Freshman. In fact, the diligent Sergeant depended upon it for most of
his [Greek: kudos] so Dick Stoughton had determined to play upon his
keenness in this respect, and use a sign as the bait with which to hook
his fish. On the appointed evening he and Randolph went to
Cambridgeport, and bought a barber's pole. They were careful to get a
receipted bill from the barber with an accurate description of the pole.
The latter was marked with the barber's name in gilt letters, and was
small enough to be nearly, but not quite, covered with an overcoat. Thus
provided, they started back for Cambridge proper (the Port being usually
known as Cambridge improper) along Main Street, keeping as much as
possible in the shadows. At the end of half a dozen blocks, they came on
a policeman, and promptly crossed the street in a most alluring manner.
The vigilant officer, noticing the suspicious shape of Randolph's
overcoat held under his arm, gave chase. The end of the pole stuck out
from the coat, and it was useless for the students to protest that they
had nothing that did not belong to them. They assured their captor that
the pole was theirs, that they had paid for it and could prove the fact;
but he insisted upon taking them before the captain of the precinct.
The captain had had a hard day, and was preparing to go to bed when they
were brought before him. He was tired and cross, and his humor was not
improved by this new arrival. When Stoughton showed the receipt,
however, he at once discharged the prisoners with much pleasure, and
reprimanded the overcareful officer.
The two then went on to the next guardian of Main Street, and he bit
equally well. They warned him of the result, and gave him their word of
honor that the pole was not stolen. He hesitated, and for a moment they
feared that he was going to be decent enough to believe them. But he was
a new and zealous recruit on the force and the bait was too inviting; so
he decided not to trust them. He was as polite as possible about it and
when he even apologized for not taking their word, they came near
melting and showing the receipt. But the fall of Bullam was not to be
averted, simply because gentler tyrants might be entrained. So back they
went to headquarters.
The captain came down in a red dressing-gown, the skirt of which flapped
idly in the breeze that came through an open window in the office. His
bare feet were shoved into a pair of carpet slippers, each foot in the
wrong slipper. With one hand he held a candle that wiggled in the
candle-stick and dropped wax on his wrist, and with the other hand tried
to keep the dressing-gown about his person. His frame of mind faithfully
carried out the spirit of the picture. To any guilty prisoner he would
have been indeed a terrifying spectacle; but he could do nothing to the
innocent and insulted gentlemen who had been haled before him. He
therefore relieved himself on their captor. The poor man got such a
dressing down, that when they left the office, Randolph presented him
with full forgiveness, a dollar bill, and the advice to learn as soon as
possible to tell a Senior from a Freshman.
The next policeman they met was old George Smith. He held them up with a
look of surprise, and a remark that he thought they had been in college
too long to be "ragging" barber's poles. When they explained to him,
however, he of course believed them, and grinned as he perceived
something in the wind.
"It is lucky that was George," said Stoughton, as they went on. "If we
had struck a strange cop, who thought we were liars, we should have
brought down the wrong bird. That police captain is just exactly primed
and loaded to the muzzle, and all ready to go off. Now for Bullam!"
They had now reached Quincy Square, and saw the fated form of Bullam
loom in the offing. They made for him boldly; there was no need of
finessing in his case. The moment his hawk eye caught sight of the
ill-concealed pole, he bore down on them with a grim joy.
"What have you got under that coat?" he demanded in his usual suave
tone.
"None of your business," responded Jack Randolph, with an inward
chuckle.
"It isn't, eh! Do you think I can't see that pole a-sticking out there?
Do you think you can steal signs under my very nose? You come along with
me now, and we'll see whether it's none of my business."
"If your insulting remarks refer to this barber-pole," replied Randolph,
producing the pole with ostentatious confidence, "allow me to tell you
that it belongs to us, and we have a perfect right to carry it wherever
we please. Although, as I said before, it is none of your business, I
will condescend to let you know that I bought it lately, and have a
receipt for it in my pocket."
"You can't give me no such bluff as that," sneered Bullam. "You can tell
that to the captain of the precinct. I'll give you a chance to show your
receipt."
"Look here, my man," (nothing makes a gentleman of Bullam's class more
angry than to call him "my man") answered Stoughton, "you don't deserve
it after the language you have used to us, but, nevertheless, I give you
fair warning not to do anything of the kind. If you take us to the
captain, you will get into trouble."
Bullam was beside himself. The more they said to him the more furious he
became, and finally threatened to use his club "if they gave him any
more guff." So, in high delight, the two injured youths took their way a
third time towards the house of the captain.
The policeman who had last had them in charge turned quickly away as
they passed, and shoved his handkerchief into his mouth. It was a
grateful balm to the new man to see a veteran going into the same trap
that had just lacerated him. Moreover, Bullam was quite as unpopular in
the force as with the students.
All was dark in the house where lay the uneasy head that wore the crown
of the precinct. Bullam rang the bell, with a ferocious glare at his
prisoners, as though tolling their death knell. A minute afterwards a
window opened above, and a head was thrust forth.
"Who is there?" bellowed a voice, now familiar to our much-arrested
pair.
"Sergeant Bullam, sir, with an arrest."
Dick and Jack took care to stand under a gas-lamp.
"Have you got two men there with a barber's pole?" asked the voice,
rising from a roar to a shriek.
"Yes, sir," chuckled Bullam, gleefully, mistaking the direction of his
superior's wrath. "I caught----"
"Didn't they tell you that it was their property, bought and paid for?"
"Yes, they had some cock-and-bull----"
"Stop!" thundered the captain, "you're too ---- ready to think every
gentleman you meet is a liar. Don't you be so ---- ---- hot after your
promotion. If you'll give more attention to your important duties, and
less to making capital out of the students, you'll get ahead faster. Now
you go all the way back with these gentlemen, and see that they are not
troubled any more. If they are brought here again I'll know who to blame
for it. I'll have you up for a breach of special duty, and make it hot
for you. What's more, you treat them civilly. I'll have no bullies on my
squad. If this man gives you boys any lip, come around and see me about
it in the morning. Now get out of here, and you, Bullam, mind what I
tell you, and be ---- ---- careful."
All the blanks in the foregoing address were filled in with deep color,
and the window went down with a slam that heavily sank in the sickened
soul of the astonished Bullam.
"Come along, sergeant," cried Randolph, cheerfully, shouldering the
barber-pole. He and Dick led the way back through Quincy Square,
whistling the "Rogue's March" and the "Pere de la Victoire." The
overwhelmed Bullam fell in behind. As they turned down Harvard Street,
he walked slowly and tried to drop back to a distance which would
disguise his connection with the parade; but his conquerors allowed no
such break in the procession. They slowed down, too, and kept about ten
feet in front of him.
On the first corner of Harvard Street were stationed three or four small
boys (the occasionally useful Cambridge muckers) employed as vedettes.
Upon the approach of the triumph, they dashed off to the different clubs
and gathering-places where the long oppressed people were eagerly
awaiting the arrival of Bullam in chains. These all flocked to Harvard
Street, Hudson bringing his cornet, Dixey a pair of cymbals, and Ned
Burleigh flourishing the drum-major's baton, with which he had done
mighty service in the last torch-light procession. It was going to be
the most glorious triumph ever seen in the classic shades since
Washington rode through them on his white charger.
But, alas! what a trivial thing may upset the grandest strategy; what a
petty boor may defeat Ulysses! Yet it was not such a petty boor who
caused the ruin in this case; it was the Cambridge mucker, and he should
never have been overlooked by a man of Machiavelli Stoughton's
experience. Those who know the Cantabrigian guerilla respect his power,
though they abhor his ways. An influential member of this free
lancehood, having demanded a quarter for the vedette service before
mentioned, and being refused employment, nursed a vindictive spirit. He
gathered a band on Harvard Street, near to the advanced scouts, and
waited to see what was going to happen. As soon as Stoughton and
Randolph came up with the attendant Bullam, this unforeseen enemy raised
a joyful shout and marshalled his comrades behind the trio. As they
proceeded along the street, he yelled to every mucker they passed, "Hey,
ragsy, come on! Here's two o' de Ha'vards gettin' run in!"
Muckers gathered from every side like jackals, and Bullam, realizing the
sudden turn in the aspect of affairs, no longer lagged behind, but
forged up alongside of his would-be tamers, and assumed his old fierce
and haughty air. He could maintain his dignity before the public anyway.
This was the way Dick Stoughton's great triumph looked when it reached a
point opposite the Yard. The expectant crowd of undergraduates looked
for a moment in surprise and grief, then, notwithstanding their
disappointment at Bullam's escape, a great roar of laughter went up, as
they concluded that the two daring plotters had egregiously failed in
their attempt and were on their way to a dungeon.
"Let's bail them out," cried two or three. "Bail nothing, you idiots,"
shouted the chagrined Stoughton, "we are not arrested; this man is our
body-guard. Come on, and we will take the procession around the Square
and up Garden Street."
This had been Dick's original intention as to the line of march; but
just at this moment the Dean of Harvard College came around the corner
of Holyoke Street and stopped short. In the direction of Harvard Square
lay the jail, and Stoughton at once decided that a triumph of such
uncertain appearance had better be brought to a close right where they
were. He and Randolph halted, therefore, and, waving aloft the barber's
pole, gave Bullam their gracious permission to depart. As a little extra
effect they ordered him to disperse the rabble, to which mandate he
payed no attention. Then, with as much dignity as possible, they
retreated into Foster's. It was the best effort they could make to
retrieve the day, a weak ending to so magnificent a scheme.
They did not hear the last of their "grand pageant" for a long time; but
their own recollection of it will always be softened by the memory of
those sweet moments beneath the captain's window.
THE DOG BLATHERS.
Besides the "officers of instruction and government," and the instructed
and governed, there are many classes and individuals that make up the
university population of Cambridge--unofficial members, whose names do
not appear in the catalogue. There are the camp followers, the goodies,
the janitors, the Poco, John the Orangeman, Riley, the O'Haras who
"understand th' busniz," and all the other dignitaries, as firmly
established and well recognized as the Faculty. Probably the most
numerous of the unofficial classes is the great four-legged one. There
are undergraduate dogs, and law-school dogs, and post-graduate dogs, and
I believe there were one or two Divinity dogs. During our time there
were several very distinguished dogs in the Faculty, notably one huge
bull-dog. Among the undergraduates, the ugliest and most perfect in form
and feature, the most polished and attractive in manner, the most genial
and popular, in every way the leader _par excellence_, was Rattleton's
round head bull-terrier Blathers.
Blathers was named after the great man who bred him. That celebrated
fancier was renowned throughout Cambridge for two things, his dogs and
his profanity. He could outswear Sawin's expressman, Hitchell the black
scout, and the janitor of Little's Block, and any one who could excel
those three was indeed an artist. I do not believe, however, that the
recording angel entered all of Blather's items in the debit column:--in
the first place, he would not have had time, in the second place, most
of Blather's oaths were not delivered in anger, in the sense of Raca,
but flowed out innocently and unconsciously, merely as aids to
conversation. One morning this worthy came into Rattleton's room,
bearing in his hand a little brindled object about five inches long. It
looked like a stub-tailed rat, whose nose had been smashed with a lump
of coal.
"Good mornin', Mr. Rattleton; beg your pardon for intrudin', sir, but
I've got sumpthin' here I want for to show yer. I've got a magnificent
animal."
"Oh, get out, Blathers; I don't want a dog; had to give away the last
one."
The following speech was bristling with profanity, but I have omitted
even the indication blanks, except in one passage where they were too
characteristic to be left out.
"I don't want yer to buy him, sir. I just want to show him to yer. He's
a beauty. I know yer knows the points of a dog, sir, and its just a
pleasure I'm givin' yer to look at him. Just take him in your hand, sir.
Now, I sold Mrs. G. an own half brother of that feller. You know Mrs.
G., surely, down here to the Theolog. school?" (Mrs. G. was a most
charming and gentle lady, the wife of a celebrated clergyman.) "Well, I
stopped at her house the other day to see how she liked the pup. She
says to me, 'By ----, Blathers,' says she, 'that's the ---- ---- finest
dog ever I see; d---- me, if it ain't,' says she. Yes, sir, that's just
what she thought about him. You go ask her and see if it ain't. And she
wouldn't say nothin' she didn't mean, just to tickle me, neither. Mrs.
G. is a real lady, and knows the points of a dog, she does. She was ----
---- kind to my wife when she was sick last time. Oh, my wife's been
orful sick, Mr. Rattleton. I had to pay for a lot of doctor's consults
and other stuff; that's just the only reason, sir, I want to sell this
beautiful pup. I 'd never part with him in this world, if I could help
it."
Blathers never would have parted from any of his dogs had it not been
for his frequent family afflictions. These afflictions were always very
expensive and varied, from the funeral of his mother to the birth of
twins. He buried four mothers in one year; that was his best work,
though six children born during the following term pushed hard on the
record.
"If I could only make up my mind to let yer have that dog, Mr.
Rattleton," he went on, "it would work both ways. Maybe I ought to do
it. It would be a favor and a kind thing in me to sell yer that pup at
any price, and you'd be doin' a charity to a poor man in helpin' me
along. It would be a good action all around, see? Oh, I need the money
orful bad."
Rattleton during this speech had been playing with the puppy, and he was
struck both by the brightness of the little fellow and the logic of his
owner. He knew that Blathers really did have rather hard times with his
family. In any case Lazy Jack never took the trouble to sift a tale of
woe and apply the most enlightened and efficient remedy. He had no
excuse for not doing so; he took the Social Ethics Course in Philosophy
because it was easy, and of course he knew how wrong it is to give to a
beggar; nevertheless, he rarely failed to do so if he had a coin in his
pocket, because it was so much easier than making enquiries and giving
advice. Moreover Jack was so lacking in principles, that if he thought
the beggar looked cold and in want of a hot whiskey, he was, if
anything, more apt to yield the ill-destined alms. In this instance the
insidious Blathers had struck him in two vulnerable spots, his very weak
nature, and his love of dogs. He also wanted to get rid of Blathers with
his endless stream of lurid and decidedly rum-flavored eloquence, and
the easiest way to do so was to buy the puppy.
It was in his master's Sophomore year that Blathers, the pup, began his
career. He waxed fast in beauty and knowledge. His nose grew in and his
teeth grew out, his ears assumed the correct angle and his legs the
proper curve. His tail in babyhood had been scientifically bitten off by
the gentleman after whom he was named, and was, therefore, of exactly
the right length. He went through the distemper and gave it to every dog
in his club. His spirit did not belie his points; before the end of his
junior year he had tackled almost every dog in Cambridge and generally
came out on top. He was a dog of marvellous tact, also; he learned not
to growl at the proctor on his staircase. Rattleton spent much time on
Blather's education--so did Rattleton's friends. The latter, among other
accomplishments, succeeded after great effort in teaching him to drink
beer; but Blathers never went beyond the bounds of propriety, as did
frequently that disreputable Irish terrier of Dixey's.
Blather's most prominent virtue of all was devotion to his master, and
his affection was fully returned. Those two were rarely apart, except in
the mornings, before Rattleton was up. Blathers always got out with the
nine o'clock lecture men and chapel goers, and would visit around at the
various club-tables where he had friends, generally collecting five or
six breakfasts before his master arose. At about eleven o'clock he would
be seen, sitting with his arms akimbo, in front of the Holly Tree; then
Jack was sure to be inside, getting the marvellous dropped eggs from the
sad-eyed John. If ever Blathers frequented the steps of Massachusetts,
Sever, or other lecture hall, all men would know that Jack Rattleton was
again on probation. If they saw the dog on the grim stone Stair of Sighs
in the south entrance of University, they would make sympathetic
inquiries when next they met the master.
When the round black and brown head stuck out of the window of Riley's
cab, it was certain that Rattleton was bound over the bridge. They even
went once or twice to the theatre together, Blathers concealed under
Jack's overcoat. Though pugnacious by nature, it was not because
Blathers loved other dogs less, but fighting more. He loved a row for
its own sweet self, had few enemies and several warm friends. He was
particularly devoted to Hudson's Topsy, and engaged in many a combat on
her account, and for her edification. There were only two dogs for whom
he had any real aversion--Mike Dixey, of his own class, and Baynor's
white bull-dog, of the class below him.
Probably the happiest moment of Blathers college life occurred one day
on Holmes' Field. There was a class ball-game going on; the Sophomores
were ranged on one side of the field, the Juniors opposite. The white
bull-dog had been barking in time with the cheering, yelping at the
players of the opposing team, trying to "rattle" the pitcher, and making
himself generally conspicuous and obnoxious. Finally, in the excitement
over some good play, he slipped his collar and ran into the outfield to
congratulate the centre-fielder. Somehow or other (Ned Burleigh probably
knew), Blathers happened to get loose at the same moment. With a
heralding bark he flew into the listed field and made straight for the
white champion. All interest in the ball-game ceased at once. With a
great shout the two opposing crowds rose from the seats _en masse_, and
swept across the diamond, "blocking off" the owners of the two dogs, who
rushed to separate them. In the rush, five or six more terriers got
adrift, and reached the front well ahead of their masters. In just about
ten seconds there was a ball of at least seven dogs of various fighting
breeds, rolling about in a halo of hair, howls, and pure delight. After
a few minutes, their masters succeeded in pushing through the
surrounding crowd, and each man laid hold of a dog's tail or hind leg.
By dint of heaving and kicking, the happy party was at last broken up,
and at the bottom of the pile were found Blathers and the white
bull-dog. They were locked in a fond embrace, and it took hot water from
the gymnasium to get them apart. Ever after that Blathers bore a scar on
the side of his head; but he was proud of that mark, for there was a
larger and more distinct one on the Sophomore dog.
Blathers got into a scrape in his Senior year that nearly caused his
expulsion from the University, and compromised his master seriously. An
aunt of Rattleton's came out to Cambridge one afternoon, for the purpose
of attending the Thursday Vespers in Appleton Chapel. She notified Jack
that she expected him to escort her. Jack got his room in order, with
some difficulty, expurgated the ornaments and pictures, put his aunt's
photograph on the mantel-piece and a Greek lexicon on the table, and
sent Blathers to spend the afternoon with a friend. Aunt could not abide
a dog, especially one of Blathers' type of beauty. So Mr. B. went off
with Jack Randolph.
Randolph's room was in the back of Thayer, and his window commanded the
approaches to Appleton Chapel. Blathers was squatted in the window-seat
with his head on one side, idly watching the birds, and wondering where
his master could have gone. Suddenly his eye fell on that very person,
and with him one of that kind of humans whose legs are all in one piece.
Blathers had seen lots of that kind, and knew well enough what they
were; but what could one of them possibly be doing with his master,
right here in Cambridge, at this time of year? He had never seen such a
thing as that before, except once on Class Day. It was for this, then,
that he had been dismissed for the afternoon! Well, well, well, pretty
goings on! He betrayed his astonishment and irritation by a low "wuff!"
jumped down from the window-seat, and scratched at the door.
"No," said Randolph, looking at him, "you can't get out. Did you see a
cat?"
Blathers came over to the arm-chair, stood up, putting both hands on
Randolph's knees, and looked at him appealingly.
"Yes, I know," said Randolph, "your master has deserted you for the
afternoon, hasn't he? Mean trick, isn't it? And where do you suppose he
has gone? To Vespers, think of that! Don't shake your head, Blathers,
it's true----" "Wuff!" "Yes, rather remarkable, I know; no wonder you
say so. But don't blame him; he couldn't help it, and it will do him
good."
A few minutes afterwards Randolph threw away his book, and took his cap.
"Come, Blathers," said he, "we'll go over to the Pud for awhile. You may
find your friend Topsy there."