ANTI-CLIMAX
A week after the game David stopped one afternoon at Lester’s room and
found him in a discontented mood.
“I can’t stand anti-climax,” Lester said. “And now that the game is
over, everything is by way of being anti-climax for me. And a fellow
can’t just take things comfortably; he has to do a lot of petty, sordid
studying. While I was playing football I fell behind in most of my
courses; now I have all that work to make up. If my father would give
his consent, I’d leave college and go into business.”
“That would be a foolish thing to do before you’ve got your degree.”
“I’ve got out of college all there is in it for me. It seems a waste
of time to stay on for just a piece of parchment. I’m beginning to
feel cramped. I need space to expand in.” Standing in front of the
fireplace, Lester stretched and swelled his big frame, doubled his
fists and flung his arms out from the shoulders. “I want to get into
the game――the big game――quick. Schoolboy life――I’ve had enough. I’m no
student.”
“You don’t need to tell me that. Still the degree counts for something.”
“Mighty little in the business world. Six good months wasted, hanging
on here!”
“What should you do if you cut loose now?”
“I should get a job in a bond house. I might go to New York. I mean
to get into the promotion of big things――big corporation business. A
fellow that finances street railways and industrial plants, controls
banks and makes towns grow――a builder; that’s what I mean to be.”
“That’s all right; and now you’re laying your foundation. Building is
slow work. You mustn’t be impatient.”
“I’m not impatient of anything but time wasted!” cried Lester.
“Well, it won’t do for you to pull up stakes and clear out, even if
your father does consent to anything so foolish,” said David crisply.
“We’re going to run you for first marshal, and you’ve got to stay and
get elected.”
Whether David realized it or not, he could not have brought forward
an argument that would have been more effective with Lester. To be
elected first marshal was to win the highest non-scholastic honor
attainable in the university. Lester showed his interest at once.
“Oh, there’s no chance. Farrar will get that. Captain of the football
team. It’s a sure thing for him.”
“There’s quite a feeling that on your record you deserved the captaincy
and that the best thing the class can do is to make it up to you by
electing you first marshal. That’s a thing that it’s worth staying in
college for, even if the degree isn’t.”
“Oh, if there were a chance of my getting it, sure. But I guess this is
just a case where you’re blinded by friendship, old man.”
“Farrar’s got his supporters, of course, and so has Jim Colby got his.
But most of the fellows I see think that you’re the man; your work on
the football and baseball teams and the fact that you’re generally
popular make you the most likely candidate.”
“There’s almost nothing I wouldn’t do to be first marshal,” said
Lester. All the discontent had been smoothed out of his face; his eyes
were shining. He seated himself on the corner of his desk and threw his
arm round David. “You’re certainly a mighty good friend, Dave, to want
to put me across. And I know that your backing will count for a lot;
everybody thinks a lot of you.”
“There are plenty of others who are with me in this. So don’t get the
idea that there’s nothing more left in life for you, Lester.”
“I guess I was talking like a fool, a few minutes ago, Dave. There’s
something in this idea that the fellows have about me――that I’m too
temperamental. I’m glad you dropped in to cheer me up, even though it
should turn out that there’s no chance for me.”
“There is,” said David. “Just wait and see.”
Lester, whose hope and ambition were stirred, could not wait and see.
He was bound to be active in furthering his own interests, and he
conceived that he could best do it by being more pleasant and genial
than ever with every one. He began to call by their first names
fellows with whom he had only a slight acquaintance; and he struck
up an acquaintance with members of the class who had hitherto been
too obscure or too remote from his orbit to win his attention. The
spontaneity of his manner and the fact that he was so prominent a
personage caused many of those whom he thus approached to be flattered
by his advances; others resented them as obviously insincere and
inspired by a selfish motive. The supporters of the rival candidates,
Farrar and Colby, criticized his tactics freely; some ill feeling grew
up among the various partisans. But Lester himself, however indiscreet
he may have sometimes been in showing that he was eager for every vote,
never uttered any words of detraction or disparagement about the other
candidates and did nothing to incur their enmity.
In the excitement of his canvass he did not turn with any zest to his
college work. As a result of his neglect the college office notified
him that, if by a certain period he failed to show improvement, he
would be placed on probation. Not only would this mean that he would be
debarred from participation in all athletic sports, but it would also
no doubt seriously affect his chances of being made marshal. The class
would be unlikely to confer its highest honor upon one who had failed
to maintain a creditable standing in his studies, especially when such
failure would mean that he would be ineligible for the varsity baseball
nine, on which he had played the preceding year.
“I wish I could call on you to help me the way you used to in the old
days at St. Timothy’s,” Lester said to David, after telling him of his
troubles. “You used to get me over some pretty hard places.”
“I’d do anything I could to help you,” replied David, “but the trouble
is you’re not taking courses that I know anything about. English
composition is the only thing we have together, and there’s no way that
I can see of helping you with that――beyond criticizing anything that
you write. Of course that I’ll be glad to do.”
“I wouldn’t have any trouble with English composition if I could find
time to write the themes,” said Lester. “But I’ve missed some of
them, and now I’ve got to put in all the time getting ready for the
examination in the other courses.”
“You’d better buckle right down to work,” advised David. “Fire your
friends out of your room when they come to see you. Tell Richard he
mustn’t speak to you, and don’t let yourself talk to him. Keep your
nose in a book all day and half the night. Do that, and I guess you’ll
come through. You’ve got to come through; it won’t do for you to be put
on probation.”
“I know it,” groaned Lester. He reached for a book. “All right, I’ll
begin right now. Get out of here, you Dave, and let a fellow study.”
There were tests in every course that Lester took except in English
composition, and to prepare for the tests he had to do in less than
two weeks the work that he had neglected for two months. Also for the
course in composition he had in the same period to write a long theme.
He decided to leave the theme until the night before it was due, and to
give the remaining time to the other studies.
By secluding himself for such a purpose he did not impair his
popularity as a candidate: his classmates were probably impressed by
his studious earnestness. Through the reports of it that his roommate,
Richard Bradley, spread abroad, it seemed almost heroic. If Richard
was to be believed, Lester hardly put down his books in order to eat
or sleep. To be sure Richard had already achieved for himself the
reputation of being Lester’s publicity agent; making all reasonable
allowances, however, his classmates found his tales impressive.
Lester had never found any training for football more exhausting than
those days and nights of concentrated mental labor. When the time came
for each examination he went to it, nervous and apprehensive. He came
out from each one unexpectedly happy and cheerful. He knew that he had
passed; his hard study had not been without results; he felt proud of
himself, of the character and application that he had shown.
Emerging from the last examination, that in fine arts, he encountered
Tom Bemis, who asked him eagerly how he had fared.
“Fine,” said Lester. “I simply killed it.”
“That’s the stuff!” cried Tom. “Now I tell you what you do. You need a
little rest and dissipation after all your labors. Come with Jim Kelly
and me for an automobile ride. Do you good; cool the fevered brow.
We’ll have supper at some country inn and get home before it’s too
late.”
“But I have a long theme due at noon to-morrow,” said Lester. “It’s
just as important as an examination, and I haven’t written a word, or
even got an idea yet.”
“That’s all right. You’ll get ideas coming with us. You’ve got to have
some relaxation, you know. Something will snap inside your bean if you
continue to treat it so cruelly.”
“What time will you get back?”
“Any time you say.”
“If you promise to get back not later than eight o’clock,” said Lester,
“I’ll go with you. I’ve got to be home then to write that theme.”
“All right; we’ll do it. We want a fourth; there’s Chuck Morley. O
Chuck!”
Summoned with energetic beckoning as well as with vociferous shouting,
the stout youth who had just descended the steps of the dormitory near
which they stood approached. He consented to join the expedition, and
early in the afternoon the four started off in Bemis’s new high-powered
car.
It was a sunny day, the air was mild, and the car ran smoothly. They
sped from one town to another, cheerfully regardless of time and place,
until Lester suggested that they had better look for an inn and have
supper. It was half-past six before they came upon a hostelry that
seemed to them sufficiently attractive to deserve their patronage; it
was eight o’clock by the time they had finished what they all regarded
as an unsatisfactory and expensive meal; and it was after ten o’clock
when they finally drew up in front of the dormitory in which Lester and
Kelly had their rooms.
Lester hastened up the stairs, intending to set to work at once upon
his theme. Richard was not in; Lester had the room to himself; now if
he could only think of something to write about. But the automobile
ride, which Bemis had assured him would furnish him with inspiration,
seemed only to have made him numb and drowsy. For almost two weeks
he had been getting less than his usual amount of sleep. His head
nodded over the blank page before him on his desk; he was roused by the
slipping of the pen from his fingers.
He rose, plunged his face into cold water and then walked about the
room for a few minutes. Still finding himself unable to think of a
subject on which he could write, he decided to go to David and ask for
suggestions.
It meant merely going down one flight of stairs in the dormitory. When
he knocked on David’s door, however, there was no answer. He tried the
door, found it unlocked, and entered. Then he turned on the light; if
he sat down for a moment, David might perhaps come in, and anyway he
should be just as likely to think of a subject in David’s room as in
his own.
On the desk lay David’s neatly folded, freshly typewritten theme;
beside it lay the rough draft from which he had made the copy. Out
of curiosity Lester picked up the theme and began to read it. He
became interested, for it dealt with athletics and their place in
college life, and he recognized in it many ideas that he and David had
frequently thrashed out in discussion. In fact, it was just such a
theme as he himself might have written had he happened to hit upon that
topic.
It would certainly be all right for him to take it to his room and see
whether he could not prepare an essay on the subject without in any
way duplicating David’s work. Perhaps in the rough draft there were
passages that had not been used in the final copy and that would prove
helpful.
So Lester took the theme and the rough draft, turned out the light,
and went back to his room. On looking over the rough draft he was
disappointed to find that it contained nothing that did not appear
in the typewritten copy. He set to work then to try to write a theme
of his own, using the material that David had treated; but after an
hour of effort, having written several pages and then having read over
what he had written, he was in despair. He realized that any one who
examined the two themes would say that one was merely a paraphrase of
the other, and that the two could not have been written independently
of each other.
Lester was tired, sleepy, and disheartened. There was no use in his
making further effort that evening; that was certain. If he got up
early the next morning and could only think of something to write
about, perhaps he could get the theme done. He had a class from ten
o’clock to eleven that he must not cut, but if he could write from
eight until ten, and then from eleven to twelve, he might fulfill the
requirement. But it would have to be a good theme; a poor or even a
mediocre piece of work would not save him.
As he undressed he meditated gloomily on his situation. For two
weeks he had toiled nobly, had accomplished scholastic miracles,
had displayed the best he had in him of mind and character; and yet
it might all be of no avail――nullified by his inability to get done
a single piece of writing that, given a little more time, he could
satisfactorily do. Indeed, he could have done it that evening if David
had not balked him by anticipating him, using the thoughts and ideas
that they had exchanged, and so making it impossible for him to use
them. If he missed this theme, he should be put on probation in spite
of all his good work in the other courses; he should be declared
ineligible to play on the nine; and probably he should lose the
marshalship, which he felt was otherwise within his grasp.
And the theme lay there on his desk. It was typewritten; all he had
to do was to remove the covering page bearing David’s name and to
substitute a covering page bearing his own. David would never know.
And David would really not suffer by the loss; his standing in the
course was assured anyway; he was not trying for honors in English, and
even if he were trying for them his missing one theme would not, in
view of his excellent record, be likely to count against him. No one
would suffer, and it would be a means of escape for a fellow who really
deserved to escape. Besides, thought Lester, the theme was almost half
his anyway. David could hardly have written it if they had not talked
the thing over together so much.
It would not do for Richard to see the theme when he came in. Lester
put it and the rough draft into a drawer of his desk and locked the
drawer.
He would not decide the question now, anyway. He was played out; a good
night’s sleep would rest him mentally, and probably he would get up in
the morning and find himself able to write a theme without any trouble.
In fact, of course he would. It was foolish to think of anything else.
So he tumbled into bed and instantly fell sound asleep.