to town in the afternoon several times with some of the

fellows who are at our table and stayed at the last moment to dinner and

the theatre. I did n't have enough money with me to do all this and was

n't going to at first; but I found that the others did n't, either, and

expected to charge their dinners at the hotel. You can even charge

theatre tickets if you get them from an agent and pay fifty cents more.

It's very convenient. I bought a few pictures for my study--it looked

so bare (Berrisford has all sorts of queer, interesting prints and

embroideries on his walls that he brought back from abroad); and I

simply had to get some more chairs. For I had only one (the whirligig

in front of the desk doesn't count; it's too uncomfortable), which made

it embarrassing when four or five men dropped in. Then I had a dozen

shirts made at a place just off Tremont Street. The shirts mamma got me

at home are very nice and all that; but they're not the kind the fellows

are wearing here. Everybody has colored ones--pale pinks and blues, or

white with a little stripe of something running through them. Mine were

all white. I really did n't need more than six new ones, I suppose, but

the man said they were cheaper by the dozen. He showed me some really

beautiful neckties that had arrived that day from London. Against the

materials I had picked out for the shirts they were stunning, and as

they weren't dear--considering the duty, the originality of the designs

and the heavy silks they were made of--I let him send me five of them.

There were the prettiest old pair of brass andirons and a fender in the

window of an "antique" shop on Beacon Street that I used to stop and

covet whenever I went into town. They were just the things for my

fireplace, which looked rather shabby--although comfortable. I didn't

think I could afford them at first; but one day when I happened to be

passing everything in the window was for sale at a discount of ten per

cent. The man was very kind and obliging and let me charge them.

They let you do that at all the shops, it seems; but I do think they

might have a little more decency about sending in their bills. The

first of November is three days off--and yet I 've heard from every cent

I 've spent. I don't quite know what to do about it, as my

allowance--even when it comes--won't be nearly enough to pay for

everything; and of course I 'll have to keep some of it for my board and

washing and schoolbooks, and all the other little expenses one can't

very well steer clear of. Before going to bed the last two nights I 've

spent an hour or more in itemizing everything and adding it all up, and

then checking off the people who have to be paid immediately, the ones

who could wait a short time, and the ones about whom there is no

particular hurry. This makes the financial outlook a little more

possible, but not much. And yet Duggie had the _nerve_ to say he

thought my allowance _generous_!

Another matter that I try not to think of is the fact that very soon we

are to be given what is called "hour examinations" in all our studies.

I never imagined they would come so--well, abruptly; when we began it

seemed as if we would take much longer to learn enough to be examined

in. To tell the truth--with the exception of my English course--I

haven't become deeply interested as yet in the lectures. After the

first few times I gave up trying to take notes; everything I wrote

seemed so unimportant. And I haven't done any of the reading, either.

They expect you to do a lot of reading at home or in the library, and

hold you responsible for it in the examination. The man Berrisford and

I have in history is a dreamy old thing who goes into thoughtful trances

every now and then in the middle of a sentence, while three hundred and

fifty stylographic pens hang in mid-air waiting to harpoon the next

word. One day, after telling us to read a certain work on the feudal

system, he added in a kind of vague, helpless way,--

"We haven't the book in the library and I believe it is out of print, so

I don't think you will be able to buy it anywhere; but it's a singularly

perfect exposition of the subject and I strongly advise you all to read

it." They say he knows more about fen-drainage in the thirteenth

century than any other living person except one dreadfully old man in

Germany who 's beginning to forget about it.

We were instructed to make ourselves familiar with another work that is

in the library, and told that without a knowledge of it we could not

expect to accomplish much in the examination.

"I don't suppose many of you will read every word of it," the old man

said, "although it will do you a vast amount of good if you do." I

privately made up my mind to plough through the whole thing--even if it

were in two volumes; I thought it would please him. So, the other day

as it was raining and there was n't anything in particular going on,

Berrisford suggested that we run over to the library and glance through

the book. We'd never been in the library before and had to ask one of

the pages at the delivery desk where the history alcove was. He

couldn't attend to us at first, as there was an angry old gentleman with

a very red face prancing up and down in front of the desk exclaiming:

"It's an outrage--an outrage! I shall certainly speak to the President

about this before the sun goes down upon my wrath!" Several other pages

were cowering behind the desk, and a terrified librarian was murmuring:

"I can have it here the first thing in the morning, sir--the first

thing; can you wait that long?"

"But I want it _now_!" the old gentleman declared; "I shall _not_ wait

until the first thing in the morning. You 're preposterous. It's an

outrage!" He was so emphatic and peevish that some of the students in

the big reading-room pushed open the swinging doors and stuck their

heads in to see what the trouble was.

Well, Berrisford and I found out from the page that he is the greatest

philosopher of modern times. He had come in to get a book that hadn't

been asked for in fourteen years, and had just learned that it had been

carted away to the crypt of Appleton Chapel to make room for something

that seemed to be rather more universal in its appeal.

The page took us to the alcove we were looking for, and Berrisford found

our book almost immediately. My back was toward him when he discovered

it, and I turned around only because of his unusual and prolonged

silence. He was standing petrified in front of eighteen fat, dog-eared

volumes, with his big eyes blinking like an owl confronted by a dazzling

light.

"Is that it?" I inquired after a moment in a cold, hushed voice. By way

of answer he merely rolled his eyes and swallowed as if his throat were

dry.

"It's a masterly little thing--isn't it?" he at length managed to say.

Then without further comment we removed the volumes from the shelf and

piled them on a table in the alcove. They almost covered it. When we

had finished, Berrisford, with a grim look about his under lip, opened

one of them and began to read. I did the same. It was just three

o'clock. We read for an hour without speaking or looking at each other,

and at the end of that time Berrisford took a pencil from his pocket and

began to make calculations on the back of a letter. At last he looked

up as if to demand my attention.

"I have read this book conscientiously--footnotes and everything--for an

hour," he said; he was deliberate and there was an air of finality in

his tone. "I find that I have completed five pages--the meaning of

which has since escaped me. Now, as there are four hundred pages in

this volume and as many, presumably, in every one of the other

seventeen, it will take me one thousand four hundred and forty

hours--sixty days, or two months--to 'familiarize' myself with the whole

set. If we sit here night and day for the next two months without

taking a second off to eat, sleep, or bathe, we shall have glanced

through this superficial pamphlet and pleased the old man."

"I think it has stopped raining," I replied.

We have a new inmate at our house. I woke up one morning hearing such a

strange, wild, sad little song coming from my study. At first I thought

I must have dreamed it, but even after I sat up in bed and knew I was

awake, the sound continued. It was the queerest, most barbaric little

refrain, all in a minor key with words I could n't make out, and was the

sort of thing one could imagine a "native" of some kind crooning to

himself in the middle of a rice-field. I listened to it awhile--almost

afraid to go in; but when it began to grow louder, and then was

interrupted from time to time by the most horrible gurgling and

strangling noises, I jumped up and opened my study door. At the same

moment Berrisford and Mrs. Chester appeared at the other door. In the

middle of the room was a bristling brown thing with pointed ears and

muzzle and shrewd little eyes. It had absurdly big feet and looked like

a baby wolf. Something that seemed to be a piece of leather was

dangling from its mouth. Berrisford threw himself on the floor,

exclaiming: "My darling--my Saga--what is it--speak to me!" and pulled

gently at the piece of leather. The brute rolled his eyes, gagged a

little, and let him have it. "Why, it's the thumb of a glove,"

Berrisford said, holding up his prize for us to look at, "and he dess

tould n't eat it 'tause it had a nassy tin button wivetted on uzzer end,

so he tould n't," he added to the animal.

"That doesn't seem to have stood in the way of his eating the other

one," I remarked coldly, for there was enough of the chewed thing in

Berrisford's hand to enable me to identify the remains of a pair of very

expensive gloves I had bought two days before.

"Heavens!--do you suppose he really did?" Berrisford asked in great

alarm. "Do you think it will hurt him?"

"Of course he ate it. I don't see it anywhere, and they were both

together on that chair. I hope it _will_ hurt him," I said.

"It is n't like you, Wood, to talk that way about a poor, lonely,

foreign thing who 's never been in a house before in all his life,"

Berrisford muttered resentfully.

"Well, he certainly do make the most outlandish sounds," Mrs. Chester

interposed.

"It isn't outlandish--it's Icelandic," Berrisford replied. "He came all

the way from Reikiavik on a Gloucester fishing-smack. I bought him at

Gloucester yesterday for a dollar--didn't I, my booful Saga; ess he did.

And he dess chewed all de checks often de trunks in dat nassy old

baggage car on de way up--didn't he, darlin'? And dat horrid baggage

man was dess crazy 'tause he did n't know where to put off any baggage

and had to delay de twain like evvysing." Berrisford became quite

incoherent after this, so I returned to my bedroom and slammed the door.

I don't think it's right for any one man to inflict a whole community

with a beast like Saga, and I 've told Berrisford so several times; but

he always says: "You seem to forget that I suffer as much, if not more,

than any one. Do you ever hear _me_ complain when he wallows in the mud

and then snuggles up in _my_ bed? Was there any outcry when he ate _my_

gloves and _my_ patent leather shoes and _my_ Russia leather notebook

with hundreds of exhaustive, priceless notes on the first part of

'Paradise Lost'? Did I make a violent scene--the way you and Duggie do

every day--when I gave the tea for my sister and found him just before

the people came--behind the bathtub in a state of coma from having eaten

thirty-six perfectly _delicious_ lettuce sandwiches? You might at least

admit that you think he 's just as distinguished and quaint-looking as

he can be; because, of course, you do think so. You know you love him to

follow you through the Square--with everybody turning to look--you know

you do. Does n't he, _mon tou-tou, mon bebe, mon chien de race_?"

One of the fellows at the table invited us to dine at his house in town

last Sunday evening. Berrisford was to meet me at a hotel in the Back

Bay at a quarter past seven and we were to go together. I took a long

walk that afternoon, and the air was so delicious and the autumn foliage

in the country so beautiful that I didn't realize how late it was until

I looked at a clock in a jeweller's window on the way back. I hurried

to my room to dress, and as I opened the front door my heart suddenly

sank--for upstairs I heard Saga chanting his terrible little refrain.

We have all come to dread that sound at our house, for it invariably

means the loss of a cherished object to somebody. Berrisford calls it

the "Icelandic Hunger and Death Motif." I ran upstairs and found Saga

eating one of the tails of my dress-coat which I had hung over the back

of a chair in my study to get the creases out. He had apparently first

torn it off, then divided it into small pieces, and was consuming them

one by one as I came in. I was already late for dinner, and as it was

Sunday evening there was no one in town from whom I could borrow another

coat. For a moment I could n't decide whether to sit down and cry or to

commit Sagacide.

*IV*

Of course I went to the dinner--and what is more, I arrived almost on

time. I can't give myself any particular credit for this achievement,

however, as it was luck, pure and simple, that got me there. There is

no doubt about it, I am marvellously lucky; I seem to have a knack of

falling on my feet, and although Duggie has taken to worrying about my

"shiftlessness" (as he is pleased to call it) in money matters, and the

calmness with which I regard the approaching examinations and the

academic side of college in general, I have a feeling that everything

will come out all right somehow.

It would sound heartless, I suppose, to speak as if I thought it

fortunate that Jerry Brooks had been stricken with appendicitis just in

time to get me into the dinner, if it were n't for the fact that he is

recovering so splendidly. (I went up to the hospital this afternoon to

inquire.) But under the circumstances it is hard not to look upon his

sudden seizure rather cheerfully--as I know he will enjoy hearing about

it when he is well enough to see people. I was in despair that evening

when his roommate came clattering up our tin steps and pounded on

Berrisford's door; but the instant I ran into the hall and saw him my

heart gave a great throb of hope. He had his dress clothes on; but he

didn't look in the least like a person on the way to dine in town--and I

felt with indescribable relief that, if this were the case, I could have

his coat.

"Isn't Berrisford here? Has he gone?" he exclaimed excitedly. (I had

never seen him before--although I knew his chum, Brooks, slightly.) "We

were going to dine at the same house in town, but my roommate, Jerry

Brooks, got sick just as I was starting and I can't go, and two doctors

have taken him up to the hospital, and the Hemingtons haven't a

telephone, and I thought I'd let Berrisford know, for, of course----"

Well, his coat didn't fit me in a way to make a tailor expire with envy

exactly, but I was mighty glad to get it--and anyhow, I think people are

inclined to take a dress-suit for granted. Berrisford attached no

importance whatever to the fact that his beast had ruined my coat, but

merely said reproachfully: "I hope you let him have the pieces to play

with; he 'll be so lonely this evening with no one in the house except

Mrs. Chester."

I have mentioned the fact that of late Duggie has given intimations of

having me "on his mind." Of course when a man like Duggie finds time to

care one way or the other about what he thinks you ought to do, it's a

great honor. He is the busiest, hardest worked, and most influential

person I ever knew. He belongs to no end of clubs, and besides being

captain of the team he's at the head of a lot of other college things.

Almost every day there's a reporter or two lying in wait for him out

here to ask about the team, and whether he approves of the athletic

committee's latest mandate, and what he thinks about all sorts of things

in regard to which he hasn't any opinion whatever--and would n't express

it even if he had. Besides all this he manages in some way to study

awfully hard and to get high marks in everything he takes. Furthermore,

he's in training most of the year, and just now he has to go to bed

every night except Saturday at half-past nine or ten. He's almost

always amiable and kind to people, and I think he's great. I can't help

liking the fact that he drops into my room and sits down and talks the

way he does. Some of the fellows at our table found him there the other

day and were scared to death. But at the same time I have a feeling

that he does n't think Berrisford and I are just what we ought to be.

As if people could be different from the way they 're made! I know that

sometimes he would like to say things that, after all, he never quite

does.

Of Berrisford, I 'm sure, he doesn't approve at all. I don't, of

course, believe for a moment that he was anything but amused at the way

Berrisford conjugated the French verb for him the other day; but as it

is the sort of thing that Berri takes an uncontrollable joy in doing, I

think Duggie has an idea that he is n't good for anything else.

Duggie--I can't imagine why--has never studied French until this year.

He enrolled in a class only a week or so ago, and though it's merely an

extra course with him and he could get his degree just as easily without

it, he goes at it as if it were all-important. Berrisford knows French

as well as he knows English, and volunteered to help him with his

exercises. The other afternoon Duggie ran into Berri's room and said:

"I 've an idea that we're going to have '_je suis bon_' in French

to-day; I wish you would write out a few tenses for me so I can learn

them on the way over--I simply have n't had a minute to myself for two

days." Naturally Berrisford seemed delighted to help him, and gravely

wrote something on a piece of paper that Duggie carried off just as the

bell was ringing. When he got into the Yard and slowed up to look at

it, this is what he found:

_Je suis bon_

_Tu es bones_

_Il est beans_

_Nous sommes bonbons_

_Vous etes bonbonnieres_

_Ils sont bon-ton._

Of course he did n't actually care; but I don't think the incident

helped in Duggie's opinion to throw any very dazzling light on

Berrisford's really serious qualities. Duggie regarded it, I 'm sure,

as about on a par with the way we get out of sitting through our history

lecture.

One day when the dreamy old gentleman who conducts the history course

was trying to prove that Charlemagne either was or was n't surprised (I

've forgotten which) when the Pope suddenly produced a crown and stuck

it on his head, a ripple of mirth swept gently across the room, very

much as a light breeze ruffles the surface of a wheatfield. No one

laughed out loud; but when between three and four hundred men all smile

at once, it makes a curious little disturbance I can't quite describe.

The old gentleman looked up from his notes, took off his spectacles,

chose one of the other pairs lying on the desk in front of him (he has

three or four kinds that he uses for different distances), and inspected

the room. But by the time he had got himself properly focused there was

nothing to see; the fellow who had made every one giggle by climbing out

of the window and down the fire-escape was probably a block away. So,

after a troubled, inquiring look from side to side, the dear old man

changed his spectacles again and went on with the lecture.

Now, although it had never occurred to any one to crawl down the

fire-escape until that day, every one in our part of the room has become

infatuated with the idea, and three times a week--shortly after

half-past two--there is a continuous stream of men backing out the

window, down the iron ladder and into the Yard. In fact, the struggle

to escape became so universal and there were so many scraps at the

window and in mid-air on the way down over who should go first, that

Berrisford evolved the idea of distributing numbers the way they do in

barbershops on Saturday afternoon when everybody in the world becomes

inspired with the desire to be shaved at the same time. It works

beautifully; but of late the undertaking is attended by considerable

risk.

At first Professor Kinde stopped lecturing and fumbled for his other

spectacles only when he heard the class titter; I don't believe he in

the least knew what was going on. But recently he has become extremely

foxy. Although he has n't spoken of the matter, he realizes what is

happening, and I think the ambition of his declining years is to catch

somebody in the act of darting toward the window. At irregular

intervals now, throughout his lectures, he--apropos of nothing--drops

his notes, seizes a fresh pair of spectacles, makes a lightning change,

and then peeks craftily about the room while the class tries hard not to

hurt his feelings by laughing. Then, disappointed, but with an air of

"I 'll-surely-strike-it-right-next-time," he changes back again and

continues. The lectures have become so exciting and fragmentary that

Berrisford and I are torn with the conflicting desires to stay and see

what happens and to get out into the wonderful autumn weather. Usually,

however, we leave, and the last time, just as I was preparing to drop to

the ground, Duggie strode in sight. Berrisford, half-way down, happened

to glance over his shoulder. When he saw Duggie he swung around, struck

an Alexandre Dumas attitude, and exclaimed dramatically,--

"Sire, we have liberated the prisoners, cut away the portcullis and

fired the powder magazine. Is 't well?" Duggie laughed.

"Powder magazines aren't the only things that get fired around these

parts, monsieur," he answered as he passed on.

Now, there was nothing disagreeable either in the remark or the way

Duggie made it; he seemed perfectly good-natured, and, although in a

great hurry, very much amused. But, somehow, it was n't quite as if any

one else had said it. I don't know what "reading between the lines" is

called when there aren't any lines to read between; but anyhow that's

what I couldn't help doing. Duggie's little thrust was made at

Berri--but it was intended for me. And that 's what I mean when I say

Duggie has me on his mind. He would have Berri there, too, if he liked

him; but he does n't. I think he firmly believes that he regards us

both with the utmost impartiality; yet I know (this is recorded in all

modesty, merely as a fact) that he likes me, and that for poor Berri he

has no use at all. Berrisford is tactless; he had no business, for

instance, to tell Duggie about the watch.

One Saturday morning when Berrisford had finished his lectures for the

day, and I found that a cut was to be given in my last one, we strolled

along Massachusetts Avenue, without really meaning to go anywhere, until

we came to the bridge across the Back Bay. We leaned over the rail

awhile and watched the tide clutching viciously at the piers as it

swirled out, and then, farther up, I noticed a flock of ducks paddling

about in a most delightful little mud-hole left by the falling tide.

"I could hit one of those birdies if I had a shotgun," I said, closing

one eye. (It just shows what a trivial remark may sometimes lead one

into.)

"It wouldn't do you any good," Berrisford yawned; "you couldn't get it."

"I don't see why not. I could borrow a boat from the Humane Society and

row out," I answered, rather irritated by Berrisford's languid

scepticism.

"Well, what on earth would you do with the poor little beast after you

did get him?" he pursued.

"What do you suppose?" I exclaimed. "What do people usually do when they

shoot a duck?"

"I think they usually say that they really hit two, but that the other

one managed to crawl into a dense patch of wild rice growing near by,"

Berrisford answered.

"I should have it cooked and then I 'd eat it," I said, ignoring his

remark.

"What an extremely piggish performance! There would not be enough for

any one but yourself. I would much rather go into town with somebody

and have one apiece at the Touraine."

"Oh, Berrisford," I murmured; "this is so sudden!"

When we reached the other side of the bridge we got on a passing car,

and after we sat down Berrisford said, "You 'll have to pay for me; I

have n't any money either here or in Cambridge." As I had just eight

cents in the world and had taken it for granted that Berri was going to

pay for me, we jumped out before the conductor came around, and resumed

our walk.

"If you have n't any money and I haven't any money, I 'm inclined to

think the ducks will not fly well to-day," I mused; for the last time we

had been to the Touraine the head waiter--a most tiresome person--told

me we could n't charge anything more there until we paid our bills.

"I suppose you would just sit on the curbstone and starve," Berrisford

sniffed. And as we walked along I saw that he had some kind of a plan.

He took me through one of the queer little alleys with which Boston is

honeycombed and out into a noisy, narrow, foreign-looking street, lined

with shabby second-hand stores and snuffy restaurants,--the kind that

have red tablecloths. At first I thought it was Berri's intention to get

luncheon in one of these places, although I did n't see how even he

could manage it very well on eight cents. However, I asked no questions.

Suddenly he stopped and took off his sleeve-links. Then we walked on a

few steps and went into a pawnbroker's.

It sounds absurd, but when I discovered what Berrisford was about to do

I felt curiously excited and embarrassed. Of course I knew that lots of

people pawn things, but I had never seen it done before, and like most

of the things you can think about and read about in cold blood, I found

that it made my heart beat a good deal faster actually to do it. In

fact, I did n't care to do it at all, and told Berrisford so in an

undertone; but he said,--

"Why not? There 's nothing wrong in it. You own something more or less

valuable and you happen for the moment to need something else; why

should n't you exchange them? If the soiled vampire who runs this place

(what's become of him, anyhow?) would give me two small roasted ducks

and some bread and butter and currant jelly and two little cups of

coffee and a waiter to serve them, and a mediaeval banquet hall to eat

them in, and a perfectly awful orchestra behind a thicket of imitation

palm-trees to play Hungarian rhapsodies while we ate--instead of five

dollars and a half, I should be just as well pleased; because it will

amount to about the same thing in the end."

Just then the proprietor of the shop emerged from behind a mound of

trousers and overcoats and shuffled toward us very unwillingly, it

seemed to me. But Berrisford said he was always like that.

"You can't expect a display of pleasing emotions for a paltry five per

cent a month," Berrisford whispered in my ear. I don't think, however,

that the pawnbroker could have looked pleasant no matter what per cent

he got. He took Berri's beautiful sleeve-links (they 're made of four

antique Japanese gold pieces), went into a sort of glass cage built

around a high desk and a safe, and did all sorts of queer things to

them. He scratched the under side of two of the coins with a small

file; then he dabbed some kind of a liquid that he got out of a tiny

bottle on the rough places and examined them through one of those inane

spool things that jewellers hang on their eyeballs just before telling

you that you 've busted your mainspring. Next he weighed them in a pair

of scales that he fished out of a drawer in the desk, and finally he

held up his claw of a hand with all the fingers distended, for us to

inspect through the glass.

"Why, you dreadful old man!" Berrisford exclaimed indignantly. "You

gave me five and a half last time. I wouldn't think of taking less."

For a moment I supposed that the game was up and we 'd have to walk all

the way back to Cambridge and be too late for luncheon when we got

there; for Berrisford took his sleeve-links and strolled over to the

door, saying in a loud voice,--

"Come on, Tommy; there 's a better one across the street." But just as

we were leaving, "the soiled vampire" made a guttural sound that

Berrisford seemed to understand, and we went back and got the amount

Berri considered himself entitled to.

"The quality of mercy is a little strained this morning," he said when

Mr. Hirsch went into the glass cage again to make out the ticket. I

always had an idea that a pawn ticket was a piece of blue

cardboard--something like a return theatre ticket. But it is n't, at

all. It's simply a thin slip of paper resembling a check--only smaller.

Well, we had a delightful luncheon. After luncheon we thought of going

to the matinee and sitting in the gallery, but Berri all at once

exclaimed, as if the idea were a sort of inspiration,--

"I 'll tell you what we 'll do; let 's economize. I 've always wanted

to; they say you can be awfully nice and contented if you never spend a

cent, but just think noble thoughts."

"We might go and look at the pictures in the Public Library and then

cross over to the Art Museum," I suggested. "It's free on Saturdays,

you know." Berri thought that would be charming, so we walked up

Boylston Street, stopping at a florist's on the way to send some

American beauties and some violets to Mrs. Hemington, at whose house we

dined that Sunday night. (She was thrown out of a carriage the other

day and sprained her thumb, and we thought we ought to take some notice

of it, as she was very nice about asking us to come to Sunday luncheon

whenever we wanted to.)

Berrisford did n't care much for the Puvis de Chavannes pictures in the

library,--that is, after he found out that they were as finished as they

were ever going to be. At first he was inclined to think them rather

promising, and said that by the time they got the second and third coats

of paint on they would no doubt do very nicely.

"But the artist is dead," I explained. "And anyhow, he always painted

like that."

"Why did n't some one speak to him about it?" said Berri.

"There would n't have been any use; he painted that way on purpose. It

was his style--his individuality," I said.

"Do you like it?" he suddenly demanded. He was looking at me very

intently, and I did n't know just what to say; for although I 've gone

to see the pictures several times, it never occurred to me to ask myself

whether I really liked them or not. I supposed--as every one says they

are so fine--that I did.

"I don't mean do you know how much they cost, or what people said about

them in the backs of magazines when they were first put up. What I want

to know is-- Does looking at them give you great pleasure?"

"I think they 're simply preposterous," I said; and then we went

outdoors again and over to the Art Museum.

We spent the rest of the afternoon there, sitting in front of a painting

by Turner called The Slave Ship, and listening to what the people who

passed by said about it. I did n't think there was very much to

it--it's merely some small, dark brown legs in a storm at sea with a

fire burning. But the people who came to look at it murmured all sorts

of things in low, sad voices, and several of them read long extracts

from a book that Berri said was by Ruskin. When I asked him how he

knew, he answered that it could n't well be by any one else. (A great

many people say that Berri's a fool, but I think he knows an awful lot.)

It makes one tired and hungry to criticise pictures all afternoon, and

when we left the gallery Berri sat down on the steps and said he could

never walk all the way to Cambridge in his exhausted condition; so once

more we found ourselves confronted by famine.

Now, if mamma were only here I know I could explain everything to her,

and she would n't think me so lacking in respect for my ancestors--so

utterly lost--as she evidently does. But until she gets my letter (and

perhaps even afterward) she will be unhappy over the crude, unqualified

fact that I pawned my watch.

It belonged to my great-grandfather and is a fine old thing with a

wreath of gold and platinum roses on its round gold face. I got

twenty-five dollars on it. Nobody but Berri would have known, and there

would n't have been the least fuss if Uncle Peter had n't come to town.

He was in Boston on business and appeared in my room one afternoon a few

days afterward. I was ever so glad to see somebody from home, and I

introduced him to Berri, who helped me show him the gym and Soldiers'

Field and the glass flowers and pretty much everything open to visitors.

He had a lovely time and asked us to dinner in the evening.

We had a pleasant dinner--only Uncle Peter kept glancing at his watch

every few minutes (he was leaving on an early train). Finally he said:

"What time is it, Tommy? I 'm afraid I 'm slow."

From force of habit I felt for my watch, and then, I suppose, I must

have looked queer, for Berrisford began to chuckle, and Uncle Peter,

after a moment of mystification, jumped hastily to a conclusion that, I

am sorry to say, happened to be correct. He rubbed it in all through

dinner and on the way to the station, and I suppose when he reached home

he told mamma the first thing. For the evening of the day he arrived I

got a telegram from mamma that said: "Redeem watch immediately. Keep

this from your father; it would kill him."

Of course Berri had to elaborate the thing in his best style and keep

Duggie awake for half an hour while he told him about it.

"I made it very graphic," he said to me gloomily, "but somehow or other

it didn't seem to take."

*V*

The crash has come, and the Dean and my adviser, two or three

instructors, some of the fellows at the table, and even Berrisford (this

last is a little too much), have all taken occasion to inform me

regretfully that they foresaw it from the first. This is the sort of

thing that makes a man bitter. How did I know what was ahead of me? If

they all realized so well that I was going to flunk the hour exams, why

did n't they let me know then? It might have done some good if they had

told me three weeks ago that they thought me stupid; but I fail to see

the point of their giving me to understand at this stage of the game

that they themselves all along have been so awfully clever. Yet, that's

just what they've done; all except Duggie. And strangely enough it was

Duggie that I most dreaded. As a matter of fact he has scarcely

mentioned the subject. When I went into his room one night and stood

around for a while without knowing how to begin and finally came out

with,--

"Well, I suppose Berri 's told you that I didn't get through a single

exam?"--he merely said,--

"That 's tough luck; I 'm darned sorry;" and then after a moment he

added: "Oh, well, there 'll be some more coming along in February; it is

n't as if they were n't going to let you have another whack at things."

"Of course I know it is n't my last chance," I answered drearily; "but I

can't help feeling that the fact of its being my first makes it almost

as bad. It starts me all wrong in the opinion of the Dean and my

adviser and the college generally." Somehow I could n't bring myself to

tell Duggie what I thought, and what, in a measure, I still

think--namely, that the marks I got were most unjust. There 's something

about Duggie--I don't know what it is exactly--that always makes you try

to take the tone, when you 're telling him anything, that you feel he

would take if he were telling the same thing to you. This sounds rather

complicated, but what I mean, for instance, is that if he got E in all

his exams and thought the instructors had been unjust, he would probably

go and have it out with them, but he would n't complain to any one else.

Of course it 's simply nonsense even to pretend, for the sake of

argument, that Duggie could flunk in anything; but, anyhow, that 's what

I mean.

However, I did n't have the same hesitation in saying to Berrisford that

I considered myself pretty badly treated.

"I know, of course, that I didn't write clever papers," I told him, "but

I at least wrote long ones. They ought to give me some credit for that;

enough to squeeze through on, anyhow." Berri agreed with me perfectly

that all the instructors were unjust, yet at the same time he said, with

a peculiarly irritating, judicial manner that he sometimes assumes when

you least expect it,--

"But I can understand--I can understand. It's most unfortunate--but it

's very human--very natural. As long as we employ this primitive,

inadequate method of determining the amount of a man's knowledge, we

must expect to collide every now and then with the personal equation."

This sounded like a new superintendent addressing the village school

board for the first time, but I did n't say anything, as I knew there

was something behind it that Berri did n't care just then to make more

clear. Berri has exceedingly definite ideas about things, but he "aims

to please;" he finds it hard to express himself and at the same time to

make everything come out pleasantly in the end.

"What you say is no doubt important and true," I answered; "but I don't

know what it means."

"Why, I simply mean that in thinking the matter over one can't get

around the fact that ever since college opened you 've been--what shall

I say? People have been more aware of you than your size would seem to

justify; you 've been, as it were, a cinder in the public eye."

Berrisford stopped abruptly, and for a moment looked sort of aghast.

"Oh, I beg your pardon," he exclaimed, more in his natural tone; "I had

n't any idea it was coming out that way; that's the trouble with

metaphors."

"I don't see how I 've been more of a cinder than any one else--than

you've been, for instance," I objected. "I 've seen more of you than I

've seen of any one, and I 've been seen more with you," I added.

"That's the frightful injustice of it," Berrisford put in triumphantly.

"That's what I 'm trying to get at." (I don't believe he was at all,

but I let him continue.) "We 've always done about the same things--but

fate has ordained that in every instance you were to leave your impress

upon the wax of hostile opinion, while I was as the house of sand,

effaced by Neptune's briny hand. (Doesn't that last sound exactly like

Pope at his worst?) You see, you got yourself arrested at the very

beginning of things. Of course, socially speaking, it was a brilliant

move; it simply made you. But on the other hand, I don't think it

helped very much to--to--well, to bring you thoroughly in touch with the

Faculty; and one has to look out for that. Then, you know, of all the

hundreds that swarmed down the fire-escape during Professor Kinde's

lectures, you were the only one who had the misfortune to be caught.

This naturally made the fire-escape impossible from then on, and once

more turned the garish light of publicity upon you. And to cap all--you

were inspired to give Mr. Much the fine arts book. Why, my dear child,

your name is a household word!"

The incident of the fine arts book, I confess, was enough to make a man

just give up and turn cynical.

Mr. Much is a Boston architect who comes out from town twice a week to

lecture on ancient art. They think a great deal of him in Boston. He

stands at the head of his profession there, because, as he's never built

anything, even the most critical have no grounds for complaint. Berri

says there are lots of people like that in Boston,--painters and writers

and musicians who are really very great, but think it more refined just

to "live" their works. He meets them at his aunt's house, where they

often gather to talk it all over. Well, at the first lecture Much told

us to buy and read carefully a certain treatise on ancient art and

always bring it to the lectures, as he would refer to it frequently. I

acted on his advice to the extent of examining the book in the

co-operative store one day; but it was large and heavy and the

illustrations were rather old-fashioned, and it cost two dollars, so I

decided I could get along without it. Most of the fellows did the same

thing, and the impulsive few who actually bought it got tired after a

while of lugging it to the lectures, as Much did n't show any intention

of ever referring to it.

One morning as I was strolling over to hear him tell about the influence

of Greek something or other on something else, and the deplorable

decadence it had undergone later at the hands of the Romans, Hemington

darted out of a bookstore in the Square and said: "If you 're going to

Fine Arts, just take this book and give it to Bertie Stockbridge."

(Bertie is his roommate.) "I 'm going to cut; I have to meet my father

in town." I took the book and pursued my way.

Now, that morning, for the first time, Much, after lecturing for about

half an hour, surprised every one by breaking off abruptly and saying,--

"There's a very helpful note on page eighteen of Geschmitzenmenger's

Ancient Art that I wish you would all turn to." Then after a moment he

added: "As some of us may have failed to bring the book this morning, I

think I shall read the note in question aloud." He came to the edge of

the platform and with a solicitous smile held out his hand; but no one

in the front row had a book to lend him. His smile changed to an

expression of mild disgust, and he glanced along the second row of

seats. No one responded, however, and he swept the room with a look of

annoyance, exclaiming, "Come--come," and snapping his fingers

impatiently. Just then the fellow next to me murmured: "Will any lady

or gentleman in the audience kindly lend me a high hat, three rabbits,

and a dozen fresh eggs?" and I laughed. And as I laughed, I leaned over

to hide my face--and there on my lap was Geschmitzenmenger's Ancient

Art; after Hemington had given it to me I was so interested in whether

he would catch his car or not that I had never looked at it at all.

"Is it possible that no one has provided himself with the book I

requested you to procure?" Mr. Much was asking incredulously. I saw my

chance to make a hit, and after a moment of impressive silence I arose

and walked to the platform. There was a gust of dumfounded laughter,

followed by prolonged applause. As I went back to my seat all the

fellows who could reach me insisted on patting me on the back and

grasping me by the hand. It was most embarrassing. But the really

sickening part of it was to come.

Mr. Much made a little speech about me, saying, "I am glad that there is

at least one, etc., etc., etc.," and when he had finished he opened the

book with a flourish and found, as was quite natural, that none of the

leaves had been cut. I suppose this was in the nature of a last straw,

for he simply stood there a minute, fingering the pages helplessly and

smiling the pitiful, philosophic smile of one who has lived long enough

to have had even his most conservative illusions dispelled; then he

turned the book around and held it open for every one to howl at, and

finally he dismissed us with a hopeless gesture that expressed the

unutterable. Whereupon I was seized by strong, willing hands and borne

aloft all over the Yard, followed by the whole class hooting and

jeering.

It was this that led Berri to say that my name had become a household

word.

"You see," Berri went on, "when an instructor reads my examination book,

for instance, the signature of the writer conveys nothing to him; but

when he strikes yours--he stops and exclaims, 'Where have I seen that

name before?' Then he sharpens his pencil to its finest possible point

and gives you E."

"But you do agree with me that it's terribly unjust?" I asked him; for

that, after all, seemed to be the main thing.

"Why, of course it's unjust," Berrisford answered decidedly. "It 's one

of the worst cases that has ever come to my notice."

It did n't occur to me until afterward that, as these were our first

examinations, Berrisford's "notice" had not been particularly extensive.

For I felt so badly about the whole thing that it was agreeable to know

that an intelligent person like Berrisford believed I had been shabbily

treated. It was his moral support, I think, that gave me nerve enough

to complain to my adviser.

My adviser is a young man and seems like an appreciative, well-disposed

sort of person (he offered me a cigar after I had sat down in his

study), so I did n't have any difficulty in telling him right off what I

had come for.

"I 've heard from my hour examinations," I said, "and I find that I have

been given E in all of them." (I was careful not to say that I had

failed or flunked, or had n't passed, as that was not the impression I

wished to convey.)

"We have met the enemy and we are theirs," he answered pleasantly.

"Yes, I heard about that," he went on, "and I hoped you would come in to

see me." Then he waited awhile--until the clock began to get noisy--and

at last he glanced up and said,--

"What was it doing when you came in? It looked like snow this

afternoon." But I had n't gone there to discuss meteorology, so I

ignored his remark.

"I can scarcely think I could have failed in everything," I suggested.

"It is somewhat incredible, isn't it?" the young man murmured.

"I never stopped writing from the time an examination began until it

stopped," I said.

"What did you think it was--a strength test?" he asked brutally.

"I told all I knew."

"Yes," he acknowledged; "your instructors were convinced of that."

"And I don't think I got enough credit for it. If I had the books here,

I feel sure I could make this plain."

"Well, let 's look them over," he answered readily; and much to my

astonishment he went to his desk and brought back all my blue-books.

I confess I had n't expected anything quite so definite as this, but I

tried to appear as if I had hoped that it was just what might happen.

We sat down side by side and read aloud--first an examination question

(he had provided himself with a full set of the papers) and then my

answer to it.

"'Explain polarized light,'" he read.

"'The subject of polarized light, as I understand it, is not very well

understood,'" I began; at which my adviser put his hands to his head and

rocked to and fro.

"If you don't mind," I said, "I think I'd rather begin on one of the

others; this physics course is merely to make up a condition, and

perhaps I 've not devoted very much time to it; it isn't a fair test."

So we took up the history paper and read the first question, which was:

"What was the Lombard League?" My answer I considered rather neat, for

I had written: "The Lombard League was a coalition formed by the

Lombards." I paused after reading it and glanced at my adviser.

"It was a simple question, and I gave it a simple answer," I murmured.

"I 'm afraid you depreciate yourself, Mr. Wood," he replied. "Your use

of the word 'coalition' is masterly."

"But what more could I have said?" I protested.

"I don't think you could have said anything more," he answered

inscrutably.

I read on and on, and he interrupted me only twice--once in the

philosophy course to point out politely that what I constantly referred

to as "Hobbe's Octopus" ought to be "Hobbe's Leviathan," and once in the

questions in English Literature, to explain that somebody or other's

"Apologia Pro Vita Sua" was not--as I had translated it--"an apology for

living in a sewer." (I could have killed Berrisford for that--and it

sounded so plausible, too; for any one who lived in a sewer would

naturally apologize.) He let me proceed, and after a time I could n't

even bring myself to stop and contest the decisions as I had done at

first; for I dreaded the way he had of making my most serious remarks

sound rather childish. So I rattled on, faster and faster, until I

found myself mumbling in a low tone, without pronouncing half the words;

and then I suddenly stopped and put the blue-book on the table and

stared across the room at the wall. He did n't express any surprise,

which, on the whole, was very decent of him, and after a minute or two

of silence, during which he gathered up the evidence and put it back in

his desk, we began to talk football and our chances of winning the big

game. He said some nice things about Duggie, and hoped the rumor that he

was overtrained was n't true. I told him that I lived in the same house

with Duggie and knew him very well, and feared it was true. He seemed

glad that I knew Duggie. I stayed for about fifteen minutes so as not

to seem abrupt or angry at the way my visit had turned out, and then

left. We did n't refer to the exams again, so I don't see exactly how I

can ever right the wrong they have done me. If my adviser were a

different kind of man, I could have managed it, I think.

I have n't seen very much of the fellows lately, except, of course, at

meals--that is to say, at luncheon and dinner, for I can't stand their

comments at breakfast. They greet me with "Hello, old man--what's this

I hear about your trying for the Phi Beta Kappa?" "Is it true that

you're going to get your degree in three years?" "I should n't go in

for a _summa cum_ if I were you; a _magna_ is just as good;" and all

that sort of thing. They evidently find it very humorous, for it never

fails to make them all laugh. I 've taken to breakfasting at The Holly

Tree, as I don't often meet any one I know there. I did one morning,

however, come across the little instructor who had charge of the

Freshman registration and made quavering remarks at me in a kind of

Elizabethan dialect. He's a most extraordinary person. As he does n't

say more than half he means, and as I don't understand more than half he

says, I find conversation with him very exhausting. But I like him,

somehow.

I was reading a newspaper when he came in and did n't realize that he

was standing near me until I heard a slow, tremulous, reproachful voice

saying,--

"Who's been sitting in my chair?" It seems that he always has his

breakfast at the same table in the chair that I, in my ignorance, had

taken. I jumped up, of course, and after he had sat down and leaned

back, he murmured feebly, "I 'm an old man; but I know my place." I did

n't know why he said this, as he is n't an old man at all; he can't be

more than thirty-six or thirty-seven.

"I'm a young man, but I seem to know your place, too," I laughed, as I

looked around for another chair.

"You clever boys chaff me so," he replied mournfully. "You mustn't

chaff me; I'm only a simple villager." Just then the waitress appeared

at a hole in the buff-colored fence that deludes itself into thinking it

differentiates the kitchen from the dining-room, and the little man

pounded softly and gently on the table, exclaiming,--

"What ho--Katy; some sack--some sack!" A request that Katy evidently

understood better than I did, for she withdrew and came back in a moment

with a cup of tea.

"How now, Sir John--is not my hostess of the tavern a most sweet wench?"

the instructor inquired of me; which caused Katy--who had lingered to

hear what we wanted for breakfast--to twist a corner of her apron around

her finger and gurgle ecstatically,--

"Now, Mr. Fleetwood, you stop."

We sat there talking for more than an hour, and I don't know when I 've

had so improving a conversation. We talked mostly about books and

plays. Mr. Fleetwood seems to care a great deal about both and

discussed them differently from the way most people do. At our table at

Mrs. Brown's, for instance, a book or a play is always either "rotten"

or a "corker." But Fleetwood has no end of things to tell about them.

He seems to know all the people who do the writing and acting, and

remembers all the clever remarks they 've made to him at various times,

and the even cleverer ones he made in reply. Finally, when I got up to

go he relapsed suddenly into his more doleful manner and said,--

"You will come to my Wednesday Evenings--won't you?" I felt as if I

ought to have known what they were; but I 'd never heard of them, so I

suppose I looked mystified.

"The lions roar at my Wednesday Evenings," he explained, turning on the

tremolo in his voice, "but they won't hurt you--because they like me.

They 'll like you, too, if you 'll come." I said I should like to come

very much.

"When do you have your Wednesday Evenings?" I asked; for he was so

dreadfully vague. He looked at me vacantly and then stared at the

ceiling awhile, as if trying to think.

"On Wednesday evenings," he at last petulantly quavered; and I left, for

I began to think I was losing my mind.

With the exception of Fleetwood that morning I have n't met any one else

I know at The Holly Tree. To tell the truth, I haven't been very

sociable of late. The result of the exams was rather depressing, and

besides--I can't help realizing that solitude is inexpensive, if nothing

else. I don't like to go in town unless I can pay my share, and, as I

have n't been able as yet even to get my watch out of hock, in spite of

mamma's urgent telegram, I don't see my way to going to the theatre and

eating around at expensive hotels. Of course I could have the tickets

charged--but they 're the least of it. And anyhow I owe so much already

I hate to make it worse. Berri advised me to pawn the old-fashioned fob

that belongs to my watch and get the watch back. (The fob has a huge

topaz or some such thing in it that ought to bring a lot.) But I 'm

tired of disposing of heirlooms.

I went to the first Symphony in Sanders' Theatre the other night.

Duggie gave me his ticket, as the head coach, and the doctor who looks

after the team told him he was n't feeling well and made him go to bed

instead. It was a wonderful concert, and I enjoyed it very much,

although I could n't help wondering all the time why I was enjoying it;

for a man who looked like a Skye terrier played beautiful, sad things on

the 'cello until I felt so lonely and homesick and as if I had wasted my

life and broken my mother's heart, that I began to sniff; and the lady

who was sitting next to me (she had a huge music book on her lap and was

following every note with her finger and swaying from side to side like

a cobra) turned and glared at me.

On Saturday afternoon they would n't let Duggie play in the game, and

advised him to go home for Sunday. He came into my room where I was

sitting by the fire feeling pretty blue, and after talking awhile said

he wanted me to go with him. Berrisford came in while I was getting

ready, and when he saw how little I was taking with me he exclaimed:

"Good Heavens, man--you can't go that way! Duggie wouldn't mind, and

neither would his family; but you must show _some_ consideration for the

servants. And you 'd better take a piece of bread in your pocket, to

munch when nobody 's looking, as you 'll get there too late for tea, and

they don't dine until sometime during the middle of the night." He made

me pack my dress-clothes (they've been mended) and gave me his

hairbrushes, as they have ivory backs with black monograms on them. I

can't feel thankful enough that he warned me in time; for everything

turned out just as he said. (Berri _is_ clever; there's no getting

around it.)

I can't write about my visit to-night; it's too late to do justice to

the novel and delightful time I had. I enjoyed every minute of it; even

the thing that Duggie told me on Sunday morning did n't spoil it.

(Berri said he probably took me home with him in order to break the news

gently.)

We had been sitting on the rocks in the sun, looking out to sea and

listening to the lazy waves break over the beach about half a mile away

(at that distance they looked like a flock of sheep playing on the

sand), when Duggie told me in as nice a way as one possibly can tell

disagreeable news that the Administrative Board had decided to put me on

probation.

*VI*

It's curious how little you know, after all, about the fellows here of

whom you know most. As time goes on I suppose you gradually learn

more--although I 've been told by upperclassmen that they 've seen

certain fellows every day for years, and, while apparently intimate with

them, have never taken the trouble to find out their real names--their

first names, that is to say. And as for knowing what their families are

like--what they 've been used to before they came to college--you can

only guess; and you usually guess wrong. At least, I do. Berrisford,

however, is very wonderful. He has a mind as comprehensive in its scope

as the last seventy-five pages of an unabridged dictionary, and his

talent for sizing people up and telling you all about them is really

remarkable. He is the last person in the world, though, that I should

have picked out as a citizen of Salem, and one day I told him so. He

explained himself by saying that his mother had made an unfortunate

marriage. I felt very sorry, as the only time I saw his mother I thought

her lovely.

"He was very handsome and had a great deal of money, and was the best

and most delightful man I ever knew," Berri went on.

"Well, I don't see anything so dreadfully unfortunate in all that," I

ventured.

"Ah, but he was n't from Salem," Berri explained simply. "He didn't

even have any cousins there, although for a time mamma's family tried to

delude themselves into believing they were on the track of some. They

traced him back to Humphrey de Bohun and Elizabeth Plantagenet, but

there they lost the scent; and as mamma's people--perhaps you know--came

from the King of Navarre and Urracca, Heiress of Arragon, why--of

course--well, you know how people talk. It was all very sad. Naturally

mamma never cared to live in Salem after that, and I think my

grandparents were rather relieved that she preferred to stay most of the

time in France. They used to come over and see us every few years, but

of course no one in Salem ever knew about that; every one believed that

grandfather had to take a cure at Carlsbad--at least that was what was

given out whenever he went abroad. I suppose I can't help seeming

somewhat crude now and then," he mused dismally; "dilute the strain and

it's bound to show sooner or later. But there--I don't know why I've

told you all this; it is n't the sort of thing one can discuss with

everybody."

"All this" was intensely interesting and mysterious to me, but I don't

think I can ever get on to it entirely; just when I 'm beginning to feel

that I 've mastered the details I collide with a perfectly new phase and

find I don't know anything at all. My ignorance has led to several

discussions with Berri--the heated kind that always result in coldness.

When I told him, for instance, that I 'd met Billy in town one morning

and he 'd taken me home for luncheon, Berri said, "How nice," and

proceeded to effect a union of his eyebrows and the top of his head.

"Now what on earth is the matter with Billy?" I exclaimed indignantly,

for I 'd enjoyed my luncheon exceedingly, and the house was the biggest

thing I had ever seen.

"Oh, Billy 's all right. He 's really very nice, I imagine--although,

of course, I don't know him very well," said Berri. "Why do you ask?"

"Who wouldn't ask when you hang your eyebrows on your front hair that

way at the mere mention of his name?" I demanded. "Why do you say 'of

course,' and why do you always make a point of the fact that you don't

know him well? Who cares whether you do or not?" I pursued, for I

wanted to clear this mystery up once and for all.

"Well, you seem to care a good deal," Berrisford laughed.

"Oh, not personally," I assured him, "only in the interest of science."

We squabbled for an hour, and at the end of that time I had discovered

that (1) Billy's family spell their name with an _e_--a most

incriminating thing to do, apparently, and (2) their house is on the

left-hand side of the street as you go up, which (3) makes it easier for

a rich man to pass through the moat into Heaven than to draw a beam of

recognition from the eye of his neighbor. It was all very

confusing--especially as Berrisford insisted that no one had ever told

him these things--he had known that they were so when he came into the

world.

"Well, I don't see how you 've allowed yourself to be so friendly with

me," I wondered sarcastically. "You 've been pretty reckless, it

strikes me. How do you know what side of the street our house is on in

Perugia, Wisconsin--or whether, indeed, we live in a house at all?"

"Oh, you 're different," Berri laughed.

"Different from what?"

"From everything; that's why I 'm willing to run the risk. You 're a

strange, barbarous thing, and I like you immensely."

That was all the satisfaction I got. The reason I thought of this was

because Duggie and I discussed it among other things that Sunday morning

on the rocks.

It was perfectly evident that Duggie's family lived on the right side of

the street, and didn't "spell their name with an e," although I should

never have seen them in this light if Berrisford hadn't opened my eyes

("poisoned my mind," Duggie called it). Duggie's father resembles the

Duke in Little Lord Fauntleroy, and his mother--well, his mother is like

Duggie; one could n't say very much more than that. My impression of

them is that they are between nineteen and twenty feet high, and when

they and Duggie and his elder sister and two younger brothers were

assembled, they looked the way family groups of crowned heads ought to

look and don't.

The sister met us at the station with a cart and two ponies.

"They told me to take care of myself," Duggie said to her sort of

doubtfully.

"He 's afraid of my nags," she explained to me as I clambered up beside

her.

"I 'm afraid of your driving," Duggie answered. "I brought Jack Hollis

down here to rest one Saturday and Sunday," he said to me, "and after

she'd whirled him around the country for several hours on two wheels and

run into a few trees and spilled him over a cliff, the poor thing went

back to town with heart disease and has never been the same since."

Now, of course, Duggie merely meant to give me an exaggerated idea of

his sister's driving, and she, of course, knew that his remark was quite

innocent; but nevertheless she began to blush (it was then, I think,

that I first noticed how pretty she was) and abruptly gave one of the

horses a slap with the whip that sent us plunging and nearly snapped my

head off.

"Hold on, Tommy," Duggie called to me. "This is what I go through every

time I come home." Then, as a flock of terrified hens scuttled

shrieking from under the ponies' feet, he added: "Tell them I was very

brave and hopeful to the end and that my last words were about the

team." But pretty soon the horses settled down into a fast, steady

trot, and we bowled along the prettiest road I 've ever seen--between

thick woods, and, farther on, great, uneven meadows marked off in

irregular shapes with low fences of rough stone. The meadows to the

right ran back to the woods, but the ones on the left stretched away

ahead of us into a vast plain. It gave me a queer, happy feeling that I

can't explain--as if I were going to soar out of the cart and over the

meadows--straight on into space. I could n't imagine where such a sweep

of luminous horizon led to--it seemed extraordinary to come across

anything so much like a prairie in New England. The air, too, had a lot

to do with the way I felt. It was wonderful air--not cold exactly, and

not wet; although I thought every minute that it was going to be both.

It had a peculiar smell to it that, without knowing why, I liked. I

filled my lungs with it, and somehow it made me feel bigger than I

usually do. Then all at once the ponies scampered over the top of a

little incline, and, although Miss Sherwin was telling me something, I

gasped out:

"Oh-h-h-h--it's the ocean!" and forgot what she was saying, and even

that she and Duggie and the cart were with me at all. For I had never

seen it before; and it was right there in front of me--brimming over in

long, slow, green, pillowy things that rolled forward and slipped back,

forward and back, until all at once they got top heavy and lost control

of themselves and tumbled over the edge in a delirious white and green

confusion that slid across the sand in swift, foamy triangles almost up

to our wheels and made the ponies shrink to the other side of the road

in a sort of coquettish dance. Then there was a very slim,

refined-looking lighthouse on a gray rock bordered by a little white

frill where it touched the water, and beyond that, putting out to sea,

was a great ship with bulging sails, and a steamer that left a lonely

trail of black smoke sagging after it for miles.

I don't know how long I stared at these things, or how long I should

have kept on staring at them, if I had n't happened to glance up and see

that Miss Sherwin was looking down at me and laughing. I think she

expected me to say something, but I couldn't bring myself to come out

with either of the only two things that occurred to me--one of which was

that as it looked so exactly as I always thought it was going to, I did

n't see why I felt almost like bursting into tears when we came over the

hill-top and actually saw it; and the other was--that I should have very

much liked to get down and taste it. However, Miss Sherwin had about all

she could do to attend to the horses and did n't insist on an

explanation; so we said hardly anything all the rest of the way, and

just let the wind blow in our faces and watched the waves tumble across

the hard sand for miles.

At first nothing at the Sherwins' seemed in the least real to me. Even

Duggie struck me as altogether different, although he was, of course,

just the same--only seen in unexpected surroundings.

First of all, when we arrived, a groom popped up from behind a hedge and

took the horses; then two young men in dark green clothes with brass

buttons and yellow waistcoats bustled down from the piazza to get our

things out of the cart. They were rather handsome, but had very

troubled expressions, and looked as if they worried a good deal for fear

they shouldn't do it right. Duggie nodded to them over his shoulder,

and I think they were secretly gratified at this--although I suspect

them of having worried terribly for fear they might betray it. They

helped us off with our coats and hats when we got inside, which is all

well enough, and makes you feel as grand as you do in a barber-shop, but

has its disadvantages, for they run away with everything you have, and

lock them up somewhere in a safe, and when you want to go out to play

with the dogs or take a walk and think it all over, you usually have to

tell Vincent to tell Dempsey to tell Chamberlain that you would like a

hat.

Miss Sherwin led me through some beautiful rooms, and as we walked along

she turned to me and exclaimed,--

"Aren't you fearfully keen for your tea?"

I really don't care in the least for tea; in fact, I rather dislike it.

But she seemed to take it so for granted that I should be in a sort of

tea-guzzling frenzy by half-past five o'clock that I hated to disappoint

her, and was going to say, "Oh, yes--fearfully," when it flashed through

me that I could make my reply more elaborate and interesting than this,

and thought it would be rather effective to murmur, "One gets so out of

the habit in Cambridge." Then (all this took only about a second) it

occurred to me that I 'd never in my whole life drunk a cup of tea in

the afternoon with the exception of the time that Berrisford had some

people out to his rooms. So I merely said--which was perfectly true: "I

don't like tea; but I like those thin, round cakes that are brown at the

edges and yellow in the middle." This made her laugh, and I was glad I

had n't said the other thing, because she 's very pretty when she

laughs.

One corner of the piazza is enclosed in glass, and we had tea out there

where we could watch the sunset and the pink lights on the water as it

rolled up almost to the lawn in the front yard. The two younger

brothers came in--one of them has a tutor and the other goes to St.

Timothy's--and while we were waiting for the tea things to be brought,

Mr. and Mrs. Sherwin sauntered across the grass. I forget whether they

had been gathering orchids in the conservatory or merely feeding the

peacocks, but they were both exceedingly gracious and glad to see me.

Yet their very way of taking me so for granted (just as Miss Sherwin had

about the tea) made me uncomfortable at first. They could n't, of

course, have asked me to explain myself--to tell them what right I had

to consume cakes in their crystal palace and enjoy their sunset; but the

mere fact that they did n't seem to expect me to justify myself in any

way made me feel like an impostor.

The man who brought in the tea things had a good deal to do with this.

I 'm quite sure that he disapproved of me from the first. He was older

than the two who met us at the door, and I think he had probably long

since ceased to worry on his own account; but he worried a lot over me.

Later--at dinner--he just gave up all his other duties and stood behind

my chair, mentally calculating the chances of my coming out even or

behind the game in the matter of knives and forks. Whenever I used too

many or too few (which I did constantly) he would glide away and remedy

the defect, or craftily remove the damning evidence of my inattention.

In writing to mamma about my visit I ended my letter by saying: "I had a

delightful time--but it would take me years to get used to their

butler." To which mamma replied: "I'm glad you enjoyed yourself, dear;

they must live charmingly. But I simply can't see why they should n't

have good butter. It's so easy to get it now almost anywhere. Perhaps

they don't eat it themselves and don't realize that they are being

imposed upon." (This will be one of the greatest triumphs of papa's

declining years, as he is always blowing me up about my handwriting.)

Whenever Dempsey (the other servants call him "Mr. Dempsey") came into

the glass place I waited in a sort of trembling eagerness, half

expecting him to announce "Lord and Lady Belgrave and Miss Muriel Fitz

Desmond," but the only person who dropped in was an old man named Snagg,

and although Dempsey made as much out of his arrival as any one possibly

could--you can't, after all, do miracles with a name like Snagg.

However, I was grateful to Mr. Snagg for coming, as it brought me back

to earth again.

To tell the truth, before the evening was finished I began to get over

the unreal sensation I had at first, and saw very plainly that whether

or not I felt at home depended entirely on me. Duggie and his

family--poor things--did n't have any idea that their Dempsey paralyzed

me with fright, or that (just as Berri had predicted) by the time dinner

was ready I was shaky in the knees with hunger. They assumed that a

friend of Duggie's naturally would feel at home and know beforehand what

was going to happen. This dawned on me when I realized that Duggie was

exactly as he always is, and that the others were probably exactly as

they always were, and I couldn't help appreciating after a time that if

they took me so calmly, it was rather unreasonable of me not to feel the

same way about them. No one made any effort to entertain me, which is

very nice--after you get used to it. Mrs. Sherwin played solitaire

after dinner, while Duggie and his sister (she was embroidering

something) and I sat around a fire that Miss Sherwin said was built of

driftwood from an old whaler, and Duggie declared was manufactured with

chemicals by a shrewd person in Maine. I don't know who was right, but

with the sea murmuring just outside the windows and coming down every

now and then with a great thud on the little beach at the end of the

lawn, I preferred to believe in the old whaler theory. Mr. Sherwin would

appear every few minutes to read us something he had come across in a

volume of literary reminiscences which reminded him of something

entirely different that had happened to Thoreau or Emerson or Hawthorne

or Margaret Fuller--all of whom he had, as a young man, known very well,

indeed. He was delightful.

The next day was Sunday, and as no one awoke me, I found when I got

downstairs that it was after ten o'clock and that everybody, with the

exception of Duggie, had gone to church. Duggie had been up for hours

taking a long walk with the dogs. He came into the glass place on the

piazza, where I had breakfast, and read aloud about the game of the day

before. Out-of-doors it was almost as warm as in summer, so we took

some books and strolled along a cliff to a sheltered place on the rocks,

and sat down in the sun. I did n't feel much like reading, although

when you 're sitting out-of-doors in the sun I think it's rather

pleasanter, somehow, to have a book on your lap. Duggie had a shabby

little volume that he read for a minute or two at a time; then he would

stop for five or ten and look at the sea swirling around a rock away

below us. After a while I became curious to know what the book was, and

the next time he closed it over his finger I reached out and took it.

The name of it was M. Aurelius Antoninus, and it seemed to be a series

of short, disconnected paragraphs with a great many footnotes. A good

many of the paragraphs were marked. The only one I can remember went

something like this,--

"Don't act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years. Death

hangs over thee. While thou livest--while it is in thy power, be good."

"I suppose you 're studying this for some course," I remarked after I

had read the extract aloud. "It's so solemn I didn't think you could be

reading it for fun," I added.

"I don't suppose I am reading it for fun exactly," Duggie laughed. "It

isn't very funny to realize the force of that paragraph when there are

so many things you hope to do."

"Well, of course I know I 'm not going to live ten thousand years, but

it's so lovely down here that I don't feel a bit as if I were n't," I

said, lying back in the sun and closing my eyes.

"That's why I read the book," answered Duggie; "it's tremendously easy

to feel that way almost anywhere--down here particularly." He was more

serious, I think, than he looked.

"Why should n't one?" I asked. But he only laughed and told me I 'd

better read the book, too, and find out.

"It might be a short cut--a sort of revelation. It took me a good while

to arrive at it by myself," he added. "Why, when I first went to

Cambridge I had an idea that if a man's family were what's called

'nice,' and well known, and if he had good manners and knew a lot of

other fellows whose families were nice and well known, and people went

around saying that he 'd make the first ten of the Dickey, and be

elected into some club or other--I had an idea that he really amounted

to a great deal."

"Well, does n't he?" I asked boldly, for all that seemed to me pretty

fine.

I think Duggie was going to answer rather sharply, but he must have

decided not to, for after a moment he said:

"I suppose whether he does or not depends on the point of view."

"From yours, I take it, he doesn't?" I mused.

"He has a lot in his favor--all sorts of opportunities that other people

have n't," Duggie admitted, "but I 've come to look at him as quite

unimportant until he tries at least to take some advantage of them.

Good Heavens! the wheels of the world are clogged with 'nice' people,"

said Duggie.

"But what on earth can a person do in a place like college, for

instance?" I objected. "You 're there, and you know your own crowd, and

you 're satisfied with it because it's awfully--awfully----" I

hesitated.

"Awfully nice," Duggie laughed; "and you never see any one else, and

they 're all more or less like you--and the rest of your class is

composed of grinds, muckers, and 'probably very decent sort of chaps,

_but_'----" Here Duggie reached over and gave me a push that nearly

sent me into the sea. "But dontche care--I didn't mean to get started.

And anyhow there 's plenty of time."

"Only ten thousand years," I replied.

"Fleetwood's Wednesday Evenings begin next week. If you want to remove

your infamous towhead from its richly upholstered barrel for a minute,

you 'd better come around," he suggested. "Fleetwood had his Wednesday

Evenings on Friday last year because he thought it was more quaint--but

I see he 's changed back."

"He told me if I came I should hear a lion roar," I said, trying to

remember my talk with Fleetwood at The Holly Tree. At this Duggie lay

back and shrieked aloud.

"That man will be found some day torn into small, neat shreds," he

managed to say at last.

"Why?" I asked--for I knew he liked Fleetwood.

"Why, because I'm the lion," Duggie giggled.

*VII*

It must be several weeks since I 've written a word in my diary. To

tell the truth, I spend so much time writing other things--things that

are printed and sold--actually--at the bookstores--that somehow my own

every-day affairs don't seem so important as they did. In a word--I 've

been made an editor of the Advocate. It seems so wonderful to be an

anything of anything with my name in print on the front page just above

the editorials--the editorials that, as Duggie says sarcastically, have

made the President and the University what they are. Mamma was delighted

at my success, and so was Mildred--although she tried to be funny over

my triolet, When Gladys Sings, in the last number, and wrote me that,

unless Gladys were the name of a quadruped of some kind, amputation here

and there would have improved her. Even papa was pleased, I think,

although my first story made him very angry and he wrote me a terrible

letter about it. I had simply described, as accurately as I could

remember it, the time he went as "The Silver-Tongued Orator from

Perugia" to make a political speech in the country and took Mildred and

me with him. I told about the people at whose house we stayed,

described the house and recorded our conversations at dinner and supper.

That was really all there was to it. I considered it quite harmless.

The Crimson in criticising it said: "The Jimsons--a humorous sketch by a

new writer--is the only ray of sunlight in a number devoted almost

exclusively to battle, murder, and sudden death;" a Boston paper

reprinted it in full, and papa was perfectly furious. He wrote to me

saying (among several pages of other things): "While admitting that your

description of my friends is photographic and, in an inexpensive and

altogether odious fashion, rather amusing, I take occasion to call your

attention to the fact--it seems to have escaped you--that they are,

after all, my friends. Furthermore (passing from the purely ethical to

the sternly practical), it is among just these people that you will, in

the not very distant future, be engaged in making (or trying to make) a

living. Kindly snatch a moment or two from your literary pursuits and

think this over in some of its more grim possibilities." He also rather

superfluously informed me that I would "be older some day" than I am

now. (This remark, by the way, seems to have a peculiar fascination for

men who have passed the age of fifty.) I showed the letter to Berri,

and when he had finished it he said thoughtfully: "A few communications

like this, and the keen edge of one's humor would become a trifle

dulled."

My election to the Advocate came about in the most unexpected way

possible. It's queer how things happen. Berri was sitting in my room

one afternoon apparently reading by the fire. Suddenly he looked up and

exclaimed:

"Do you realize, Tommy, that failure is staring us in the face?"

"Why, I was in hopes that it had begun to--to avert its gaze somewhat,"

I answered, for I thought of course he was referring to the hour

exams--and I 've studied a little every day since that calamity.

"Besides," I added, "I don't see why you need complain; you got

through."

"Oh, I'm not talking about our studies," Berri said impatiently; "they

're a detail. I mean that we don't seem to be getting anywhere; we 're

not turning our accomplishments to any practical account; we 're not

helping the college any and making ourselves prominent--prominent in a

lawful sense, I mean."

"But we haven't any accomplishments," I objected. "We both tried for

the Glee Club and they would n't have us; and everybody agreed that we

couldn't play football--although we went out and did everything they

told us to. We can't play the banjo or mandolin, and it's too early in

the year to find out whether we 're any good at rowing or track

athletics or baseball; so there 's nothing left. What on earth can a

person do who has n't any talent or skill or ability of any kind?" I

demanded gloomily.

"He can always write," Berri answered, "and he can always be an editor."

"Oh! you mean we ought to try for the Crimson or something."

"Well, not the Crimson exactly," Berrisford mused; "they say you have to

work like anything on the Crimson; they make you rush about finding out

when things are going to happen, or why they didn't happen when they

said they would. That would be awfully tiresome--because of course you

wouldn't care whether they happened or not. I 'd just like to sit

around and edit; any one could do that."

"I should think you 'd go in for the Lampoon," I suggested; for I

remembered that one of the Lampoon men had drawn a picture of something

Berri had done. Professor Snook, who knows such a lot about folk-lore,

was going to give a lecture in Sever Hall on The Devil. It was

announced on all the bulletin boards by means of printed placards that

read like this: "Thursday, November 10, Professor John Snook will

deliver a lecture on The Devil;" and under the one outside of

University, Berri wrote in pencil: "The first of a series on

personalities that have influenced me." If he got himself noticed by

the Lampoon without trying, I thought there was no telling what he could

do if he put his mind to it. We discussed the matter awhile without,

however, deciding on any definite plan.

That night we went to Fleetwood's first Wednesday Evening, and there I

was introduced to-- But I 'm going too fast. I 'd better tell about

the Wednesday Evening first.

When I suggested going Berri was n't particularly enthusiastic about it.

He said he was afraid it would resemble one of his aunt's receptions

where everybody was so cultivated that it was just like reading Half

Hours with the Best Authors on a warm Sunday afternoon. I had an idea

that it might be something like that myself, but I finally persuaded

Berri to go with me notwithstanding.

I don't know what to make of myself sometimes. When I 'm with Duggie I

'm inclined to take things rather seriously; but when I 'm with Berri it

all seems like a joke. They 're so different, and yet I feel as if I

were so much a friend of both. When all three of us happen to be

together I find it most uncomfortable. Of course Berri thought the

Wednesday Evening highly amusing.

It was rather late when we arrived, and the room was crowded with

fellows, very few of whom I had ever seen before. Fleetwood opened the

door for us, with a Shakespearian quotation trembling aptly on his lips,

and led us through the crowd to his inside room, where we left our coats

and hats.

"You must come and meet my lions and hear them roar," Fleetwood said to

us; and was about to take us across the study to where Duggie was

standing against the wall with a semicircle of Freshmen in front of him

drinking in his every word.

"Good gracious, man--you don't mean to say you got me away over here on

a cold night to hear Duggie Sherwin drool about football," Berri

exclaimed to me. Mr. Fleetwood laughed, and seemed to think this was

very funny.

"Just look how glad of the chance all those others are, you

unappreciative boy," he said reproachfully to Berri.

"Oh, well--he doesn't wake them up at a horrible hour every morning

yelling like a fiend under a shower-bath," Berri explained. "You see,

the lion and I occupy the same lair--or do lions live in a den? I never

can remember."

"Perhaps Mr. Ranny knows," said Fleetwood to a tall, studious-looking

fellow who had evidently planned his escape and was in the act of shyly

carrying it out when Fleetwood detained him. Fleetwood introduced him

to Berri and slid away to greet another man who had just opened the

door. As I moved off to join Duggie's group, Berri gave me a queer

look; but a few minutes later I happened to glance across at him, and as

the tall fellow was laughing at everything Berri said I knew that Berri

was enjoying himself.

Duggie shook hands with me and said good-evening just as if he had n't

been in my room sprawling on the floor in front of the fire an hour and

a half before, and then went on with what he was saying to the fellows

nearest him--some polite looking little chaps; Freshmen, although I had

never seen them before.

The talk was mostly about football; the games that had been played and

the ones still to come--comparative scores and the merits and defects of

players at other colleges. Of course Duggie could discuss only with the

fellows just in front of him. I think he realized how embarrassing it

would be to any of the others if he were to single them out and address

remarks to them. Besides, it might have sounded patronizing. Yet every

now and then, when whoever was talking happened to say something funny,

Duggie somehow included the whole crowd in the laugh that followed. I

think he managed it by catching everybody's eye at just the right time;

I know that--although I was merely standing there looking on--whenever

he caught mine, I felt as if I were right in the game. This often had

the effect of causing a fellow to say something to the fellow next to

him, and so it frequently happened that people who had joined the group

merely to rubber in embarrassed silence at Duggie, found themselves

making acquaintances and talking on their own account. I learned

afterward that this was precisely what Fleetwood and Duggie counted on.

It was Fleetwood's chief reason for having Duggie as often as he could

at his Wednesday Evenings, and Duggie's only reason for going.

Across the room there was another centre of attraction in the person of

a fine but rather pompous-looking old gentleman with a pink face and a

snowy beard. His audience was more talkative than Duggie's, but not so

large. It was n't composed entirely of Freshmen, either. As I was

standing there making up my mind to slide through the intervening crowd

and find out what he was talking about, Berri, who had been standing

with a rapt expression on the outskirts of the second group, detached

himself and came over to me. "You simply must come and listen to him;

it's perfectly thrilling," he said.

"I was just going over to investigate," I answered. "What 's his

specialty?"

"I don't know how to describe it exactly," Berri replied; "he's a kind

of connecting link with the literary past; he 's what phonographs will

be when we get them perfected. Dickens once borrowed his opera-glasses

on the evening of the twelfth of June years ago, and some years later

Thackeray stepped on his foot at a dinner-party. He remembers what they

said perfectly, and gets asked out a lot. I 've heard him tell the

Thackeray thing twice now, and he 's going to do it again in a minute if

there 's enough of a crowd."

We went over and listened to him for ever so long, and although Dickens

_had_ borrowed his opera-glasses and Thackeray _had_ stepped on his

foot, he was n't in the least what Berri had led me to expect. I found

him delightful and was sorry when he had to leave. (Berri insisted that

he was driven rapidly to town to the Palace Theatre, where he was due to

appear at 10.50--between a trick bicyclist and a Dutch comedian.)

When we had said good-by to him, Fleetwood came up bringing a

pleasant-looking chap with spectacles. (I had often seen him in the

Yard.)

"This is Mr. Paul," Fleetwood said to me, "and he wants to have words

with you."

Mr. Paul talked about the old gentleman for a minute or two, and then

said quite abruptly,--

"We 've been reading your stuff in English 83, Mr. Wood, and the fellows

think it's darned good. I wish you 'd let us have some of it for the

Advocate."

I was so astonished I just looked at him. Then he went on to say that he

wanted to print two of my themes--The Jimsons, and a description of

something I saw one night in town--and that if I wrote a third and it

turned out to be good, they would make me an editor! He had said that

the Monthly had designs on me (imagine), and that although the Advocate

did n't often do things so hastily, it (I wonder if it's silly of me to

write this down?) didn't want to lose me. I told him that I 'd never

dreamed of getting on one of the papers and felt as if he were making

fun of me. But he assured me he was n't.

Duggie and Berrisford and I walked home together, and when we reached my

room Duggie and Berri began to squabble over Fleetwood's Wednesday

Evenings, and talked and talked until Duggie, seeing how late it was,

got undressed (talking all the time) and left his clothes on my floor,

and continued the conversation even after he had gone into his own room,

turned out the lights and got into bed.