_Dear Dad_:
I am sincerely sorry my last expense account has made you
round-shouldered. I should think you pay your cashier well enough to let
him take the burden of this sort of thing. Better try it when next
month's bills come in, for I should hate to have a hump-backed father.
You haven't the worst end of this expense account business, by any
means. If it makes you round-shouldered to look it over, as you say, you
can just gamble a future in the short ribs of your dutiful son that it
made me cross-eyed to put it together. You see there are so many items
that a Philistine--that's what Professor Wendell calls men who haven't
been to Harvard--couldn't be expected to understand. I was afraid that
$150 for incidental expenses in the Ethnological course wouldn't be
quite clear to you. It may be necessary to tell you that Ethnology is
the study of races, and the text-books are very costly and hard to
procure. But the fellows are very fond of the course; it is so full of
human interest that it is a real pastime for them. In fact, they
sportively call it "playing the races," to the great delight of dear old
Professor Bookmaker, our instructor.
Your suggestion that I appear to be trying to buy Cambridge proves you
are not posted on conditions here. I am, and I may say _en passant_, the
conditions are also posted on me--the Dean sees to that. I wouldn't buy
Cambridge if it were for sale. I never had any taste for antiques. There
are purchasable things in Boston far more attractive; if you will come
on I'll be glad to let you look 'em over. I like Cambridge well enough
daytimes, but the most interesting thing in it is the electric car that
runs to Boston.
I realize that my expenses grow heavier each month, but money not only
has wings, but swims like a duck, and the fashionable fluid to float it
is costly. I'm really beginning to believe that a man who can read,
write and speak seven or eight languages may be an utter failure unless
he's able to say "No" in at least one of them.
The problem of how to get rich has not yet been reached in the Higher
Mathematics course and so it's not worrying me, as you seem to think.
But of course I don't want to cast reflections on the solvency of the
house of Graham & Co., so I try to keep my end up. It's expensive, for
there are fellows here who've got bigger fools than I have for--but this
wasn't what I started to say. All men may be born equal, but they get
over it a good sight easier than they do the measles; and while some of
the fellows have to study in cold rooms, others have money to burn.
Poverty may not be a crime, but it's a grave misdemeanor in Cambridge.
I am grieved, my dear father, to have you say that you haven't noticed
any signs of my taking honors here at Cambridge. You cannot have read
the society columns of the Boston papers, or you would have seen that I
have already a degree from the Cotillion Society, as being a proficient
student of the German; am entitled to the letters B.A.A. after my
name--a privilege granted by a learned Boston organization after very
severe tests, and have been extended the freedom of Boston Common by the
aldermen of the city. If these things don't justify the inking up of a
few pink slips, you can souse my knuckles. It grieves me to have you
fail to appreciate what I've accomplished. I am trying to do your
credit,--what a foolish little slip; rub the "r" from "your" and you'll
see my meaning.
Another thing that proves my high standing in college is the fact that
I've been admitted to the D.K.E., playfully known here as the "Dicky," a
very exclusive and high-toned literary and debating society, specially
patronized by the Faculty. The initiation ceremonies are very curious,
and I really believe you would laugh to see some of the innocent little
pranks the new men cut up. They are sent around town and over into
Boston dressed in quaint garb and instructed to ask roguish questions of
any they meet. This is to give them self-possession in debate and
calmness in facing the battles of life. It would meet with your hearty
approval, I am sure.
For my little trial I was compelled to wear a yellow Mother Hubbard,
with a belt of empty Graham & Co. tin cans fastened around my waist and
a double rope of your sausages hanging from my neck. A silk hat
completed the rig. Thus accoutred I was told to promenade up and down
Tremont street over in Boston, a swell walk opposite the Common, and
bark like a dog. Every five minutes I had to buttonhole some one and
shout "Buy Graham & Co.'s pork products and you'll never use any
others."
Well, the long and short of it is that I became a marked man on the gay
boulevard. Small boys tendered me a free escort and made insulting
remarks, which I endured cheerfully for the cause. It vexed me a bit,
though, to find that one of the persons I advised as to our meats was
Miss Vane of Chicago. She looked unutterable things and murmured
something to her escort at which he smiled pityingly. If you hear that I
drink, you will know exactly how the rumor started, and discredit it
accordingly.
Finally the crowd around me became so dense that street traffic was
blocked, and I was taken in charge by a policeman for disorderly
conduct. In another minute I was arrested by a meat inspector for
exposing adulterated foods for sale. Between the two of them it was a
simple little cot that night and a frugal breakfast next morning for
Pierrepont. I was discharged on the disorderly conduct count, but fined
$100 and costs on the bad meat item. The judge ordered all the windows
opened when it came into court. Father, it's up to Graham & Co. to make
good the deficit in my month's allowance. As a philosopher, you will see
the point, I am sure. Perhaps a little bonus for mental suffering will
suggest itself to you.
I simply mention this in a general way to let you know how your pork
products are regarded in the east, where the health laws are stricter
than in Chicago. I would advise you to play harder for the Klondike
trade and cut Boston off your drummers' maps. This is a bit of "thinking
for the house" that I'm not charging anything for. It's sense, though,
and you can coin it into dollars if you see fit.
Dear old father, always planning for my comfort and pecuniary welfare!
You wrote that when I have had my last handshake with John the
Orangeman, I am to enter the Graham packing plant to lick postage stamps
as a mailing clerk at $8 a week. Honestly, dad, I don't feel worthy of
so much. Make me an office boy at three per and let me grow up with the
business. And I can't lick a postage stamp--really, I can't. Professor
Plexus, our instructor in calisthenics, told me so the other day. He is
a coarse and brutal man and I think I shall cut his elective out next
semester.
But of course I shall accept your offer, although I should prefer a
partnership, no matter how silent; for I shall be glad to be on hand in
case anything should happen to you. Despite the law of averages you
never can tell, you know.
As you say, there's plenty of room at the top. But that's where I'd like
to start. I'd take all the chances of falling down the elevator well.
Even if one starts at the bottom, he's not safe. The elevator may fall
on him.
You say that Adam invented all the different ways in which a young man
can make a fool of himself. If he did--which, with all due respect to
you, pater, I doubt--it's a wonder to me that Beelzebub didn't quit his
job in Adam's favor. I have no doubt it pays to be good, but you know
better than I do that it often takes a long time to get a business well
established. Misdeeds may be sure to find you out, but if they do
they'll call again.
I've devoted a good deal of thought to your maxims, which I realize to
be sensible if homely, but, after all, if people practiced what other
people preached, the preachers would have to take on a new line of
goods. At all events I won't allow myself to worry. The man who's long
on pessimism is usually short on liver pills. Misanthropy is only an
aristocratic trade-mark for biliousness.
I don't do things just because the other fellows do, as you suggest, but
for the sake of the family name I must observe the proprieties. Even in
this I do not go to such extremes as the Afro-American gentleman who
sells hot corn and "hot dogs" in Harvard Square in their respective
seasons. His wife died a few weeks ago and he found it pretty hard to
get a living and crap stakes without a laundress in the family. So he
married a stout wench about ten days ago. Last Sunday, says our
janitor, who tells the story, his new wife asked him to go to church
with her. "Go to church wid you, chile," he cried; "Bress de Lord,
be'ent you got no moh sense ob de propri'ties dan to think dat I'd go to
church wid annuder woman so soon after de death ob my wife?"
It is nearly midnight and I must close, for at twelve the art class
meets at Soldiers Field to go and paint the John Harvard statue.
Your affectionate son,
PIERREPONT GRAHAM.
P.S. I wired you to-day for $50. I couldn't explain by telegraph, but
the fact is it cost me that sum to keep your name out of the police
court records.
LETTER No. III.
_Pierrepont, about to forsake Harvard, supplies his father with some
reasons for agreeing with him that a post-graduate course is not
advisable._