leave his hero in a sack, ready to be plunged into the dizzy waters
below.
"Oh, come on," said the Egghead; "I'll give you that when we come down.
Have you any matches? I've got the coffin nails."
A slight shower had ended a few minutes before without bringing relief
from the heat.
"Are you coming?" said the Egghead, already out of the window. "Don't
be a grind, Smithy."
"Sure, I'm with you," replied Smith, thus forced to repel the
insinuation.
The Goat had gone first, then the Egghead, with Smith bringing up the
rear.
"Look out, fellows," whispered the pilot, lost in the darkness ahead.
"It's slippery as the deuce!"
The way led up a gutter to the peak of one slope, down that, up
another and over to a cranny which formed about the back chimneys. The
still moist tiles were, in fact, slippery and treacherous, and their
movements were made with calculation and solicitude.
Smith, arriving the last at the top of the first peak, waited until the
Egghead had descended and climbed in safety to the next ridge, glanced
down the twenty feet of slippery slate, and, tempted, called out:
"Look out, fellows, I'm going to slide!"
The Goat and the Egghead, in unison, cried to him to desist, for
the second ridge which ended the slope of the first had a downward
inclination towards the edge of the roof that made it exceedingly
dangerous.
Just how it happened has never been satisfactorily settled: whether
Smith actually intended to slide or whether he lost his grip and
started unwillingly. However it may be, Egghead and the Goat, astride
the second ridge, were suddenly horrified to see Smith's naked body
shoot down the slope, strike the moist incline at the bottom, and,
bounding down that, with increased velocity disappear over the roof.
They heard one thud and then another in the gravel path, three stories
below.
The two clung to each other with a dreadful sinking feeling.
"He's dead," said the Goat, solemnly. "Poor old Smith is dead."
"Squashed like a bug," said the Egghead. "We won't even recognise his
remains."
"Egghead, it's all our fault--all our fault."
"Shut up, Goat, and don't blubber."
"I'm not."
"You are--for Heaven's sake, brace up! We've got to get down to him!"
They started fearfully over the treacherous return, reaching Smith's
room thoroughly unnerved. Then they began to run down the stairs,
calling out:
"Smithy's dead!"
"Smithy's fallen off the roof!"
On their trail came a motley assortment of excited boys, rushing out of
every room. Without a single hope they tore around to the back of the
Upper, and, there, sitting bolt upright in the position in which he had
fallen, they found George Barker Smith. They stopped astounded.
"Smith, is that you!" Egghead said, in a hoarse, incredulous whisper,
and the answer returned faintly:
"It's me, Egghead."
"Are you dying?"
"I don't know."
"Are your bones all broken?"
"I don't know--I'm full of gravel!"
The boys gazed astounded up at the dark outline three stories above
them. Half-way, the slanting roof of the porch had broken the fall
and saved him from certain death. They gazed in silence, and then the
chorus arose:
"Holy cats!"
"Great snakes!"
[Illustration: "'I don't know--I'm full of gravel!'"]
"Marvellous!"
"Can you beat that!"
"Mamma!"
"Simply marvellous!"
Smith, still in a comatose condition, caught the sounds of
astonishment, and suddenly comprehended, first, that he had done
something without parallel in school history, and, second, that he was
alive.
"You fellows, get me upstairs," he said, gruffly, "and send for Doctor
Charlie. I want to get this gravel out of me."
Macnooder and Turkey reverently carried him to his room, while Shy
Thomas, who was clothed in a dressing-gown, went streaming across the
campus for the doctor.
A quick examination revealed the amazing fact that not a bone had been
fractured.
"You've got a few bruises, and that's all, by George!" said the doctor,
looking at him in open-eyed wonder.
"It's the gravel that bothers me," said Smith, twisting on his side.
"You did sit down rather hard," remarked the doctor, with a twitch of
his lips. In half an hour he had removed thirty-seven pieces of gravel,
large and small, and departed, after ordering rest and a few days'
sojourn in bed.
Hardly had the doctor departed when Hickey arrived, full of importance
and enthusiasm. For a moment he stood at the foot of the bed surveying
the bruised hero with the affectionate and fatherly joy of a Barnum
suddenly discovering a new freak.
"My boy," he said, happily, "you're a wonder. You're great. You're it.
There's been nothing like it ever happened. Smithy, my boy, you're a
genius. You're the wonder of the age!"
"I suppose everyone's excited?" said Smith, faintly realising that Fate
had touched him in her flight and made him famous.
"Excited? Why, they're howling with curiosity," responded Hickey, who,
having cautiously turned the key in the door, returned and continued
with importance:
"Say, but I suppose you don't realise what we can make of this, do you?"
"What do you mean?" said Smith.
"First, where are those thirty-seven pieces of gravel?"
"I threw them away."
"My boy, my boy!" said Hickey, sitting down and burying his head in
his arms. "Pearls before swine."
"But they're over there in the basket."
Hickey, with a cry of joy, flung himself on them, counted them and
thrust them into his pocket.
"Smith," he said, condescendingly, "you've got certain qualities, I'll
admit, but what you need is a manager!"
"Why, what are you thinking of?" said Smith, who began to have a
suspicion of Hickey's plan.
"I suppose you would expose your honourable scars," said Hickey,
disdainfully, "to any one who asks to see them?"
"Why not?"
"Just out of friendliness?"
"Yes."
"Smith, you _are_ a nincompoop! Why, my boy, there's money in it--big
money. Never thought of that, eh?"
"How so?"
"Exhibitions--paid exhibitions, my boy! We'll organise the greatest
side-show ever known."
Smith blushed at the thought.
"Won't it be rather undignified?" he said doubtfully.
"Dignity, rats!" said Hickey. "Talk to me of dignity when you hear the
gold rattling in your pocket, when you lodge in a marble palace and
drive fast horses up Fifth Avenue. My boy, you don't known what you're
worth. I'll have Macnooder paper the campus to-morrow. I'll get up
scareheads that'll bring every mother's son of them scampering here to
see you."
"What do I get out of it?" said Smith cautiously.
"Half!"
"You low-down robber!"
"Who had the idea? Would you ever have made a cent if it hadn't been
for me? Do you suppose any attraction ever makes as much as his
manager? My boy, I'm generous! I oughtn't to do it! Come now--is it a
go?"
"Well--yes!"
"Wait--till you see the posters," said Hickey, squeezing his hand
joyfully, "and mind, no private exhibitions. Promise?"
"I promise."
"Under oath?"
"So help me."
"Ta, ta."
Left at last alone, George Barker Smith could hardly seize the full
measure of his future. Hickey was right, it was the biggest thing that
had ever happened. In one short hour everything had changed. Now he
was of the elect--a part of history, a tale to be told over whenever
one old graduate would meet another. Even Hungry Smeed's great pancake
record would have to be placed second to this. Other more distinguished
appetites might come who would achieve fifty pancakes, but no boy
would ever go the path he had gone. He was famous at last. At Prom and
Commencement he would be pointed out to visitors in the company of
Hickey, Flash Condit, Cap Kiefer and Turkey Reiter. Only yesterday he
was plain George Barker Smith, to-morrow he might be....
What would the morrow bring? Who would name him? Would it be Hickey,
Macnooder or Turkey or the Egghead, or would some unsuspected classmate
find the happy expression? He hoped that it would be something
picturesque, but a little more dignified than the Triumphant Egghead.
He tried to imagine what the nickname would be. Of course, there were
certain obvious appellations that immediately suggested themselves,
such as Roofie, Jumper, or, better still, Plunger Smith. There was also
Tattoo and Rubber and Sliding, but somehow none of these seemed to
measure up to the achievement, and in this delightful perplexity Smith
fell asleep.
OLD IRONSIDES
THE GREATEST SIDE-SHOW ON EARTH ON EXHIBITION
AT ROOM 67 UPPER
MANAGEMENT--Hicks & Macnooder.
Come one, Come all! Come and View the HUMAN METEOR,
THE YOUNG RUBBER PLANT, THE FAMOUS
PLUNGING ROCKET, THE WORLD-RENOWNED
SMITH, THE BOY GRAVEL YARD!
Come and see the honourable scars! No private exhibition.
This afternoon only! Old Ironsides is under contract not to
bathe in the canal this fall. This is your one and only opportunity
to see the results of Old Ironsides' encounter with the
gravel path!
Come and see the 37 original guaranteed and authentic bits
of gravel which dented but could not penetrate!
ADMISSION, 5 CENTS FRESHMEN, 10 CENTS
$500 REWARD $500
To any one who will duplicate this mad, death-defying feat
MR. MACNOODER, on behalf of Old Ironsides, will offer
the above reward. Doctor's or Undertaker's bills to be shared
in case of failure.
ROOM 67 ROOM 67
Exhibition begins at 2 o'clock.
The above posters, prominently displayed, produced a furore. By two
o'clock fully one hundred boys were in line before room 67. At two
o'clock Hickey addressed the crowd.
"Gentlemen, unfortunately a slight delay has become necessary--only a
slight delay. Mr. Ironsides Smith's sense of natural delicacy is at
present struggling with Mr. Ironsides Smith's desire not to disappoint
his many friends and admirers. Just a slight delay, gentlemen--just a
slight delay."
A cry of protest went up and Hickey disappeared. At the end of five
minutes he returned radiant, announcing:
"Gentlemen, I am very glad to announce to you that Old Ironsides will
not disappoint his many admirers. Only we wish it to be understood that
this is a strictly scientific exhibition with an educational purpose in
view. No levity will be tolerated. The exhibition is about to begin.
Have your nickels in hand, gentlemen; ten cents for freshmen, with
the privilege of shaking hands with Old Ironsides himself! Absolutely
unique, absolutely unique!"
When the last spectator had filed out, Hickey, Macnooder and Smith
divided fifteen dollars and twenty cents as pure profit, of which sum
the gravel-stones had brought no less than a third.
When on the fourth day Smith was able painfully to descend the stairs
and circulate in the world again he felt the full delight of his
newly-acquired fame. At the jigger-shop, Al graciously waved aside his
tendered money, saying:
"I guess it's up to me, Ironsides, to stand treat. Such things don't
happen every day. Go ahead--do your worst."
Bill Appleby and "Mista" Laloo, the rival livery men, Bill Orum,
the cobbler, Barnum of the village store, even Doc Cubberly, the
bell-ringer, with his little dog, stopped to watch him pass. When he
crossed the campus youngsters gambolled up to his side with solicitous
inquiries and the inevitable:
"Say, weren't you awfully scared?"
Even in the classroom the Roman, after flunking him, would say:
"That will do now, Smith. You may sit down--gently."
So he was now "Old Ironsides." He liked the name and was proud of it.
It had a certain grim, uncompromising sternness about it that lent it
dignity. It sounded well and it had patriotic associations.
For a whole week he knew the intoxication of popularity, of being the
celebrity of the hour, of the thrill that runs up and down the back
when a dozen glances are following, and the music of a murmured name,
admiringly pronounced. Then abruptly another hero was exalted and he
fell.
One evening after supper, while the fourth form lounged on the
esplanade of the Upper, Turkey Reiter and Slugger Jones amused
themselves with teasing Goat Phillips, who, being privileged by his
diminutive size, responded by butting his tormentors in vigorous
fashion.
"My, what an awful rambunctious, great big Goat," said Reiter,
defending himself. "Do goats eat neckties?"
"I'll eat yours," responded the youngster recklessly.
"Ten double jiggers to one you can't do it," said Slugger Jones, lazily.
"Give me the tie," responded Phillips.
More to continue the joke than for any other reason, Turkey detached
the green and yellow cross tie, which was his joy, and tendered it.
What was his amazement to see Goat Phillips calmly set to work to
devour it, and to devour it to the very last shred in the most classic
goat-fashion.
When he had swallowed the last mouthful he stood stock-still and gazed
at his shrieking audience. Then he began to have doubts; then he began
to have premonitions. Then he ended by having settled on rather the
most unsettling convictions. The consideration of the act came after
the accomplishment, but it came with terrifying force. What would
happen now?
"Turkey," he said, grown very solemn, "you don't think I'm going to be
poisoned, do you?"
Turkey became serious at once. Everyone became serious.
"What do you fellows think?" said Turkey, addressing the crowd.
No one had any opinions to volunteer. There were no precedents to go by.
"He might get ptomaine poisoning," finally suggested Shy Thomas.
"What's that?" said Goat, horrified. Shy was forced to confess that he
did not know. Hungry Smeed thought it was when you cut your toe on an
oyster shell.
"See here, Goat," said Turkey, decisively, "we can't fool with this any
more. You come with me."
The now thoroughly demoralised and penitent Goat went meekly
between Turkey and Slugger toward Foundation House. But on the way,
encountering the Roman, they decided to consult him instead.
"Please, sir," said Phillips, with difficult calm, "I'd like to ask you
something."
The master stopped and, prepared for any eventuality, said:
"Well, Phillips, nothing serious, I hope?"
"Please, sir, I'm afraid it is," said Phillips, all in a breath. "I've
just eaten a necktie, sir."
"A what?"
"A necktie, sir, and I want to know if you think I'm in any danger,
sir."
The Roman stood stock-still for a long moment, with dropped jaw; then,
recovering himself, he said:
"A necktie, Phillips?"
"Yes, sir."
"A whole necktie?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, Phillips, if you can eat a necktie I guess you can digest it!"
* * * * *
The next morning, when Ironsides Smith unsuspectingly strolled out into
the campus, no soul did him honour, not a glance turned as he turned,
not a first form youngster, primed with curiosity and admiration, came
rushing to his side. Instead, a knot of boys at the far end of the
esplanade were clustered in excited contemplation about Goat Phillips,
the boy who had heroically eaten a necktie rather than suffer a dare.
Then Ironsides understood--he was the hero of yesterday. A new
celebrity had risen for the delectation of the fickle populace. The
King was dead--long live the King!
He went to the classroom disillusionised and sat through the hour
stolidly tasting the bitterness of Napoleonic isolation. So this was
the favour of crowds. In a night to be dethroned and forgotten!
As he descended Memorial steps, Goat Phillips passed, radiant, saluted
by capricornian acclamations.
Smith regarded him darkly.
"As though any one couldn't eat a necktie," he said in righteous
disgust.
Unacclaimed he went through the crowd toward the Upper--he who had
risked life and limb to amuse them for a week!
From a tower window in the Upper the Triumphant Egghead, lolling on the
cushioned window-seat, called down lazily:
"Oh, you--Ironsides!"
That was the answer. Let popularity run after a dozen unworthy lights.
Other boys would come who would eat neckties, no one ever would go the
way he had gone. He had nothing to do with transitory emotions. He
must be superior to the voice of the hour. He, Ironsides, belonged to
history. That, nothing could take from him!
[Illustration: chapter title decoration--THE PROTEST AGAINST SINKERS]
THE PROTEST AGAINST SINKERS
The feeling of revolt sprang up at chapel during the head master's
weekly talk. Ordinarily the school awaited these moments with
expectation, received them with tolerance and drew from them all the
humour that could be extracted.
These little heart-to-heart talks brought joy to many an overweighted
brain and obliterated momentarily the slow, dragging months of slush
and hail. They also added, from time to time, picturesque expressions
to the school vocabulary--and for that much was forgiven them. No one
who heard it will ever forget the slashing that descended from the
rostrum on the demon tobacco, in its embodied vice, the cigarette, nor
the chill that ran over each of the four hundred cigarette smokers as
the head master, with his boring glance straight on him, concluded:
"Yes, I know what you boys will say; I know what your plea will be when
you are caught. You will come to me and you'll say with tears in your
eyes, with tears:
"'Doctor, think of my mother--my poor mother--it will kill my mother!'
"I tell you, _now_ is the time to think of your mother; _now_ is the
time to spare her grey hairs. Every cigarette you boys smoke is a _nail
in the coffin of your mother_."
It was terrific. The school was unanimous in its verdict that the
old man had outdone himself. Boys, whom a whiff of tobacco rendered
instantly ill, smoked up the ventilators that night with shivers of
delight, and from that day to this a cigarette has never been called
anything but a coffin-nail.
Only the week before, in announcing the suspension of Corkscrew
Higgins (since with the ministry), for, among other offences, mistaking
the initials on the hat of Bucky Oliver as his own, the head master in
his determination to abolish forever such deadly practices, had given
forth the following:
"Young gentlemen, it is my painful duty, my very painful duty, to
announce to you the suspension of the boy Higgins. The boy Higgins was
a sloth, the boy Higgins was the prince of sloths! The boy Higgins was
a gambler, the boy Higgins was the prince of gamblers! The boy Higgins
was a liar, the boy Higgins was the prince of liars! The boy Higgins
was a thief, the boy Higgins was the prince of thieves! Therefore, the
boy Higgins will no longer be a member of this community!"
The school pardoned the exaggeration in its admiration for the
rhetoric, which was rated up to the oration against Catiline. But on
the first Monday of that lean month of February the school rose in
revolt. In a tirade against the alarming decline in the percentage of
scholastic marks the head master, flinging all caution to the winds,
had terminated with these incendiary words:
"I know what the trouble is, and I'll tell you. The trouble with you
boys is INORDINATE and IMMODERATE EATING. The trouble with you boys
is--You Eat Too Much!"
Such a groan as went up! To comprehend the monstrosity of the
accusation it is not sufficient to have been a boy; one must have
retained the memory of the sharp pains and gnawing appetites of those
growing days! Four hundred-odd famished forms, just from breakfast,
suddenly galvanised by that unmerited blow, roared forth a unanimous
indignant:
"_What!_"
"Eat too much!"--they could hardly believe their ears. Had the head
master of the school, with years of personal experience, actually, in
his sober mind, proclaimed that they ate too much! The words had been
said; the accusation had to stand. And such a time to proclaim it--in
the month of sliced bananas and canned vegetables! The protest that
rumbled and growled in the under-form houses exploded in the Dickinson.
It so happened that for days there had been a dull grumbling about
the monotony of the daily meals and the regularity and frequency of
the appearance of certain abhorrent dishes, known as "scrag-birds and
sinkers." "Scrag-bird" was a generic term, allowing a wide latitude
for conjecture, but "sinker" was an opprobrious epithet dedicated
to a particularly hard, doughy substance that under more favourable
auspices sometimes, without fear of contradiction, achieves the name of
"dumpling."
The "sinker" was, undoubtedly, the deadliest enemy of the growing
boy--the most persistent, the most malignant. It knew no laws and it
defied all restraint. It languished in the spring, but thrived and
multiplied amazingly in the canned, winter term. It was as likely
to bob up in a swimming dish of boiled chicken as it was certain to
accompany a mutton stew. It associated at times with veal and attached
itself to corned beef; it concealed itself in a beefsteak pie and clung
to a leg of lamb. What the red rag is to the bull, the pudgy white
of the "sinker" was to the boys, who, in a sort of desperate hope of
exterminating the species, never allowed one to return intact to the
kitchen. Twice a week was the allotted appearance of the "sinker"; at
a third visit grumbling would break out; at a fourth arose threats
of leaving for Andover or Exeter, of writing home, of boycotting the
luncheon.
Now, it so happened that during the preceding week the "sinker" had
inflicted itself not four, but actually six, times on that community of
aching voids. The brutal accusation of the head master was the spark
to the powder. The revolt assumed head and form during the day, and a
call for a meeting of protest was unanimously made for that very night.
The boys met with the spirit of the Boston Tea Party, resolved to
defend their liberties and assert their independence. The inevitable
Doc Macnooder was to address the meeting. He spoke naturally, fluently,
with great sounding phrases, on any occasion, on any topic, for his
own pure delight, and he always continued to speak until violently
suppressed.
"Fellows," he began, without apologies to history--"we are met to
decide once and for all whether we are a free governing body, to
ask ourselves what is all this worth? For weeks we have endured,
supinely on our backs, the tyranny of Mrs. Van Asterbilt, the matron
of this House. We have, I say, supinely permitted each insult to pass
unchallenged. But the hour has struck, the worm has turned, the moment
has come and, without the slightest hesitation, I ask you ... I ask you
... what do I ask you?" he paused, and appealed for enlightenment.
The meeting found him guilty of levity and threatened him with the ban
of silence.
Macnooder looked grieved and continued: "I ask you to strike as your
fathers struck. I ask you to string the bow, to whet the knife, to
sharpen the tomahawk, to loose the dogs of war----"
Amid a storm of whoops and cat-calls, Macnooder was pulled back into
his seat. He rose and explained that his peroration was completed and
demanded the inalienable right to express his opinions.
The demand was rejected by a vote of eighty-two to one (Macnooder
voting).
Butcher Stevens rose with difficulty and, clutching the shoulder of Red
Dog in front of him, addressed the gathering as follows:
"Fellows, I am no silver-tongued orator and all I want to say is just
a few words. I think we want to treat this thing seriously." (Cries
of "Hear! hear!" "Right.") "I think, fellows, this is a very serious
matter, and I think we ought to take some action. This food matter is
getting pretty bad. I don't think, fellows, that we ought to stand for
'sinkers' the way they're coming at us, without some action. I don't
know just what action we ought to take, but I think we ought really to
take some action."
The Butcher subsided into his seat amid immense applause. Lovely Mead
arose and jangling the keys in his trousers pocket, addressed the
ceiling in rapid, jerky periods:
"Fellows, I think we ought to begin by taking a vote--a vote. I
think--I think the sentiment of this meeting is about made up--made up.
I think my predecessor has very clearly expressed the--the--has voiced
the sentiments of this meeting--very clearly. I think a vote would
clear the air, therefore I move we take a vote."
He sighed contentedly and returned into the throng. Doc Macnooder
sarcastically demanded what they were to vote upon. Lovely Mead, in
great confusion, rose and stammered:
"I meant to say, Mr. Chairman, that I move we take a vote, take a vote
to--to take some action."
"Action about what?" said the merciless Macnooder.
Lovely Mead remained speechless. Hungry Smeed interposed glibly: