*XVIII*
It was only natural, I suppose, that for a week or so after we had
become full-fledged Dickey men the First Ten should have stuck pretty
close together. We had such a lot to talk about,--things that we could
n't very well talk about to outsiders. To tell the truth, the rest of
the class for a time seemed like outsiders to me. They had n't been
through what we had, and I confess that I could n't help looking on our
little crowd as something apart from the others and, taken all in all,
rather extraordinary. I don't know that I thought this in so many
words, but I did feel it; and it was Berri--of all persons--who brought
me back to earth one day with a jerk. I forget just what I said to call
forth his remarks, but it was something in the nature of a complaint
that the fellows at the table did n't seem to have as much time for me,
so to speak, as they once had. Berri puffed at his pipe for a while and
stared at the ceiling, and finally said,--
"Of course, I see what you mean; but it's not them, you know--it's us."
"I'm sure I don't think--" I began defensively.
"No, I don't believe you do realize the true state of affairs," Berri
interrupted. "Lots of fellows would, and then pretend all the time that
they did n't; that's what I do. But you don't. You just have the
big-head from pure delight, and go around swelled up like a hop-toad
without in the least knowing it. Your old friends know it, though, and
it naturally makes them a dash tired. And besides, what do you expect
them to do, anyhow? Run after us? Of course they won't do that. In
the first place, we 've both become rather obnoxious; I don't mind it in
myself, but with you it's scarcely in character. And in the second
place, none of the fellows at our table are swipes, and if any advances
are made, well, they won't make them. So there you are!"
There was nothing much to say to this, because, after a few minutes of
resentment, I felt all over that it was perfectly true. I did n't say
anything, but you bet it was n't more than a day or two before the
fellows seemed to me just the way they always had seemed. I think I had
a pretty close call; I might have turned into a Dick Benton.
Three days before Class Day, who should blow in but Duggie? He
literally did blow in, come to think of it, as he crossed from Cadiz in
a sailing-vessel and was as brown as a Spaniard. He brought Mrs.
Chester a black lace shawl, and told her that if she 'd drape it around
her head and sit at her upstairs window some evening, he 'd come and
serenade her. To which the old girl responded with one of her roguish
little digs at Duggie's ribs, and exclaimed,--
"Land sakes, Mr. Duggie, you can't sing, and never could."
Duggie wanted Berri and me to dine with him that evening, but Berri's
last examination was to come the next morning (I had finished all of
mine) and he could n't. I did, though, and we walked out to Cambridge
afterwards in the moonlight. He told me all about his trip, and when I
let him know that we were going abroad for the summer and that Berri was
going over with us to join his mother at Dinard, he said,--
"I had a letter from Berri in answer to mine. I don't often keep
letters, but I 've kept his. I suppose you know I did n't think much of
Berri at first, but I don't mind confessing that I sized him up all
wrong."
It was such a beautiful night that when we got to our gate, it seemed
like wasting something to go in the house. Berri had finished his grind
and was leaning out of my window. He said that his brain felt like a
dead jellyfish (I think that was the pretty simile), and told us not to
go in, as he would put on his coat and come down to us. So we strolled,
all three, over to the Yard, and sat on the steps in front of one of the
Holworthy entries. It was very late, but the finals were not yet over,
and the yellow of many windows blurred through the trees. The long
quadrangle was flecked with moonlight, and little groups like our own
were sitting in front of almost every doorway. The Yard, except on
great occasions, is rarely noisy, and that night it seemed particularly
quiet,--a kind of lull before the crash of Class Day and Commencement.
Duggie and Berri and I sat there talking until the air and the sky had
changed from summer night to summer morning. Even then a few of the
windows were still glowing.