Berri, of course, started out by saying,--

"Well, I don't see what 's the good of it," and Duggie immediately

undertook to enlighten him. Whereupon Berri--fearing that the attempt

might be successful--took another tack and exclaimed,--

"I should think you'd feel so ridiculous backed up there against the

wall making conversation--or perhaps you enjoy being an object of

curiosity." Duggie got very red, and I think he considered Berri

unusually cheeky and impertinent, but he did n't snub him and I 'm sure

Berri was disappointed; he loves to irritate people.

"I don't think my feelings in the matter are particularly important,"

Duggie answered. "I don't see why you haul them in."

"Oh! but they are," Berri insisted. "I was n't in the least interested

in you when you were over there doing your stunts; but here, at home--in

the bosom of the family, so to speak--you 're perfectly absorbing. Now,

honestly, Duggie, don't you think that in the end it 'll do you a lot of

harm--exhibiting yourself this way, and sort of saying to yourself: 'I

am the only Duggie Sherwin; when Fleetwood tells the Freshmen that I am

going to be there, the room is jammed'--and all that sort of thing. For

of course that's what it amounts to."

Duggie threw back his head and laughed. Then he leaned forward and gave

Berrisford (who was sitting on the floor with his hands clasped around

his knees), a neat little push that rolled him back until he seemed to

be standing on his neck and groping for the ceiling with his feet.

"Berrisford, sometimes you make me very, very sick," Duggie said to him.

"But own up like a man--isn't that the way you look at it?" Berri

pursued after he had collected himself.

"Of course it is n't--idiot!" Duggie declared indignantly. "Fleetwood

can't do the whole thing himself; he can't turn a lot of shy kids into a

pen and say, 'Now talk and get to know one another.' So he asks other

people to help him. Once in a while he asks me. To-night there were

two of us."

"Two Little Evas--two Uncle Toms--two side-splitting Topsies," Berri

giggled.

"Heaven knows I can talk about other things than football," Duggie went

on, "but I like to talk about it, and they do, too--so why shouldn't we?

And when they have enough of me they get to talking with some one

else--some one in their own class, very likely--or maybe to two or

three. Then they come back again next week, and after a few times they

find that they 've made a lot of acquaintances, and perhaps some

friends. And there you are! Their whole four years is probably changed

for them and made infinitely more worth while, merely because Fleetwood

takes the trouble to round them up and make them feel that somebody

really wants them. It's perfectly natural that you should think his

Wednesdays funny and boresome; you always had dozens of rooms to go to

from the first day you came here, and some one in every room who was

glad to see you when you went. But I tell you it isn't that way with

everybody, and you 're not the kind that Fleetwood tries to get at."

"Why did he invite me, then?" Berri asked.

"Upon my soul, I don't know," Duggie declared sarcastically, "but I 'd

be willing to bet that if I see him first he won't invite you again," he

laughed.

Then Berri admitted that Fleetwood's idea was well enough in theory, but

doubted if it really worked.

"That tall spook I jollied this evening for a while was exceedingly

nice; but I sha'n't dash off and call on him to-morrow. I don't suppose

I'll ever see him again," Berri said.

"No, probably not," Duggie assented, "but it's altogether likely that

after time has healed the wound left by your indifference, he may find

consolation in the companionship of some one else. You may not be able

to grasp the fact, Berri, but it is a fact that 'there are others.'" It

was in the midst of this that he began to get ready for bed.

"Why don't you open a salon yourself if you think they 're such

'life-sweeteners'?" Berri called after him when he went into his own

room.

"When I come to the Law School next year, I'm going to," Duggie shouted

back, "but _you 'll_ never see the inside of it; I 'll tell you that

right now."

I did n't join in the discussion at all, for I got to thinking how lucky

I had been from the first. Mamma overheard an old woman on a piazza say

that she made the "young men" change their shoes when it was

"snow-in'"--and that was all there was to it. That chance remark led to

my living in the same house with Duggie and Berri; and what a difference

it has made! Without Berri I never in the world should have known such

a lot of people in so short a time; and without Duggie--well, I think I

understand what my adviser meant when he said he was glad I knew Duggie.

There has been one Advocate meeting since my election and I thought it

was great. All the editors meet in the Advocate President's room on

Tuesday evening to hear the Secretary read the manuscripts that have

been sent in or collected from the English courses during the week. It

took them a long time to settle down to business; in fact no one seemed

to want to hear the manuscripts at all--although I secretly thought this

would be very interesting--and several fellows made remarks and tried to

interrupt (the poetry especially) all the time the Secretary was

reading. But he read on in a businesslike voice and never paid any

attention to them except once, when he grabbed a college catalogue from

the table, and without looking away from the page shied it at a fellow

who was repeating the verses the Secretary was trying to read--only

repeating them all wrong and making them sound ridiculous. In the case

of most of the contributions the fellows began to vote "no" before they

had read them half through; but several of them were hard to decide on,

and the board had a lively time making up its mind. After the reading

we sat around the fire and had beer and crackers and cheese while (as

several of the manuscripts expressed it) "the storm howled without."

A few afternoons ago the Secretary (he has such a queer name--it's

Duncan Duncan), came to my room to see how much I had done on a story I

was writing. It was a little after six o'clock when he got up to go,

and as he was on his way to dinner at Memorial he asked me to dine with

him. I had never been to Memorial at meal time and was glad of the

chance to go. It's a very interesting experience, although I think I

prefer the comparative peacefulness of Mrs. Brown's as a usual thing.

We were joined in the Yard by a friend of Duncan's who sits at the same

table. Duncan is a thoughtful, rather dreamy kind of person (he writes

a lot of poetry for the Advocate), and on the way over he told me how

much he enjoyed living at Memorial--that he never got tired of looking

up at the stained-glass windows and the severe portraits.

"Even with the crowd and clatter there 's always something inspiring

about its length and height," he said. "It has a calmness and dignity

that quite transcend the fact of people's eating there. It's so

academic."

"It's so cheap," the other fellow amended; but Duncan did n't mind him

and became almost sentimental on the subject.

Well, I felt sorry for Duncan. We had hardly begun on our turkey and

cranberry sauce when two of the colored waiters got into the most

dreadful fight and rushed at each other with drawn forks. All the men

jumped up on their chairs and waved their napkins and yelled: "Down in

front--down in front!" and "Trun him out!" As the newspapers say of the

Chamber of Deputies, "A scene of indescribable confusion ensued." It

was several minutes before the combatants were hustled off to the

kitchen and we could go on with our dinner. Then a party appeared in

the visitors' gallery--a middle-aged man, two women, and some girls.

One of the girls was decidedly pretty and attracted everybody's

attention the moment she leaned over the rail. The man, however, was

what caused the demonstration in the first place. He didn't take his hat

off, which Duncan says always makes trouble. I don't think anybody

really cares one way or the other, but it furnishes an excuse for noise.

A murmur of disapproval travelled across the room and grew louder and

louder until the man with a genial air of "Ah--these boys have

recognized me," came to the front of the gallery and bowed. He took off

his hat, which produced a burst of applause from below, and then put it

on again, which changed the clapping of hands to ominous groans. The

poor thing looked mystified and embarrassed, and I don't know how it

would have ended if the pretty girl hadn't just at that instant been

inspired to pluck a big rose from her belt and toss it over the rail.

It fell with a thud in the middle of our table and twenty-four eager

hands shot out to seize it. I grabbed instinctively with the others,

and with the others I 'm exceedingly ashamed of what happened. The

tablecloth and all the dishes were swept off, and in the scrimmage that

followed the table was overturned. I have a terrifying, hideous

recollection of everybody in the world kneeling on my chest and of

something warm and wet on my face and neck. Then Duncan was saying,--

"It's all right, old man--lie perfectly still; you 've cut yourself a

little, but it doesn't amount to anything. Only don't exert yourself."

He looked so scared and white that I began to be frightened myself and

tried to get up. But he and some of the other fellows very gently

restrained me, saying that I was all right in the peculiar, hurried

fashion that, more than anything else, convinces you that you're all

wrong. Duncan's friend and another fellow were mumbling somewhere near

me; I caught these fragments of their conversation: "It _must_ be an

artery--eight or ten minutes if it is n't attended to--Doctor Banning

and Doctor Merrick--telephoned--don't talk so loud--he might hear."

Then I lay quite still and closed my eyes and tried to think.

*VIII*

Looked at in one way, it was a humiliating thing to have happen; but on

the other hand, after it was all over, I was able to derive considerable

satisfaction from the fact that I had n't lost my presence of mind. The

remarks I overheard as I lay on the floor of Memorial were anything but

reassuring. I realized that in the scrimmage for the rose I had been

submerged in china, glass, and cutlery,--that some of these things had

severed one of my arteries and that the worst might happen. Of course I

was very much frightened at first, and it was then that I tried to get

up; but after they restrained me, I sank back and began to think of poor

mamma. I was on the point of asking for writing materials, but on

remembering that an accident of this kind was always attended by a sort

of dreamy weakness, I became--actually--so languid that I recall telling

myself that it would be of no use--I would n't have strength with which

to write, even if a pen were thrust into my hand. So I went on thinking

about mamma until suddenly a man with a pointed beard (I have since

learned he was a medical student who happened to be dining with some

friends at Memorial) dropped on one knee beside me and with rapid,

skilful fingers began to open my shirt. Then he stopped very abruptly,

and with the most disgusted expression I ever saw, turned toward the

light and examined his fingers. After which he got up, brushed the dust

from his knee, and said in a loud, peevish voice,--

"Tell that child to get up and go home and wash the cranberry-sauce off

his face and neck and put on clean clothes," which I did as quickly as

possible without even waiting to say good-bye to Duncan.

They don't call me "Tommy Trusting" any more. It became "Cranberry" for

a day or two, then it was shortened to "Cranny," and now it's

"Granny"--"Granny Wood." Berri says that it has a ring of finality to

it, and that I 'll never be known by any other name.

Since the great game (I don't believe I 've touched upon the great

game), the college seems to have settled down once more to an every-day

sort of existence, with the Christmas holidays looming up now and then

in letters from home. (As I was going out this morning, the postman met

me at the gate and gave me four letters with the Perugia postmark. It

's funny how my feelings toward that poor man vary. When he hands me

letters from home, I think he 's one of the nicest-looking persons I

ever saw, but when he doles out a lot of bills, he seems to have a hard,

cynical expression that I hate. I meet him at The Holly Tree

occasionally, where he goes to snatch a nourishing breakfast of coffee

and lemon-pie.)

I have n't alluded to the great game for several reasons--the chief one

being that (as Berri says when people explain why they didn't pass

certain exams), "I dislike post-mortems." I suppose it might have been,

in various ways, a more distressing event than it actually was. The

seats, for instance, might have collapsed and killed all the spectators;

there might have been a railway collision on the way down; there might

have been an earthquake or a tidal-wave. That none of these things

happened is, of course, cause for congratulation--if not for bonfires

and red lights on Holmes' Field. It is always well, I suppose, to have

something definite to rejoice over. The long trip in the train back to

Boston after the game, with every one hoarse and tired out and cross and

depressed, was-- But I had determined not to mention it at all.

Poor Duggie! I know it nearly killed him. He has tried to refer to it

philosophically and calmly in my room once or twice since then; but he

never gets very far. He knows what he wants to say and ought to say,

but he 's so intimate with Berri and me that I don't think he altogether

trusts himself to say it. I imagine he finds it easier to talk to

comparative strangers. I was afraid at first that Berri was going to

find in the subject a sort of inexhaustible opportunity for the exercise

of his genius for making people uncomfortable; but instead of that, I

've never known him to be so nice. For the first time he has allowed

himself to show some of the admiration for Duggie that, all along, I 've

felt sure he really has, and Duggie appreciates his delicacy--although

in one way it grates on him almost as much, I think, as if Berri were

just as he always is.

The other day mamma said in one of her letters, "I often wonder how you

spend your days; just what you do from the time you go out to breakfast

until you go to bed at--I hesitate to think _what_ o'clock." So when I

answered her letter I tried to put in everything I did that day, and

here it is:--

8.30 A.M.--Woke up in the midst of a terrible dream in which a burglar

was pressing a revolver to my temple, and found that beast, Saga,

standing by my bed with his cold, moist nose against my cheek. I threw

shoes at him until he ran away yelping, which hurt Berri's feelings and

made him very disagreeable to Duggie and me about the bathtub. He said

we ought to let him have his bath first, as it took him so much longer!

9.15. Breakfast at The Holly Tree. Berri came with me, as he said he

disliked last chapters, and it was Mrs. Brown's day for concluding her

great serial story entitled "Corned Beef." At The Holly Tree we found

Mr. Fleetwood, who hid coquettishly behind a newspaper when he saw us

coming and exclaimed,--

"Go away,--go away, you unreverend, clever boy. You--you!" he added,

shaking his finger at Berri. "I don't mind the other one--the little

one," he went on when we had hung up our coats and hats and went over to

his table; "but you have 'a tongue with a tang.' I sha'n't ask you

again to my Wednesday Evenings." Of course this was perfect fruit for

Berri, who sat down at once and implored Fleetwood with tears in his

eyes to tell him what he had done, and begged him not to blight his

(Berri's) career at the outset by denying him admission to the Wednesday

Evenings. He vowed that he felt ever so much "older" and "broader" and

"thoughtfuller," and all sorts of things that he never in the world will

feel, just for going that once. But Fleetwood pretended not to listen to

him, and went on reading the paper, interrupting Berri every now and

then with: "Viper--viper!" or "Serpent--serpent!" I think he really

likes Berri immensely, but is shrewd enough to know that he never can

get at him by being serious. We had a very jolly breakfast, and Berri

left declaring that he would n't rest until he had induced some famous

man to step on his feet.

"Then I 'll be a lion myself and I sha'n't go to your Wednesday

Evenings, no matter how much you ask me," he said. At which Fleetwood

held his head with one hand and waved toward the door with the other,

moaning,--

"Go away,--go away, both of you! You 've caused me to drink four cups of

tea without knowing what I was doing. I think you want to drive me

mad."

10.30. Neither of us had a lecture until eleven o'clock, and we were

looking at some new books in a window on the Square when Hemington

appeared. He touched us on the shoulders in a confidential kind of way,

and then, looking furtively at the people who were waiting near by for a

car, lowered his voice mysteriously, and asked us to go with him to his

room.

"I have something over there that I don't mind letting you in on," he

said. "Only you must n't of course speak of it; it might get us into a

good deal of trouble with the government."

This sounded rather exciting, so we hurried to Hemington's room without

talking much on the way over, as Hemington did n't communicate anything

further and we, of course, could n't help wondering what he was going to

show us. When we got into his study, he gave a peculiar rap on his

bedroom door and out came a strange-looking little person,--short and

plump, with black, curly hair and big black eyes and a sallow, almost

dusky skin. A bright red handkerchief knotted loosely around his neck

gave him a picturesque, a tropical air, that, considering we were in

Hemington's prosaic study in Stoughton Hall, thrilled us from the first.

"This is Amadeo," said Hemington. (Hemi is taking Spanish I., and I

think he enjoyed as much as anything pronouncing the name in a deep,

rich, careless sort of way; he hauled it in every other second.) "It's

all right, Amadeo," he went on, for although Amadeo smiled a most

beautiful smile full of very regular and dazzling teeth, he turned to

Hemington with a look intended to express inquiry and misgiving. "You

can trust these men; they are your friends."

At this Amadeo flashed his teeth again and kissed Berri's hands. Berri

looked exceedingly shocked, and I craftily put mine in my pocket.

"He 's a deserter," Hemington explained; for Berri began to rub his

knuckles with a handkerchief, Amadeo looked hurt, and there was a moment

of embarrassment all round. "He escaped from a merchantman that got in a

few days ago from ----" (As I don't take Spanish I., it's impossible

for me to give the luscious name of the island that Amadeo's boat had

come from. It sounded something like Santa Bawthawthawthoth.) "The

skipper was a brute--a regular old timer, and Amadeo could n't stand it

any longer. He and a pal swam ashore with all their worldly possessions

on their backs done up in tarpaulins (they were fired at six times when

they were in the water), and his possessions" (here Hemington lowered

his voice and Amadeo glanced sharply at the door) "consisted of three or

four hundred of the best cigars you ever smoked in your life. He got

them at Santa Bawthawthawthoth, and as he has n't a cent, of course he

wants to sell them. He asks about a fourth as much as you have to pay

for a perfectly wretched cigar at any place in town. They naturally did

n't go through the custom house, and that's why you have to keep it all

so quiet."

Amadeo went into Hemington's bedroom and returned with an oil-skin

bundle that looked like those round, flat cheeses you see under cages of

green wire in grocery stores. He untied it (glancing apprehensively at

the door from time to time, and once clasping it to his breast when he

heard a step in the hall outside), and disclosed the smuggled treasure.

I have n't begun to smoke yet, but Berri and Hemington each took a

cigar, and after puffing away for several seconds, Berri said his was

simply delicious. It certainly smelled very good, and I was very sorry

I had to run away in a few minutes to my eleven o'clock lecture, for

Amadeo began to tell of some of his experiences on the merchantman, and

they were pretty fierce. Berri cut his lecture, and I should have, if I

were n't on probation. One of the penalties of probation is that you

can't cut without an excuse that holds water at every pore.

11-12 M. Listened to a lecture--with experiments--on physics. The

experiments did n't turn out well, and the instructor seemed much

annoyed. I don't think he has the right idea. My experiments in the

laboratory always give beautiful results. I find out first of all from

the book what Nature is expected to do; and then I see that she does it.

I 'm one of the most successful little experimenters in the class.

12 M. Ran back to Hemington's room. Amadeo had gone, but Berri and

Hemington had bought all the cigars. Berri had learned a lot of Spanish

in my absence, and could say "Amadeo" and "Santa Bawthawthawthoth" with

almost as fluent a hot-mush effect as Hemington could. He packed his

share of the cigars in Hemi's dress-suit case, and we took them over to

our house.

1 P.M. Went to luncheon at Mrs. Brown's, and tried to borrow a shirt

from everybody at the table, but without success. Duncan Duncan asked

me to a tea in his rooms this afternoon to meet his mother and sisters

and some girls from town. I promised to go, but Miss Shedd, my

washerwoman, slipped on the ice and hurt herself and has n't been able

to do my clothes for more than two weeks, and I discovered this morning

that there were no more shirts in my drawer. Berri or Duggie would lend

me one, but Berri unfortunately hasn't any, either, as Miss Shedd does

his washing too, and of course anything of Duggie's on me is ridiculous.

I wore a suit of his pajamas one night when I had a cold, as they 're

thicker than mine, and the shoulders hung down around my elbows. Well,

nobody would lend me a shirt--for no reason in the world except that

they realized I simply had to have one and thought it would be amusing

not to.

While we were at luncheon, Berri and Hemington gave every one two or

three cigars, and Berri said knowingly: "I wish you fellows would try

these and tell me what you think of them. I happened to get hold of

them in a rather odd way; I can't tell you how exactly--at least not for

a few days. They 're not the usual thing you buy at a store. They come

from Santa Bawthawthawthoth."

We went on talking and forgot all about the cigars, until Berri, who is

very sensitive to any kind of scent or odor, suddenly looked up and

said,--

"What a perfectly excruciating smell! It's like overshoes on a hot

register, only much worse. What on earth is it?" At this the rest of

us at the table began to sniff the air, and I confess it was pretty bad.

Bertie Stockbridge had finished his luncheon while we were still eating,

and had taken his chair over to the window, where he was reading

something for a half-past one recitation and smoking one of Amadeo's

cigars. He was too absorbed in his book to hear the rest of us, but all

at once he looked up with a very pained expression and exclaimed,--

"What a beastly cigar! I was reading and did n't notice how queer it

was; it 's made me very sick." Then of course we all discovered at once

where the hot rubbery fumes came from,--all but Berri and Hemington,

that is to say; they refused to believe it. So everybody began to light

cigars, and in a minute or two the room was simply unendurable.

Stockbridge said they were like the trick cigars you see advertised

sometimes; the kind that "explode with a red light,--killing the smoker

and amusing the spectators." We dissected several of them; they seemed

to contain a little of everything except tobacco. The fellows insisted

on knowing all the details of the colossal sell, and although Berri and

Hemington felt awfully cheap about their part in it, they finally told.

Duggie says an Amadeo or a Manuele or a Luigi or an Anselmo appears in

Cambridge every year at about this time, and invariably returns to Santa

Bawthawthawthoth laden with Freshman gold.

1.25 P.M. Rushed home; got a shirt and took it to a Chinese laundry

just off Mt. Auburn Street and implored the proprietor to wash it and

have it ready for me by five o'clock. He seemed to think me somewhat

insane, and said in a soothing, fatherly kind of way,--

"You come back day aftle to-mollel." Then I explained the situation and

told him I would give him anything he asked if he would do me this

favor. He made strange Oriental sounds, at which sleepy, gibbering

things tumbled out of a shelf behind a green calico curtain, and from a

black hole in the partition at the end of the shelf there began a

tremendous grunting and snuffling, pierced by squeaks of rage and

anguish. Then five Chinamen swarmed about my shirt, gesticulating

murderously, and uttering raucous cries like impossible birds. I wanted

to stay and see how it all turned out; but the bell had rung for my

half-past one o'clock, and I hurried away.

The Oriental temperament is an impassive, deliberative, sphinx-like,

inscrutable thing.

1.40-2.30 P.M. This hour I spent in class listening to a lecture on

narration. I enjoyed it very much, and the hour went by so quickly that

when the instructor dismissed us, I thought he had made a mistake. He

gave us short scenes from various famous books in illustration of his

points; and ended, as usual, by reading a lot of daily themes written by

the class. Two of them were mine. He said they were good, but pointed

out how they could have been better. One of his suggestions I agree

with perfectly, but I think he 's all off in regard to the other. I 'll

talk it over with him at his next consultation hour. Some of the

fellows thought the whole thing perfect drool; but I confess it

interested me very much. I never feel like cutting this course,

somehow.

2.30. Went to my room with the intention of reading history until it

was time to go for my shirt, and--if it was done up--get ready for the

tea. I had read only part of a chapter when some fellows, passing by,

yelled at my windows. I had made up my mind, when I began to read, not

to answer any one, as it 's impossible to accomplish anything if you do.

But of course I forgot and yelled back, and in a minute three fellows

clattered up the stairs and I realized that they were good for the rest

of the afternoon.

It's a queer thing about going to see people here. I don't think that

any one ever goes with the intention of staying any length of time, or

even of sitting down; you merely drop in as you 're passing by and

happen to think of it. You would n't believe it if somebody told you

you were destined to stay for several hours. But that's what usually

happens. Another queer thing is that very few fellows admit that they

're studying when you come in, unless of course it's in the midst of the

exams. If you find a man at a desk with a note-book and several large

open volumes spread out before him, and you say to him, "Don't mind

me--go on with your grinding," nine times out of ten he'll answer, "Oh,

I wasn't grinding; I was just glancing over these notes." The tenth man

fixes you with a determined eye and replies: "You get out of here, or

take a book and go into a corner and shut up."

3.45. We all took a walk up Brattle Street past the Longfellow house as

far as James Russell Lowell's place and back. It's a great old street,

even with the leaves all gone--which makes ordinary places so dreary.

Duggie pointed out the most famous houses to me one day and told me who

had lived in them. I tried to do it this afternoon, but the fellows

said they did n't care.

5. Got my shirt at the Chinaman's. It looked all right, but it was

still damp in spots--wet, in fact. I went prepared to pay almost any

price after all the excitement I had caused; but the proprietor was

surprisingly moderate in his demands. I gave him something more than he

asked, but he would n't take it until I accepted some poisonous-looking

dried berries done up in a piece of oiled paper. He seemed to have

grasped the idea of a tea, for he kept saying over and over again with a

delighted smile: "You go see girl--you go see girl."

5.20. Went to Duncan's tea and "saw girl"--lots of them. They were

very nice, and pretended they were dreadfully excited at being in a

college room. They asked all sorts of silly questions, and the fellows

replied with even sillier answers. Duncan had taken them to see the

museums and the glass flowers and Memorial and the Gym, and had done the

honors of Cambridge generally.

6.30. Went to dinner at Mrs. Brown's, but as I had just come from

Duncan's, where I had drunk two cups of tea (I don't know why, as I hate

it) and had eaten several kinds of little cakes, I had no appetite

whatever. Somebody had put a chocolate cigar on Berri's and Hemington's

plate,--the kind that has a piece of gilt paper glued to the large end.

Berri and Hemington had to stand a good deal of guying during dinner,

but were consoled by the fact that Amadeo's pal had worked precisely the

same game on some other men we know slightly at the very moment that

Amadeo himself was doing us.

7.15. Went to my room and made a big fire, as I had a curious kind of

chill, although the house was warm and it was n't cold outside. I had

just decided to stay at home and read, when I came across an Advocate

postal card on my desk, and remembered that there was a meeting of the

board in the Secretary's room at eight o'clock.

8.11. Listened to manuscripts and voted on them, and then sat around

and talked afterwards. It's rather embarrassing sometimes when a story

happens to be by one of the editors and isn't good. This evening we had

a long, terribly sentimental passage from the life of a member of the

board. We all knew who had written it, and although it was ever so much

worse than the tale that had just been read (which had been most

unmercifully jumped on), the criticisms were painfully cautious and

generously sprinkled with the praise that damns. Of course it isn't

always this way when the editors submit things; they 're often made more

fun of than anybody else. But this man for some reason is n't the kind

with whom that sort of thing goes down. He has been known to refer to

writing for the Advocate as "My Art."

One thing that happened during the evening made a good deal of fun. The

advertisers have kicked about our not having the leaves of the paper

cut. They say that the subscribers cut the leaves of the reading matter

only, and never get a chance to see the advertisements at all. We think

it is ever so much nicer not to have it done by machinery, for when the

subscribers do it themselves with a paper-cutter, the effect on the

thick paper is very rough and artistic. Well, we discussed this for a

long time, until some one exclaimed: "I don't see why we shouldn't have

it done by hand. It would take a little longer, but the expense would

n't amount to much, and in that way we could have our rough edges and

appease the advertisers at the same time." So after some more talk it

was voted on and carried unanimously. Then the President got up, and

turning to a solemn person who had been very much in favor of the

motion, said:

"It has been moved and carried that the leaves of the Advocate be cut

henceforth by Hand. Mr. Hand, you will kindly see that the work is done

on time; I think there are only eight or nine hundred copies printed

this year."

11. On the way home from the Advocate meeting I saw the most gorgeous

northern lights I ever imagined,--great shafts of deep pink that shot up

from the horizon and all joined at the middle of the sky like a glorious

umbrella. I ran upstairs to get Duggie and Berri, but neither of them

was in; so, as I simply had to have some one to marvel with, I called

Mrs. Chester. She and another old crone--Mis' Buckson--were having a

cup of tea in the kitchen, and did n't seem particularly enthusiastic

over my invitation to come out and see the display, but they finally

bundled up in shawls and followed me to the piazza. We stood there a

minute or two looking up in silence, and I thought at first that they

were as much impressed as I was. Finally, however, Mrs. Chester gave a

little society cough and remarked,--

"It's real chilly, aren't it?" and Mis' Buckson, drawing her shawl more

tightly about her bent shoulders, jerked her chin in an omnipotent,

blase kind of fashion towards the heavens, and croaked,--

"That there's a sign o' war." Then they both limped back to the house.

11.30. Made a big blaze in the fireplace, as I was cold again and did

n't feel well at all. I sat down to write to mamma, and was just

finishing when Duggie came in on his way to bed. He 's not in training

now and can stay up as long as he pleases. He asked me how often I

wrote to mamma, and I told him that I had written twice a week at first

because there was so much to tell, but that now since things had settled

down and I did n't have so much to say, I write about once a week. He

answered that there was just as much to say now as there ever was, and

told me to write twice a week or he 'd know the reason why.

Then I went to bed and had a chill. And that's how a whole day was

spent from half-past eight in the morning until half-past twelve at

night.

The next morning I woke up with a very bad sore throat and a stiff neck

and pains all over. Duggie and Berri made me send for a doctor, and

signed off for me at the office. I can't imagine how I caught cold,

unless, perhaps, it was from wearing that wet shirt.

*IX*

I was very sick for about three days, and just sick for three or four

days more. When Berri signed off for me at the office, the college

doctor bustled around to my room at noon to see what was the matter.

His motives in doing this are somewhat mixed, I believe. He has not

only the health but the veracity of the undergraduate very much at

heart. If you are laid up, of course he has to know about it; and if

you are n't well enough to attend lectures but manage with a heroic

effort to go skating,--well, he likes to know about that too.

"Of course you haven't measles," Duggie said when he came in a few

minutes after Dr. Tush had gone, "but equally, of course, he said you

had,--did n't he?"

"Yes, he did," I answered dismally; for he had told me this at

considerable length, and I remembered that measles a good many years

before had almost been the end of me.

"Well, _that_'s a relief," Duggie went on cheerfully. "You may have all

sorts of things, but it's a cinch that you have n't measles. Tush is a

conservative old soul; he always gambles on measles, and of course every

now and then he wins. It pleases him immensely. He usually celebrates

his success by writing a paper on 'The University's Health,' and getting

it printed in the Graduates' Magazine."

When the other doctor--the real one--came, he found that I was

threatened with pneumonia.

Oh, I had a perfectly miserable time of it at first. The feeling

dreadfully all over and not being able to breathe was bad enough, but I

think the far-away-from-homeness and the worrying about mamma were

worse. I was afraid all the time that she would hear (although I could

n't imagine how that would be possible), and then in the middle of the

night I lay awake hoping and praying that she _would_ hear and leave for

Cambridge by the next train. I don't suppose I realized just then how

wonderfully good Duggie and Berri and Mrs. Chester were to me. Duggie

and Berri took turns in sitting up all night and putting flannel soaked

in hot mustard-water on my chest (ugh! how I loathe the smell of

mustard), and when they had to go to lectures during the day,--I think,

as a matter of fact, they cut a great many of them,--Mrs. Chester would

come in and hem endless dish-cloths by the window. Berri says that he

ceased to worry about me from the time I looked over at Mrs. Chester

after about half an hour's silence and exclaimed,--

"Sew some more with the crisscross pattern; I 'm tired of those dingy

white ones."

As I began to get better, I appreciated how much trouble I 'd given them

all and tried to thank them; but Berri said,--

"Why, your illness has been a perfect god-send to me. I 've done more

grinding lately between midnight and six in the morning than I ever

thought would be possible. I 've caught up with almost everything."

And Duggie stopped me with,--

"But if it had n't been Berri and I, it would have been someone

else--which we're very glad it was n't."

Old Mrs. Chester is a jewel. I didn't pay much attention to her at

first, but was just glad to know she was in the room. Later, however,

when I began to want to get up and she devoted the whole of her

marvellous art to keeping me amused, I appreciated her. She is

wonderful. I was going to assert that she inspires the kind of

affection one can't help feeling for a person who is all heart and no

intelligence; but that, somehow, misses the mark. She has

intelligence--lots of it--only it's different. And before my recovery

was complete I began to wonder if it wasn't the only kind that is, after

all, worth while. For it's the kind with which books and newspapers and

"going a journey" and other mechanical aids have nothing to do.

(Perhaps I should concede something to the influence of foreign travel,

as there was a very memorable expedition "to Goshen in New York State"

some time in the early sixties.) Mrs. Chester's intelligence gushes

undefiled from the rock, and then flows along in a limpid, ungrammatical

stream that soothes at first and then enslaves. Her gift for narrative

of the detailed, photographic, New England variety positively

out-Wilkins Mary, and I am to-day, perhaps, the greatest living male

authority on what Berri calls _la cronique scandaleuse_ of Cambridge.

One of her studies in the life of the town forty years ago (it was a

sort of epic trilogy that lasted all morning and afternoon and part of

the evening with intermissions for luncheon and dinner) I mean to write

some time for the Advocate. It all leads up to the New Year's Eve on

which "old Mrs. Burlap passed away," but it includes several new and

startling theories as to the real cause of the Civil War, an impartial

account of the war itself, a magnificent tribute to the late General

Butler, a description of Mrs. Chester's wedding,--the gifts and floral

tributes displayed on that occasion together with a dreamy surmise as to

their probable cost,--a brief history of religion from the point of view

of one who is at times assailed by doubt,--but who doesn't make a

practice of "rushin' around town tellin' folks who'd only be too glad to

have it to say" (this last I assumed to be a thrust at Mis' Buckson),--a

spirited word picture of the festivities that took place when Cambridge

celebrated its fiftieth anniversary as a city, and at the end a

brilliant comparison between Cambridge and "Goshen in New York State."

There was, I believe, some mention of the passing away of old Mrs.

Burlap on New Year's Eve, but of this I am not sure.

One thing I discovered that rather astonished me in this part of the

world (a locality that Berri in one of his themes called "a cold hot-bed

of erudition"), and that is--Mrs. Chester doesn't know how to read. I

never would have found it out but for an embarrassing little

miscalculation on her part, in the method by which until then she had

delightfully concealed the fact. More than once while I was sick, she

sat by the lamp apparently enjoying the evening paper that Duggie

subscribes to, and I had n't the slightest suspicion that she was

probably holding it upside down, even when I would ask her what the news

was and she would reply,--

"Oh, shaw--these papers! They 're every one of 'em alike. They don't

seem to be any news to 'em. I don't see why you young gentlemen waste

your good money a-buyin' 'em."

Often on the way upstairs she takes the letters that the postman leaves

between the banisters in the little hall below, and manages to

distribute them with more or less accuracy.

"I 've got somethin' for you, and it 's from your mother too, you

naughty little man, you," is her usual way of handing me a communication

from mamma. I did n't realise until the other day that, as mamma's

letters always came in the same kind of gray-blue envelopes, it doesn't

take a chirographic expert to tell whom they are from. Nor did I recall

that, when Mrs. Chester appears with a whole handful of things, she

invariably stops short in the middle of the room and artlessly

exclaims,--

"Well, now, if that does n't beat all! Here I 've climbed up them steep

stairs again and forgotten my specs. Who 's gettin' all these letters

anyhow?"

A few mornings ago, however,--when they let me sit up for the first

time,--Mrs. Chester appeared with two letters. One of them was

unmistakably gray-blue, but the other was white and oblong and

non-committal. She paused at the door as if about to examine the

address, and then suddenly,--

"If I ain't the most careless woman in the world," she said. "I 've

gone and brought up the letters again, and forgotten--" But just at

this point we both became aware that her steel-rimmed spectacles were

dangling in her other hand. They not only dangled, but they seemed to

me a moment later to dangle almost spitefully; for Mrs. Chester's worn

cheeks became very pink. She looked at the spectacles and at the white

envelope and at me. Then she said with a sort of wistful lightness,--

"Maybe you can make it out; your eyes are younger than mine. I never

seen such a letter; it's so--so--it's so flung together like."

"It is--isn't it?" I agreed hastily, as I stretched out my hand, to

receive a letter from papa with the address in type-writing.

Just as I thought would happen, mamma heard I was sick and was, of

course, very much worried. Dick Benton--who has never come near me, and

whom I 've only seen twice on the street since College opened--mentioned

the fact of my illness in a letter home. (I suppose he did it in a

despairing effort to make his sentences reach the middle of page two.)

Of course Mrs. Benton had to throw a shawl around her meddling old back

and waddle across the street to our house, to find out the latest news;

and as there had n't been any news, mamma's letter to me expressed a

"state of mind." But I fixed her (and incidentally Dick Benton) with a

telegram.

By the way, I really must speak to mamma about her recent letters to me.

Mildred has been away from home, and as mamma writes very regularly to

both of us, she often refers to things she remembers having written to

somebody, but without pausing to consider how maddening they are when

the somebody doesn't happen to be myself. From her last, for instance,

I gleaned these interesting items without having the vaguest idea what

they belong to:--

"Your father and I have just got back from the funeral. I suppose, when

one arrives at such a great age, death is a relief. But it is always

solemn.

"Is n't it nice about the Tilestons? I don't know when--in a purely

impersonal way--I 've been so pleased. They 've struggled so long and

so bravely and now it seems as if their ship had come in at last. Of

course, I should n't care to spend so much time in South America myself,

(Guatemala _is_ in South America, is n't it?) but they all seem

delighted at the prospect."

Now would n't that jar you?

My acquaintances generally found out that I was sick about the time that

Duggie and Berri and Mrs. Chester discharged me, so to speak, as well.

I could n't go out, and the doctor made me stay in bed longer than was

really necessary, as the bottom of the furnace fell to pieces one

morning and it was impossible to heat the house for several days. But I

felt pretty well. By that time, as I say, there was all at once a

ripple of interest among my friends over the fact that I was sick. They

were awfully kind, and came to my room from early in the morning--right

after breakfast--until late at night, when they would drop in on their

way back from the theatre. My desk was a perfect news-stand of

illustrated magazines and funny papers, and I had left in my book-case,

probably, the queerest collection of novels that was ever assembled

outside of a city hospital. Duggie had a fit over them, and as he read

out the titles one evening, he kept exclaiming, "What, oh, what are the

children coming to!" The only volume that was n't fiction was a thing

called "The Statesman's Year Book," and was brought by a queer sort of

chap who is very much interested in sociology. I know him pretty well;

so after I thanked him, I could n't help saying,--

"What on earth did you lug this thing up here for?--it looks like an

almanac." To which he replied,--

"Well, it's darned interesting, I can tell you. Until I got it I never

knew, for instance, how many quarts of alcohol per head were consumed

annually in Finland."

Although Duggie did n't say anything, I don't think he was particularly

pleased at the fellows dropping in so often and staying so long. They

played cards a lot, and smoked all the time until you could hardly see

across the room; and sometimes when night came I felt rather tired and

my eyes and throat hurt a good deal. But I confess I liked it, even if

Duggie and Mrs. Chester did n't.

Only one change of any importance took place while I was laid up:

Berri's Icelandic dog--Saga--has been removed from our midst. I was

aware that an unusual spirit of peace and order reigned in the house as

soon as I began to be about once more, but I attributed it vaguely to

the chastening influence of my illness. However, one morning, when on

my way to a lecture I remembered that I had noticed my best hat lying on

a chair in my study as I came away, and ran back to save it from being

eaten, it occurred to me that I had n't seen Saga for days. So, while

Berri and I were strolling home from luncheon, I asked him what had

happened.

"He 's gone--gone, poor old darling!" said Berri; "I hate to speak of

it."

"He was n't stolen or run over or anything, was he?" I asked

sympathetically; for now that Saga was no longer an hourly source of

anxiety and conflict, I felt reasonably safe in expressing some regret.

"Did he run away?"

"No, he did n't leave me," Berri answered sadly; "I gave him up. You

see--I found out that there is a law against bringing them into the

State; they always go mad as soon as the warm weather comes. So I gave

him to one of the little Cabot girls on her birthday. She was awfully

pleased."

I am rather worried over something that I got into lately without

stopping to think how much it might involve. Berri and that tall spook,

named Ranny, that he met at Fleetwood's Wednesday Evening, struck up

quite an intimacy not long ago, although I can't for the life of me see

how they managed it. He isn't a Freshman, as we thought, but a

Sophomore. Berri was waiting in a bookstore in town one day to go to a

matinee with a fellow who did n't turn up; and while he was standing

there, Ranny came in and began to drive the clerks insane over some

Greek and Sanscrit books he had ordered weeks before and that no one had

ever heard of. Berri looked on for a while, and, as his friend did n't

come and it was getting late and he--Berri--did n't like to waste the

extra ticket, he invited Ranny to go with him. Well, they not only went

to the matinee, they dined in town together and went again to another

show in the evening. Between the acts Ranny explained to him just

wherein the wit of "The Girl from Oskosh" differed from the comedies of

Aristophanes, and Berri says that before they parted he had learned all

about the Greek drama from A to Izzard. Since then Ranny has been to

our house several times, and although Berri likes him, he usually finds

after about an hour that he isn't equal to the intellectual strain; so

he lures Ranny into my room and then gracefully fades away.

Now I like Ranny too. He has, in his ponderous, bespectacled way, an

enthusiasm for several bespectacled, ponderous subjects that is simply

irresistible. One of them is Egyptology and the study of hieroglyphics.

Of course I don't know anything about this, any more than Berri knew

about the Greek drama,--not as much even; for he did, at least, pretend

to play a pagan instrument of some kind in a play they gave at school

once, while a Frenchman behind the scenes toodled away on a flute. But

when Ranny gets to talking about dynasties and cartouches and draws

fascinating little pictures of gods and goddesses named Ma and Pa, and

explains how the whole business was deciphered by means of a piece of

stone somebody picked up in the mud one day,--a regular old Sherlock

Holmes, he must have been,--you simply can't help being carried away and

wishing you could discover something on your own account. He talked so

much about it and made it all seem so real and important that one day

when he exclaimed,--

"And the mystery is that the University ignores this subject--ignores

it!" I really felt that the Faculty was treating us rather shabbily and

that we were n't, somehow, getting our money's worth. We talked the

matter over very seriously, and decided at last that it could n't be

stinginess on the part of the Corporation,--for why should it allow

courses in higher mathematics and philosophy and Italian literature, to

which only three or four fellows went, if it wanted to save the pennies?

It was more likely just ignorance of the importance of hieroglyphics,

and the growing demand for a thorough course of it.

"We probably could get a course all right if we showed them how some of

us feel about it," Ranny mused. "There's a chap in Latin 47 who'd join,

I think--you've seen that middle-aged man with the long sandy beard,

have n't you? He tries almost everything."

The person Ranny referred to did n't seem very promising to me. We

sleep next each other in a history course. He never wears a necktie,

and the last time I saw him there were a lot of dead maple leaves

tangled up in his beard. No one seems to know why he is here.

"Well, that makes three right away," Ranny declared enthusiastically.

"Perhaps Berrisford will join; but even if he does n't three 's enough."

The very next morning after this Ranny appeared to say he was going to

consult Professor Pallas about the new course, and wanted me to go along

and put in a word now and then. This seemed a little sudden to me, and

I said that perhaps I ought to consult my adviser before taking up a new

study, as I had n't done particularly well in the old ones. However,

Ranny said that my adviser ought to be thankful at my showing so much

interest and public spirit. So we went over to Professor Pallas's

little private room in Sever. He was very glad to see us, and when

Ranny began to explain the subject of our coming, his old eyes just

glittered. He kept smiling to himself and nodding his head in assent,

and once, when Ranny paused for breath, he brought his fist down on the

table, exclaiming,

"I predicted this--predicted it." Then he thrust his hands in his

pockets and paced excitedly up and down the room. Ranny was of course

tremendously encouraged, and I was somewhat horrified a moment later, to

have him turn toward me and with a wave of his hand declare,--

"My friend, Mr. Wood, feels this weakness in the curriculum more,

perhaps, than any of us; for long before he entered college with the

purpose of specialising in the subject, he surrounded himself with a

collection of Egyptian antiquities that far excels anything of the kind

on this side of the British Museum." (He was referring in his intense

way to a handful of imitation scarabs and a dissipated-looking old

mummified parrot that Uncle Peter brought home from his trip up the

Nile. I had indiscreetly mentioned them one afternoon.) "We are sure of

four earnest workers, and there are, no doubt, many more."

Now the thing that worries me about all this is that Professor Pallas

seemed so gratified and eager to help the cause. His attitude toward us

was that of a scholar among scholars,--deep calling unto deep. He said

that he would love to conduct a course in hieroglyphics himself, but

feared he was n't competent, as he had merely taken up the subject as a

kind of recreation at odd moments during the last six or eight years.

He could n't recall any one in the United States who was competent, in

fact, but he knew of a splendid authority in Germany,--just the man for

the place,--and he would speak to the President about him at the next

Faculty meeting. Ranny and I thanked him profusely, and that at present

is where the matter stands. I wake up in the night sometimes,

positively cold at the thought of having added hieroglyphics to my other

worries. Think of a course for which you could n't buy typewritten

notes,--a course the very lectures of which would be in German,--a

course so terrible that no one in the United States would dare undertake

to tutor you in it when you got stuck.

The Christmas holidays are almost here, but it has not been decided yet

whether or not I am to spend them at home. Mildred is still gadding

about, and papa may have to go to New York on business. If he does,

mamma will, no doubt, go with him, and I'll join them there, and we'll

all have thin slabs of Christmas turkey surrounded by bird bath-tubs at

a hotel. Berri has invited me to spend the vacation with him (his

mother is living in Washington this winter), but as he remarks dolefully

every now and then that he has to stay in Cambridge to write a thesis

that is due immediately after the holidays, I don't see how he means to

manage. He's been putting off that thesis from day to day until I don't

see how he can possibly do all the reading and writing and note-taking

it necessitates. I 've tried to get him started once or twice, but he

has merely groaned and said,--

"You 're a nice one to preach industry, are n't you?" So I've given up.

Well, it's none of my business if he gets fired from the course.

*X*

I might have spared myself my anxiety in regard to the course in

hieroglyphics. My adviser overtook me in the yard a day or so after our

interview with Professor Pallas, and after walking along with me for a

while he said,--

"Well, Wood, I 'm glad to see you looking about as usual; I had almost

come to the conclusion that you 'd gone stark mad." I asked him what he

meant, and it seems that old Pallas had made a speech at a Faculty

meeting in which he declared that the deep and ever-growing interest

throughout the undergraduate body in the subject of Egyptology had

reached a climax that demanded a course of some kind. He was very

eloquent, and caused a good deal of mild excitement. Then some one got

up and asked who were concerned in the movement, and Pallas, after

fumbling in his side pocket, finally produced a memorandum and said,--

"The names of those imbued with a spirit for serious archaeological

research are many, but I think that the youth who by his zeal in

collecting and preserving valuable antiquities has done more than any

one else to further this study among his fellows is Mr. Thomas Wood, of

the class of ----" But the poor old man did n't get any further, my

adviser says, for everybody in the room began to roar and the meeting

broke up in confusion. Well, that 's off my mind, anyhow; although I

don't see why they should have taken it the way they did. There 's

nothing so very extraordinary in acquiring a love for study when that's

what you 're supposed to come here for.

Berri and I discovered the most fascinating little place the other

evening. We had been in town all afternoon on the trail of an express

package of Berri's that had been lost for days, and were running along

Tremont Street on the way to the Cambridge car, when Berri suddenly

stopped in front of a sort of alley and clutched me. From the other end

came the sound of music,--a harp, a flute, and a violin playing one of

those Neapolitan yayayama songs that always, somehow, make you feel as

if you 'd been abroad, even when you 've never been nearer Naples than

waving good-by to your sister from a North German Lloyd dock in Hoboken.

"Let 's go see what it is," Berri said. So we skipped to the other end

of the alley, and found a brightly lighted little restaurant with the

music wailing away in the vestibule. We stood listening for a time and

watching the people who went in. They all stopped to peer through a

glass door, and then after a moment of indecision passed on--up a flight

of steep stairs. Berri, of course, could n't be satisfied until he had

solved the mystery of the glass door, and it was n't long before we were

doing just as every one else did. We saw a long, narrow room with three

rows of little tables reaching from end to end. The walls were covered

with gay frescos of some kind (I could n't make them out, the tobacco

smoke was so thick); foreign-looking waiters were tearing in and out

among the tables; flower girls were wandering up and down with

great-armfuls of roses and carnations for sale, and everybody was

laughing and gesticulating and having such a good time, apparently,--the

music was so shrill and the clatter of dishes so incessant,--that Berri

and I turned and gazed at each other, as much as to say, "After all

these years we 've found it at last." But a moment later we realized

why the people we had seen go in had, after a glance, turned away and

climbed the stairs; all the tables were occupied. I think we must have

looked as dissatisfied as the others, for we felt that nothing upstairs

could equal the scene we had just discovered. And we were right. The

upper rooms were comparatively empty and quiet and rather dreary. So we

came down again and were about to take a farewell look and start for

home, when Berri, with his nose flattened against the glass, suddenly

exclaimed, "Saved! Saved!" and pushing open the door, made his way

across the room. Who should be there but Mr. Fleetwood, dining alone at

a table in the corner? Berri, after shaking hands with him, beckoned to

me, and in a moment we had both seated ourselves at Fleetwood's table.

"This is almost as nice as if we 'd really been invited, isn't it?" said

Berri, in his easy way. "You know we were just on the point of giving

up and going home."

"Why didn't you go upstairs?" Fleetwood inquired. (He pretended all

through dinner that we had spoiled his evening.) "It is n't too late

even now," he suggested; "it's much nicer up there; there 's more air."

"There's plenty of air, but no atmosphere," Berri answered. "This is

what we enjoy," he added with a wave of his hand.

"I 'm glad you like my Bohemia," Fleetwood quavered.

"Oh, Bohemia's all right," replied Berri. "Bohemia would be perfect--if

it weren't for the Bohemians."

"What are 'Bohemians'?" I asked, for I 'd often heard people called that

without understanding just what it meant.

"Bohemians?" Berri repeated. "Why, Bohemians are perfectly horrid

things who exist exclusively on Welsh rabbits and use the word

'conventional' as a term of reproach. My aunt knows hundreds of them."

"I wrote a paper once on 'What is a Bohemian?'" Fleetwood put in. "If

you would really like to know--but of course you would n't," he broke

off sadly; "no one does any more. You clever boys know everything

before you come."

"Oh, Mr. Fleetwood, please let us read your paper," we both begged him

enthusiastically. I think he was a little flattered, for we would n't

allow him to talk about anything else until he had promised to tell me

where I could find his article. Berri, however, he refused absolutely,

and made me promise, in turn, not to let him know where to look for it

and never to quote from it in Berri's presence.

"I know him," he muttered dolefully; "I know these memories that 'turn

again and rend you;' I 'm an old man; '_Ich habe gelebt_' and

ge-suffered."

Well, we had a most delightful dinner. Fleetwood, when he saw that he

was n't going to get rid of us, cheered up and made himself very

agreeable. He can be charming when he wants to be. He and Berri did

most of the talking, although his remarks, as a rule, were addressed to

me. The fact is, he likes me because I 'm sympathetic and a good

listener, but Berri he finds vastly more interesting. Berri has

travelled such a lot, and, besides, he has the knack (I haven't it at

all) of being able to discuss things of which he knows nothing in a way

that commands not only attention but respect. For instance, they got

into a perfectly absorbing squabble over the novelist Henry James, in

which Fleetwood deplored and Berri defended what Fleetwood called his

"later manner." Fleetwood ended up with,--

"I 've read everything he 's ever done--some of them many times

over--and I wrote a paper on him for Lesper's not long ago; but I could

n't, conscientiously, come to any other conclusion." To which Berri

replied, as he smiled indulgently to himself and broke a bit of bread

with his slim brown fingers,--

"I often wonder if you people over here who write things about Harry

James from time to time, really comprehend the man at all--notice that I

say 'James the man,' not 'James the writer.' '_Le style c'est

l'homme_,' you know; is n't it Bossuet who tells us that?"

"No, it is n't," said Fleetwood, rather peevishly; "it's Buffon--and he

probably stole it from the Latin, '_Stylus virum arguit_.'" Fleetwood,

of course, knows what he 's talking about. But, nevertheless, I could

see that Berri's general air of being foreign and detached and knowing

James from the inside--or rather from the other side--impressed him; and

as for me, I was simply paralyzed. For I could have testified under oath

that Berri had never read a word of Henry James' in his life, and that

he 'd never laid eyes on the man. I spoke to him about it afterward and

asked him how he dared to do such things.

"Have you ever read anything by James--have you ever seen 'Harry James

the man,' as you called him?" I inquired.

"No; of course not," Berri answered. "What difference does it make?"

"But you went on as if you knew more about him than even Fleetwood; and

I think that toward the end Fleetwood almost thought you did himself."

"Oh--that," Berri shrugged, after trying to recall the conversation.

"That was merely what an old frump of a woman said at my aunt's one day

when I dropped in for luncheon. She and Aunt Josephine gabbled and

gabbled, and never paid the slightest attention to me, and although they

were both unusually tiresome, I suppose I could n't avoid remembering

some of the things they said. But it would have been impossible for me

to dwell any longer on that particular topic with Fleetwood, even if my

life had depended on it, because that day at luncheon, just as my aunt's

friend got started on 'James the man,' I happened to glance up and

notice that she was wearing an entirely different kind of wig from the

ratty old thing she 'd flourished in before she went abroad. She had

brought back a new one that was--why, it was an architectural marvel; it

looked like the dome of a mosque, and covered her whole head, from

eyebrows to neck, with little cut-out places for her ears to peek

through. It hypnotized me all through luncheon, and I never heard a

word about 'James the man,'--so of course when I got that far with

Fleetwood I had to change the subject. Don't you remember that we began

to discuss Bernhardt's conception of Hamlet rather abruptly? I 'll

never trust that old woman again--after making the mistake about Buffon.

Why, she's positively illiterate!"

Fleetwood told me a lot about Mazuret's--that 's the name of the

restaurant--which made me glad that we had come across it

accidentally,--found it out for ourselves. It's very famous. All sorts

of people--writers and painters and actors and exiled noblemen--used to

make a kind of headquarters of it and dine there whenever they happened

to be in town. Fleetwood has been going there for years, and always

sits at the same table. (That's the proper thing to do; you must have a

favorite table, and when you come in and find it occupied, you must

scowl and shrug and complain to the waiters in a loud voice that the

place is going to the dogs. Then everybody in the room takes it for

granted that you 're a writer or a painter, an actor or an exiled

nobleman, and looks interested and sympathetic. We saw several

performances of this kind.) But the place, of course, "isn't what it

used to be." I'm seven or eight years too late, as usual. Some of the

poets have become very successful--which means, Fleetwood says, that

they 're doing newspaper work in New York; some of the painters and

actors are beyond the reach of criticism--which means that they 're

dead; and some of the noblemen are confident that their respective

governments are about to recall them to posts of responsibility and

honor--which means that they are in jail.

It was more entertaining, Fleetwood says, in the days of Leontine,--the

shrewd, vivacious, businesslike Frenchwoman who, when Monsieur Mazuret

became too ill, and Madame too old, used to make change and scold the

waiters and say good evening to you, and whose red-striped gingham

shirt-waists fitted her like models from Paquin. It was Leontine who

brought back the wonderful wall-paper from Paris (through the glass door

it looked like a painting) that represents a hunting scene, with willowy

ladies in preposterous pink velvet riding-habits and waving plumes, and

gentlemen blowing tasselled horns, and hounds and stags--all plunging

through a perfectly impenetrable forest, whose improbable luxuriance

Berri brilliantly accounted for by saying that it was evidently "Paris

green."

"Attend now--I tell you something," Leontine used to say confidentially

when the evening was drawing to a close, and but one or two stragglers

were left in the dining-room.

"These peoples--they stay so long sometimes; I tell to them that they

must go. But _non_--they will not go; and they stay, and they stay, and

they stay. And all at once the--what you call?--the _chasse_--she begin

to move! The horses--he gallop; the ladies--she scream of laughing; the

gentlemen--he make toot, toot, toot, tooooo! The dogs--Ah-h h-h!

The--the--_cet animal-la_--the deer?--the deer--Ah-h-h-h!" Carried away

by these midnight memories, Leontine would become a galloping horse, a

screaming lady, a master of hounds, a savage pack, and a terrified

monarch of the glen--all at once. Then, overpowered by the weird horror

of it, she would cover her face with her apron and run coquettishly as

if for protection to another table.

There was another tale--the description of a thunderstorm--a regular

cloud-burst, it must have been--that, one afternoon, overtook Madame and

Leontine in the Place de la Madeleine, Leontine personifying the truly

Gallic elements--the lightning (reels backward--eyes covered with

hands)--the thunder (fingers in ears--eyes rolling--mouth open and

emitting groans)--the rain hissing back from the asphalt in a million

silver bubbles (skirts lifted--tip-toes--mon dieus--shrieks--hasty exit

to kitchen)--Leontine bringing this incoherent scene vividly before one,

was worth one's eating a worse dinner, Fleetwood says, than the dinner

at Mazuret's. But Monsieur is dead, and Madame just dried up and blew

away, and Leontine is married, and--although I don't know when I 've

enjoyed a dinner so much--"the place isn't what it used to be."

While Fleetwood was telling me all this, I noticed that Berri called one

of the waiters and spoke to him in French. I don't know what he said,

as he talked very fast--and anyhow it did n't sound much like the kind

of French I 've been used to. The waiter disappeared, and in half an

hour or so a messenger boy came in and gave Berri a little envelope

which he put in his pocket without saying anything. Then, when we had

finished dinner and were just about to push away from the table, Berri

exclaimed,--

"Now we 'll all go to the theatre."

"My dear young man, if you could see the work I have to do this night,"

Fleetwood protested with a gesture that seemed to express mountains of

uncorrected themes, "you would realize, for once in your life, what work

really is."

"But I have the tickets," Berri explained; and he brought forth the

little envelope that the messenger boy had given him.

"No--no--no!" Fleetwood answered decidedly, and started for the door.

But Berri detained him.

"By inflicting our company on you we 've spoiled the evening for you, I

know; but you won't spoil it for me by depriving us of yours," he begged

in his engaging way.

"'Sweet invocation of a child: most pretty and pathetical,'" Fleetwood

laughed, and backed into the vestibule. We followed and surrounded him,

so to speak, each taking hold of an arm. Then we all walked through the

alley toward Tremont Street, Fleetwood quavering apprehensively from

time to time, "Now you 'll take me to my car and then bid me adieu, like

two good boys, won't you?" while we agreed to everything he said and

clung to him like sheriffs. Berri was giggling hysterically, but

although I thought the situation rather amusing, I did n't see anything

so terribly funny about it until we got to the parting of the ways and

Fleetwood stopped. Then I noticed that, in addition to the three great

red roses that Berri had bought for our button-holes, Fleetwood had a

fourth one, with a long, flexible stem, growing apparently out of the

top of his head. He was so unconscious of the absurd, lanky thing

nodding solemnly over him whenever he spoke, that when he held out his

hand, exclaiming tremulously,--

"'And so,' in the words of Jessica, 'Farewell; I will not have my father

see me talk with thee,'" and the rose emphasized every word as if it

were imitating him, I gave an uncontrollable whoop, and Berri doubled up

on a near-by doorstep.

"I only would that my father were alive at the present moment to see me

talking with thee," Berri gasped. "I don't know anything he would have

enjoyed more."

Fleetwood looked hurt and mystified and vaguely suspicious, and he stood

there merely long enough to say,--

"'You break jests as braggarts do their blades, which, God be thanked,

hurt not.'" Then, as Berri was still sitting on the doorstep and I was

leaning against the wall, he made a sudden dash for the other side of

the street. We caught him, of course, grasped his arms once more, and

walked him off to the theatre, pretending all the time that we did n't

notice his struggles and how furious he was at having to go with us.

Berri kept up an incessant stream of conversation, saying things that,

to an outsider, would have given the impression that the theatre-party

was Fleetwood's, and that we were the ones who were being dragged

reluctantly away from the Cambridge car. Just before we got to the

theatre the solemn rose in Fleetwood's hat toppled over and dangled

against his face. This also we pretended not to see, and as we had him

firmly by the arms, he was unable to reach up and throw it away; so we

made a spectacular entrance through the brightly lighted doorway, with

Fleetwood ineffectually blowing at the rose and shaking his head like an

angry bull. A party of four or five fellows--students--who had been

unable to get tickets were turning away from the box-office as we

appeared, and they naturally stopped to look at us.

This was in the nature of a last straw, for Fleetwood almost tearfully

broke out with,--

"You dreadful, dreadful boys, my reputation is ruined; they 'll think I

've been drinking." Even Berri began to see that we had gone somewhat

far, for he plucked the rose from Fleetwood's cheek, exclaiming,--

"Good gracious, man! where did you get this? You must n't go to the

theatre looking that way. Just because Bernhardt plays Hamlet is no

reason why you should undertake to do Ophelia;" and then he threw it on

the floor. Fleetwood rolled his eyes hopelessly.

Well, we never got home until almost four in the morning. A man whose

seat was behind ours at the play tapped Fleetwood on the shoulder as

soon as we had sat down, and after a whispered conversation he got up

and went away. Then Fleetwood told us the man was a dramatic critic--an

acquaintance of his--who had been sent to write up the play for a

morning paper, but that, as he did n't understand French and was n't

much of a Shakespearian scholar and wanted to go to a progressive peanut

party in West Roxbury anyhow, he had asked Fleetwood to do the thing for

him. Fleetwood used to be on a paper himself, and was delighted to

renew old times.

So all during the performance he made notes on the margin of his program

and chuckled to himself. The occupation, I think, diverted his mind

from Berri and me and helped him to forgive us.

Afterward we went to Newspaper Row and waited for hours in a bare,

rather dirty little room while Fleetwood, standing at a high desk under

an electric light in the corner, wrote his review. He spent much more

time in groaning, "My facility is gone--my hand has lost its cunning,"

than in actual writing. By the time he was ready to leave we were all

famished; so before catching the owl car from Bowdoin Square we stopped

at an all-night restaurant that Fleetwood used to patronize when he was

a reporter, and had buckwheat cakes and maple syrup. I 've never tasted

anything so good.

The Cambridge car was interesting, but fearful. It was jammed with

people, and I wondered where so many could have come from that hour of

the morning. They could n't all have been dramatic critics. The

majority of those who got seats went sound asleep, and as the conductor

could n't very well wake them up at every street, he found out

beforehand where they wanted to get off, and then hung little tags on

their coats that told their destination.

When we were saying good-by to Fleetwood in the Square, Berri laughed

and asked,--

"Have you decided yet what you 're going to do to me, Mr. Fleetwood? I

know you would like to give me E on my thesis, but I don't think I

deserve quite that." Instead of answering him, however, Mr. Fleetwood

ran away, exclaiming,--

"Don't talk shop,--don't talk shop; good-night,--good-night!"

Berri has begun to get awfully scared about the thesis,--not that he's

afraid that Fleetwood will give it a low mark, but because it does n't

look at present as if there would be anything to mark at all. I found

him in his room the other day with a pile of books and a scratch-block

on his table. But he had n't taken a note, and his attitude was one of

utter despair. Of course he can't possibly write it unless he stays

here during the holidays, for they begin day after to-morrow.

*XI*

I don't think I 've had a pen in my hand, except when I wrote a note to

Berri, for more than two weeks. In the first place I left in such a

hurry to meet the family in New York that, among the various things I

forgot to pack at the last minute, my diary was one. (Even if I had

taken it, I probably shouldn't have found time to record all we did.)

Then, as I was with mamma and papa and Mildred during the entire

vacation, there was no necessity for writing letters.

I did n't go to Washington with Berri for two reasons. The family

naturally wanted me to spend the holidays with them, and I could n't

help feeling that, if I refused Berri's kind invitation, he would be

much more likely to stay, part of the time at least, in Cambridge and

write his thesis. In a way I was right; for when I told him I simply

could n't go with him, he said sort of listlessly,--

"Well, then I suppose I ought to stay here and finish that thing,

oughtn't I?" which was an optimistic way of letting me know that it had

n't even been begun. I did n't know what to answer exactly, because if

I 'd agreed with him he would have thought me unsympathetic and looked

hurt, and if I had advised him to let the whole matter slide, and forget

about it, and have a good time (which was, of course, what he wanted me

to do), I felt sure that he would eventually blame me for giving him bad

advice. That's Berri all over. So I merely remarked, "You 'll have to

be the judge; it 's too serious a matter for any one else to meddle

with," and felt like a nasty little prig as I said it. He was restless

and gloomy after that, and took a long walk all alone, during which I 'm

convinced that he very nearly made up his mind to stay in Cambridge and

slave. I say very nearly, because he didn't bring himself quite to the

point of telling anybody about it. But the next afternoon (college

closed with the last lecture of that day), when I turned into our street

on the way to my room, there was a cab with a steamer trunk on it

standing in front of our house; and as I opened the front door, Berri

and a dress-suit case clattered down the stairs. He stopped just long

enough to shake hands and exclaim, "Good-by, Granny--have a good time--I

left a note for you on your desk. The train goes in less than an hour."

Then he rushed out of the gate and jumped into the cab, slamming the

door after him with that sharp, thrilling "Now they're off" clack that

cabs, and cabs only, possess. That was the last I saw of him.

New York was a pleasing delirium of theatres and operas and automobile

rides up and down Fifth Avenue, with just enough rows between Mildred

and me, and papa and me and Mildred and mamma (the other possible

combinations never scrap), to make us realize that the family tie was

the same dear old family tie and had n't been in any way severed by my

long absence. It took us three days to persuade mamma to ride in an

automobile,--a triumph that we all lived bitterly to repent; for she

ever afterwards refused to be transported from place to place by any

other means,--which was not only inconvenient, but ruinous. She

justified her extravagance by declaring that in an emergency she

preferred to be the smasher to the smashed. I met lots of fellows I

knew on the street, and some of them took me home with them to luncheon

or to that curious

five-o'clock-sit-around-and-don't-know-what-to-do-with-the-cup meal they

call "tea." Meeting their families was very nice, and I felt as if I

knew the fellows ever so much better than I did in Cambridge.

One incident might have ended in a tragedy if I hadn't happened to

preserve a certain letter of mamma's. ("Never write anything and never

burn anything--isn't it Talleyrand who tells us that?" as the friend of

Berri's aunt would say.) It was the real reason of our spending the

last two days of the vacation in Boston, and came about in the following

way.

One day at luncheon (we were going to a matinee afterwards) I glanced at

my watch to see how late we were, and mamma noticed, for the first time,

that I was carrying a cheap nickel-plated alarm-clock sort of an affair

instead of the gold-faced heirloom that has been reposing for lo! these

many weeks in Mr. Hirsch's pawn-shop. Since our meeting she hadn't

referred to this painful subject, and as I had become used to the dollar

watch on the end of my chain, it never occurred to me to say anything

about it. That day she looked at the watch and then at me, and finally

she murmured, "Why, Tommy!" with the expression of one who seems to see

the foundations of Truth, Respectability, and Honor crumbling to dust;

and she finished her luncheon in silence, breathing in a resigned kind

of way and studying the table-cloth with eyes like smitten forget-me

nots. On the way upstairs I lagged behind, and Mildred said to me,--

"Mamma has on her early-Christian-martyr look. What on earth's the

matter now?" But I was unable to enlighten her. Mamma had known from

the first that the watch had been pawned; I could n't imagine why she

was so upset.

All was explained, however, when I went to her room. Some time ago she

had sent me a draft for thirty dollars. It came in a cheerful letter

(no letter containing a draft for thirty dollars is sad) about nothing

in particular. I remembered that at the time the postscript had puzzled

me, for it said, "Of course I have told your father nothing about this,"

and there was no clew in the body of the letter to what "this" referred.

The draft wasn't mentioned. It seems that mamma was under the

impression she had written me several pages on the evils of

extravagance, the horrors of debt, and the general desirability of

redeeming one's watch as soon as possible,--which she hadn't at all. Not

being a mind-reader, I assumed that her draft was a spontaneous outburst

of maternal esteem, had it cashed with a loving grateful heart, and

spent the money in three days. Therefore, when she caught sight of my

tin timepiece (it keeps much better time, by the way, than the heirloom

ever did), she had distressing visions of me indulging in a perfect

carnival of embezzlement, and finally ending up with shorn locks,

striped clothes, and a chain on my leg.

I never realized before that the human brain is perfectly capable, under

certain circumstances, of harboring two distinct beliefs at the same

time,--the truth of either one of which necessarily excludes the other.

(There is probably a more technical way of stating this, but I haven't

got that far in my philosophy course as yet.) Now, when I solemnly

declared to mamma that she had never mentioned her check in connection

with my watch or anything else in fact, I am sure she believed me. She

said she believed me, and seemed greatly relieved. But, on the other

hand, although she knew I was telling the truth, and rejoiced in the

fact, I am certain that she was unable at the same time to abandon her

equally strong conviction that she had written and sent precisely the

letter she had intended to. I don't pretend to explain this mental

phenomenon, and I discreetly refrained from discussing it with mamma,

for in the midst of our talk I began to have a dim, delicious suspicion

that her letter was at that moment reposing in my inside pocket. (When

I am away from home, I always carry several plainly addressed letters in

order that there may be as little trouble as possible in case anything

should happen to me. I remembered having put the letter with the

postscript into my coat-pocket instead of my desk, as I wished to refer

to it when I next wrote home.) So, when mamma finally said, "Well, I

believe you," and then added with an air of abstraction, "But I wish you

had saved that letter," I thrust my hand into my pocket, glanced at

several envelopes, and exclaimed dramatically as I showed her one of

them,--

"Madam, your most idle whim is my inexorable law." Then we all went to

the matinee.

But that wasn't the end of the watch. Mamma made me give her the

pawn-ticket, and insisted on going home by way of Boston for the purpose

of redeeming it herself. The reason of this change in the family plans

was not explained to Mildred and papa; but they were docile, and seemed

to think it would be very nice to see my rooms before leaving for home.

There was no opportunity to visit Mr. Hirsch when we arrived yesterday,

as we spent most of the day in exploring Cambridge. But this morning

(they all left for the West this afternoon), while Mildred was packing

and papa had gone to see about tickets, mamma, with her head swathed in

a thick black veil, and I slipped out to go to the pawnbroker's. I have

an idea that by going herself instead of simply sending me mamma had a

vague but noble belief that she was rescuing me somehow from moral

shipwreck. And then, no doubt, the mere fact of one's venturing out

incognito, as it were, to wrest ancestral relics from usurious fingers

is not without a certain charm.

Well, of course we met papa at the door of the hotel. The ticket-office

was just around the corner, and he had engaged berths and tickets with a

rapidity that was as unfortunate as it was incredible, for he greeted us

with, "Starting for a walk? I'm just in time," and proceeded to join

the expedition with evident pleasure. Mamma lingered uneasily on the

sidewalk a moment, and then said,--

"We 're not going for amusement, dear; we 're going to shop. You know

how that always tires you." But papa, who was in good spirits at the

prospect of leaving for home, quite unsuspiciously ignored the

suggestion and replied cheerily,--

"Well, I think I 'll go along, I might want to buy something myself."