“If I _could_ do it,” he vociferated, “if I _could_ stand up there and
debate one o' their darn ole debates in the first place--if I had the
gall to even try it, why, my gosh! you don't suppose I'm goin' to get
up there and argue with _that girl_, do you? That's a hot way to get
an education: stand up there and argue with a girl before a couple o'
hundred people! My _gosh!_”
“You got to!” his prostrate companion cackled, weakly. “You can't get
out of it. You're a goner, ole Buddy!”
“I'll be sick. I'll be sick as a dog! I'll be sick as the sickest dog
that ever--”
“No use, ole man. The frat seniors'll be on the job. They'll know
whether you're sick or not, and they'll have you there, right on the
spot to the minute!”
The prediction was accurate. The too fatherly “frat seniors” did all
that Fred said they would, and more. For the honour of the “frat,” they
coached the desperate Ramsey in the technic of Lumen debate, told him
many more things to say than could be said in six minutes, and produced
him, despairing, ghastly, and bedewed, in the large hall of the Lumen
Society at eight o'clock on Friday evening.
Four other “twelve-minute debates” preceded his and the sound of these,
in Ramsey's ears, was the sound of Gabriel practising on his horn in
the early morning of Judgment Day. The members of the society sat, three
rows deep, along the walls of the room, leaving a clear oblong of green
carpet in the centre, where were two small desks, twenty feet apart, the
rostrums of the debaters. Upon a platform at the head of the room sat
dreadful seniors, the officers of the society, and, upon benches near
the platform, the debaters of the evening were aligned. One of the
fraternal seniors sat with sweltering Ramsey; and the latter, as his
time relentlessly came nearer, made a last miserable squirm.
“Look here, Brother Colburn, I got to get out o' here.”
“No, you don't, young fellow.”
“Yes, I do!” Ramsey whispered, passionately. “Honest, I do. Honest,
Brother Colburn, I got to get a drink of water. I _got_ to!”
“No. You can't.”
“Honest, Colburn, I _got_--”
“Hush!”
Ramsey grunted feebly, and cast his dilating eyes along the rows of
faces. Most of them were but as blurs, swimming, yet he was aware (he
thought) of a formidable and horrible impassive scrutiny of himself, a
glare seeming to pierce through him to the back of the belt round his
waist, so that he began to have fearful doubts about that belt, about
every fastening and adjustment of his garments, about the expression of
his countenance, and about many other things jumbling together in his
consciousness. Over and over he whispered gaspingly to himself the
opening words of the sentence with which Colburn had advised him to
begin his argument. And as the moment of supreme agony drew close, this
whispering became continuous: “In making my first appearance before
this honor'ble membership I feel constrained to say in making my first
appearance before this honor'ble membership I feel constrained to say in
making my first appearance before this honor'ble mem--”
...It had come. The chairman announced the subject of the fourth
freshman twelve-minute debate; and Dora Yocum, hitherto unperceived
by Ramsey, rose and went forward to one of the small desks in the open
space, where she stood composedly, a slim, pretty figure in white.
Members in Ramsey's neighbourhood were aware of a brief and hushed
commotion, and of Colburn's fierce whisper, “You can't! You get up
there!” And the blanched Ramsey came forth and placed himself at the
other desk.
He stood before the silent populace of that morgue, and it seemed to him
that his features had forgotten that he was supposed to be their owner
and in control of them; he felt that they were slipping all over his
face, regardless of his wishes. His head, as a whole, was subject to
an agitation not before known by him; it desired to move rustily in
eccentric ways of its own devising; his legs alternately limbered and
straightened under no direction but their own; and his hands clutched
each other fiercely behind his back; he was not one cohesive person,
evidently, but an assembled collection of parts which had relapsed each
into its own individuality. In spite of them, he somehow contrived the
semblance of a bow toward the chairman and the semblance of another
toward Dora, of whom he was but hazily conscious. Then he opened his
mouth, and, not knowing how he had started his voice going, heard it as
if from a distance.
“In making my first appearance before this honor'ble membership I feel
restrained to say--” He stopped short, and thenceforward shook visibly.
After a long pause, he managed to repeat his opening, stopped again,
swallowed many times, produced a handkerchief and wiped his face, an act
of necessity--then had an inspiration.
“The subject assigned to me,” he said, “is resolved that Germany is
mor'ly and legally justified in Belgians--Belgiums! This subject was
assigned to me to be the subject of this debate.” He interrupted himself
to gasp piteously; found breathing difficult, but faltered again: “This
subject is the subject. It is the subject that was assigned to me on
a postal card.” Then, for a moment or so, he had a miraculous spurt of
confidence, and continued rather rapidly: “I feel constrained to say
that the country of Belgian--Belgium, I mean--this country has been
constrained by the--invaded I mean--invaded by the imperial German
Impire and my subject in this debate is whether it ought to or not, my
being the infernative--affirmative, I mean--that I got to prove that
Germany is mor'ly and legally justified. I wish to state that--”
He paused again, lengthily, then struggled on. “I have been requested
to state that the German Imp--Empire--that it certainly isn't right
for those Dutch--Germans, I mean--they haven't got any more business in
Belgium than I have myself, but I--I feel constrained to say that I had
to accept whatever side of this debate I got on the postal card, and so
I am constrained to take the side of the Dutch. I mean the Germans. The
Dutch are sometimes called--I mean the Germans are sometimes called the
Dutch in this country, but they aren't Dutch, though sometimes called
Dutch in this country. Well, and so--so, well, the war began last August
or about then, anyway, and the German army invaded the Belgian army.
After they got there, the invasion began. First, they came around there
and then they commenced invading. Well, what I feel constrained--”
He came to the longest of all his pauses here, and the awful gravity of
the audience almost suffocated him. “Well,” he concluded, “it don't look
right to me.”
“Four minutes!” the chairman announced, for Ramsey's pauses had worn
away a great deal more of this terrible interval than had his eloquence.
“Opening statement for the negative: Miss D. Yocum. Four minutes.”
As Dora began to speak, Ramsey experienced a little relief, but only
a little--about the same amount of relief as that felt by a bridegroom
when it is the bride's turn to “respond,” not really relief at all, but
merely the slight relaxation of a continuing strain. The audience now
looked at Ramsey no more than people look at a bridegroom, but he failed
to perceive any substantial mitigation of his frightful conspicuousness.
He had not the remotest idea of what he had said in setting forth his
case for Germany, and he knew that it was his duty to listen closely
to Dora, in order to be able to refute her argument when his two-minute
closing speech fell due but he was conscious of little more than his own
condition. His legs had now gone wild beyond all devilry, and he had
to keep shifting his weight from one to the other in order even to hope
that their frenzy might escape general attention.
He realized that Dora was speaking rapidly and confidently, and that
somewhere in his ill-assembled parts lurked a familiar bit of him that
objected to her even more than usual; but she had used half of her time,
at least, before he was able to gather any coherent meaning from what
she was saying. Even then he caught only a fragment, here and there,
and for the rest--so far as Ramsey was concerned--she might as well have
been reciting the Swedish alphabet.
In spite of the rather startling feebleness of her opponent's statement,
Dora went at her task as earnestly as if it were to confute some monster
of casuistry. “Thus, having demonstrated that _all_ war is wrong,” she
said, approaching her conclusion, “it is scarcely necessary to point out
that whatever the actual circumstances of the invasion, and whatever the
status of the case in international law, or by reason of treaty, or the
German oath to respect the neutrality of Belgium, which of course was
grossly and dishonorably violated--all this, I say, ladies and gentlemen
of the Lumen Society, all this is beside the point of morals. Since, as
I have shown, _all_ war is wrong, the case may be simplified as follows:
All war is morally wrong. _Quod erat demonstrandum_. Germany invaded
Belgium. Invasion is war. Germany, therefore, did moral wrong. Upon
the legal side, as I began by pointing out, Germany confessed in the
Reichstag the violation of law. Therefore, Germany was justified in the
invasion neither morally nor legally; but was both morally and legally
wrong and evil. Ladies and gentlemen of the Lumen Society, I await the
refutation of my opponent!”
Her opponent appeared to be having enough trouble with his legs, without
taking any added cares upon himself in the way of refutations. But the
marvellous Dora had calculated the length of her statement with such
nicety that the chairman announced “Four minutes,” almost upon the
instant of her final syllable; and all faces turned once more to
the upholder of the affirmative. “Refutation and conclusion by the
affirmative,” said the chairman. “Mr. R. Milholland. Two minutes.”
Therewith, Ramsey coughed as long as he could cough, and when he felt
that no more should be done in this way, he wiped his face--again an act
of necessity--and quaveringly began:
“Gentlemen and ladies, or ladies and gentlemen, in making the refutation
of my opponent, I feel that--I feel that hardly anything more ought to
be said.”
He paused, looked helplessly at his uncontrollable legs, and resumed:
“I am supposed to make the reputa--the refutation of my opponent, and I
feel that I ought to say quite a good deal more. In the first place, I
feel that the invasion has taken place. I am supposed--anyhow I got a
postal card that I am supposed to be here to-night. Well, in talking
over this matter with a couple of seniors, they told me I was supposed
to claim this invasion was mor'ly and legally all right. Well--” Here,
by some chance, the recollection of a word of Dora's flickered into his
chaotic mind, and he had a brighter moment. “My opponent said she proved
all war is wrong--or something like that, anyhow. She said she proved it
was wrong to fight, no matter what. Well, if she wasn't a girl, anybody
that wanted to get her into a fight could prob'ly do it.” He did not
add that he would like to be the person to make the experiment (if Dora
weren't a girl), nor did the thought enter his mind until an hour or so
later. “Well,” he added, “I suppose there is little more to be said.”
He was so right, in regard to his own performance, at least, that,
thereupon drying up utterly, he proceeded to stand, a speechless
figure in the midst of a multitudinous silence, for an eternity lasting
forty-five seconds. He made a racking effort, and at the end of this
epoch found words again. “In making my argument in this debate, I would
state that--”
“Two minutes!” said the chairman. “Refutation by the negative. Miss D.
Yocum. Two minutes.”
“I waive them,” said Dora, primly. “I submit that the affirmative has
not refuted the argument of the negative.”
“Very well.” With his gavel the chairman sharply tapped the desk before
him, “The question is now before the house. 'Resolved, that Germany
is both morally and legally justified in her invasion of Belgium.' All
those in favour of the--”
But here there was an interruption of a kind never before witnessed
during any proceedings of the Lumen Society. It came from neither of
the debaters, who still remained standing at their desks until the
vote settling their comparative merits in argument should be taken. The
interruption was from the rear row of seats along the wall, where
sat new members of the society, freshmen not upon the program for the
evening. A loud voice was heard from this quarter, a loud but nasal
voice, shrill as well as nasal, and full of a strange hot passion. “Mr.
Chairman!” it cried. “Look-a-here, Mr. Chairman! Mr. Chairman, I demand
to be heard! You gotta gimme my say, Mr. Chairman! I'm a-gunna have my
_say_! You look-a-here, Mr. Chairman!”
Shocked by such a breach of order, and by the unseemly violence of the
speaker, not only the chairman but everyone else looked there. A short,
strong figure was on its feet, gesticulating fiercely; and the head
belonging to it was a large one with too much curly black hair, a flat,
swarthy face, shiny and not immaculately shaven; there was an impression
of ill-chosen clothes, too much fat red lip, too much tooth, too much
eyeball. Fred Mitchell, half-sorrowing, yet struggling to conceal tears
of choked mirth over his roommate's late exhibition, recognized this
violent interrupter as one Linski, a fellow freshman who sat next to him
in one of his classes. “What's _that_ cuss up to?” Fred wondered, and so
did others. Linski showed them.
He pressed forward, shoving himself through the two rows in front of him
till he emerged upon the green carpet of the open space, and as he came,
he was cyclonic with words.
“You don't put no such stuff as this over, I tell you!” he shouted in
his hot, nasal voice. “This here's a free country, and you call yourself
a debating society, do you? Lemme tell you _I_ belong to a debating
society in Chicago, where I come from, and them fellas up there, they'd
think they'd oughta be shot fer a fake like what you people are
tryin' to put over, here, to-night. I come down here to git some more
education, and pay fer it, too, in good hard money I've made sweatin'
in a machine shop up there in Chicago; but if _this_ is the kind of
education I'm a-gunna git, I better go on back there. You call this a
square debate, do you?”
He advanced toward the chairman's platform, shaking a frantic fist.
“Well, if you do, you got another think comin', my capitalis' frien'!
you went and give out the question whether it's right fer Choimuny to go
through Belgium; and what do you do fer the Choimun side? You pick out
this here big stiff”--he waved his passionate hand at the paralyzed
Ramsey--“you pick out a boob like that for the Choimun side, a poor fish
that gits stagefright so bad he don't know whether he's talkin' or dead;
or else he fakes it; because he's a speaker so bum it looks more to me
like he was faking. You get this big stiff to fake the Choimun side, and
then you go and stick up a goil agains' him that's got brains and makes
a pacifis' argument that wins the case agains' the Choimuns like cuttin'
through hog lard! But you ain't a-gunna git away with it, mister!
Lemme tell you right here and now, I may be a mix blood, but I got some
Choimun in me with the rest what I got, and before you vote on this here
question you gotta hear a few woids from somebody that can _talk!_ This
whole war is a capitalis' war, Belgium as much as Choimuny, and the
United States is sellin' its soul to the capitalis' right now, I tell
you, takin' sides agains' Choimuny. Orders fer explosives and ammanition
and guns and Red Cross supplies is comin' into this country by the
millions, and the capitalis' United States is fat already on the blood
of the workers of Europe! Yes, it is, and I'll have my _say,_ you
boorjaw faker, and you can hammer your ole gavel to pieces at me!”
He had begun to shriek; moisture fell from his brow and his mouth; the
scandalized society was on its feet, nervously into groups. Evidently
the meeting was about to disintegrate. “I'll have my _say_!” the
frenzied Linski screamed. “You try to put up this capitalis' trick and
work a fake to carry over this debate agains' Choimuny, but you can't
work it on _me_, lemme tell you! I'll have my _say!_”
The outraged chairman was wholly at a loss how to deal with the
“unprecedented situation”--so he defined it, quite truthfully; and he
continued to pound upon the desk, while other clamours began to rival
Linski's; shouts of “Put him out!” “Order!” “Shut up, Freshman!” “Turn
him over to the sophomores!”
“This meeting is _adjourned!_” bellowed the chairman, and there was a
thronging toward the doors, while the frothing Linski asseverated: “I'm
a-gunna git my say, I tell you! I'll have my say! I'll have my _say!_”
He had more than that, before the hour was over. A moment after he
emerged from the building and came out, still hot, upon the cool, dark
campus, he found himself the centre of a group of his own classmates
whom he at first mistook for sophomores, such was their manner.
...As this group broke up, a few minutes later, a youth running to
join it, scenting somewhat of interest, detained one of those who were
departing.
“What's up? What was that squealing?”
“Oh, nothing. We just talked to that Linski. Nobody else touched him,
but Ramsey Milholland gave him a _peach_ of a punch on the snoot.”
“Whoopee!”
Ramsey was laconic in response to inquiries upon this subject. When
someone remarked: “You served him right for calling you a boob and a
poor fish and so on before all the society, girls and all,” Ramsey only
said:
“That wasn't what I hit him for.”
He declined to explain further.