I
Many fellows seem to think that all an athletic officer has to do is
to look important and travel about the United States with his team and
make out a bill for expenses.
It's easy enough to carry a japanned tin box, and sell tickets through
a hole where the wind blows, as treasurer. As president it is a fine
thing to make frequent trips to New York, and attend conclaves that
are secret, and make speeches in conventions and read your opinions
next morning in the paper in fine long sentences prefixed with
"President So-and-so said last night," and to be lunched by famous
authorities and interviewed by rapacious reporters who think that
because the public supports football they have a right to see all the
inside workings of intercollegiate diplomacy. All this is the pretty
part of it.
But like all greatness there is a deal of hard hustling and
perspiration and discouragement and annoyance underneath. So much so,
that one seldom has time to tell himself how fine a thing it is to
wear a 'varsity blazer with the orange monogram on the breast-pocket.
And this is usually heavy with bills to pay and memoranda of things to
see to. Besides, the responsibility is tremendous.
* * * * *
H. Lawrence, Ninety Blank, had blood-shot eyes this morning, and he
hurried down the clattering iron stairs of West College tying his
neck-tie. As the ugly entry door slammed behind him he did not put his
hands in his pockets and begin to whistle, as he used to do in
under-classman days, because he was not sauntering over to Reunion to
smoke a pipe, or down to Witherspoon to loaf until the next lecture.
He glanced at the clock in old North tower and hit up his pace.
He had given orders to the team to be at the station with their grips
packed at 9.38, and before that time he had to wire a member of the
Graduate Advisory Committee, asking where he could find him that
evening, and to an official of the Manhattan Athletic Club that he
should not be able to consider his proposition at present, and to the
manager of a Southern college football team that he regretted that all
Princeton's open dates were now filled, and to the Jersey City Station
restaurant to prepare a luncheon of training food for twenty men, and
not to roast the beef to death this time. After that he would have to
call upon the dean and find out whether the faculty had decided to let
Harrison play football or not, and find and be nice to another member
of the faculty who was indignant because seventeen grand stand tickets
had not been saved for him and his wife's relatives at the last
Saturday's game, and then hurry to the station by way of the bank,
where he would ask if they had heard anything more about that
protested check, while he was making a good one out for himself, and
then see to it that all the team and subs were flocked together and
pushed into the train and made to stay there until told to get out and
play football. Some of which would have been more properly the duties
of Sinclair, the treasurer, who was not catching on as rapidly as
Lawrence thought he should.
He took long, strong strides and looked straight ahead of him, which
was in the direction of an old shop opposite the gate, with a
picturesquely warped roof which he did not see.
He did not see the fellows along the walk either, and those he did not
cut he nodded to absently without removing his frown. This caused
certain passers-by to shake their heads and say, "Harry Lawrence is
getting a swelled head since he's become so important," especially
those who greatly wanted to be important themselves but weren't, and
so had plenty of time to criticise those who were.
But Lawrence, with a half dozen unopened letters in his pocket which
he would read on the train going up, did not dream of being
criticised. And if he had he would not have felt very badly about it.
He did not have time.
Nor would he have had time to stop and thank his good friends Nolan
and Linton, who, when Lawrence had rushed by with one of those
"How-do's" which make one think that one's name has been forgotten,
had looked worried and then said, "Harry'll kill himself before the
end of the season," while Lawrence tore open a telegram with which the
boy met him in front of College Offices and hurried on. He had no time
for breakfast, because the man had forgotten to wake him, and the
night before he had been handling the files of applications for the
Thanksgiving game seats with Sinclair and dictating to a stenographer
until 2 A.M.
Every evening from eight until midnight there was a reception in his
room, with Sinclair to help receive. It began when they came in from
the club after dinner, with a workman or two from the town waiting in
the entry, who touched their hats and said, "Please, sir, Mr. McMaster
says this bill is correct." Then would come members of the team who
wanted the management to remove conditions for them, and coachers who
wanted to talk serious business and had but a short time to spare, and
some of the fellows who wanted to smoke and chat and seemed hurt when
told to get out; and in addition, the hordes of applicants for seats,
who kept running in and out, incessantly buzzing in the management's
ears like flies, and just as pestiferously merciless, from eight until
twelve, when the door was locked.
These represented all phases of college life, from the professor who
"never incurred any difficulty in getting all the seats he wanted in
previous years" to the young freshman whose mother knew the
management's mother, and thought he might be especially considered for
that reason, and including class-mates who made it a personal matter
of friendship, and thought they ought to be considered ahead of mere
strangers for that reason. Also emissaries from a certain woman's
college, who must have tickets before they are put on sale, because
the poor, timid girls could not stand in line with all those men, and
cousins of members of the team, and many others, all of whom furnished
an excellent reason for being entitled to just a little more
consideration than anyone else. None of which counted them anything in
Lawrence's reign.
But this was not what made Lawrence scowl and look fierce as he
hurried by a little, wistful-eyed freshman, whom he did not see, and
who had been hoping all the way from the First Church gate to the
dean's that maybe this time the senior would recognize him. Lawrence
was used to all this, and he liked it. He liked having a lot of things
to attend to in a short time, to see many people and give orders and
talk fast and feel his brain warm with quick thinking. He enjoyed
responsibility, and he thought it was thrilling to get in a situation
and then take a long breath, so to speak, and command it. Nor was he
too old to fully appreciate his privilege of being on intimate terms
with ancient heroes of the football field, and he was glad to be
thrown with so many other prominent alumni. And he took great
satisfaction in watching the long-headed Advisory men begin to
acknowledge by their attitude that although an undergraduate he had
reliable executive ability and somewhat of independent resource
besides. One of them clapped him on the back one day and said, "Good!
That's the proposition we'll make 'em," and added, "You are your
father's own son, Lawrence."
Except that he would have liked to have a little time to loaf and
enjoy life, he was quite well pleased with being president of the P.
U. F. B. A., and did not care a rap whether the college considered him
arrogant or not. He was attending to his own business and had the
satisfaction of knowing that he was doing it rather well, with the
attendant satisfaction of having had the honorable position given him
by the vote of the college body without his or his friends'
boot-licking one of them for it. And that is one of the most
satisfactory feelings in the world.
The thing that troubled him was a letter in his pocket. That was the
reason that when the ninth old grad. approached him on the field and
said, "Say, Lawrence, just between us now, what do you think of the
chances with Yale?" he replied, curtly, "How do I know?" and hurried
on up the side lines. This was decidedly fresh, and he jumped on
himself afterward because he did not believe in letting private
affairs interfere with business. Usually he could stand a dozen old
graduates.
The letter had come the day before. It was from his father and
enclosed Lawrence's November allowance. He never received but one
letter a month from the governor, and it nearly always contained two
statements: "Enclosed please find ..." and "Your mother and all are
well," both of which make very agreeable reading.
This time the letter was not dictated, but written in the Colonel's
own small, straight hand, and there was an extra paragraph. It ran
thus: "Had I known what this official position of yours involved, the
amount of time, the number and variety of interruptions, and the
vulgar prominence that your name and movements occupy in the press, I
should never have given my consent, which, as you may remember, I did
reluctantly, to your acceptance of it. In my opinion what you are
learning at college could better be acquired at home: a little of
business down-town with me, your _other accomplishments_ up-town in
the clubs and other places with your friends." This was not the sort
of letter to do any good.
"'Your other accomplishments'--now what the devil does he mean by
that, I wonder?" thought Lawrence. And then he folded the letter and
tossed it into a pigeon-hole marked "Unanswered," and turned his
attention upon a large blue-print marked "Stand B" and tried to assure
himself that the reason his mind kept jumping back to pigeon-hole
"Unanswered" was because he was sorry at being too busy to study, and
disliked having such a low stand in class. But it wasn't his class
standing that kept him awake until old North struck five.
After this when in New York he did not go up-town to dine with the
family as often as formerly. When he did his father merely said,
"Judge Hitchcock told me he saw you on Broadway last Wednesday," and
similar remarks in a casual tone.
"Yes, sir," Harry would reply, with his attention on the crest on his
plate.
Then each would wonder what the other meant, until Helen would
interrupt with, "By the way, I saw by the _Tribune_ this morning that
'President Lawrence of Princeton' says that Yale will beat Harvard at
Springfield. So it's all right then, Winston." He was her husband,
Yale '86, and Helen was a good sister, who had a large intuition and
knew things.
On Thanksgiving Day the College of New Jersey went up to New York
feeling quite certain of winning the game. The alumni said we would
win. The heelers doubled their bets. The coachers were sure we'd win.
Most of the authorities conceded the victory to Princeton. The team
were confident of winning. Yale won.
During the dinner after the game, Lawrence was dignified and silent.
People thought he was rattled, if anyone thought about anything else
than the one big, sad fact. He presided gracefully though. He was very
good to look at. The dinner, which is usually very long, was wound up
early, few being unwilling, and Lawrence helped put one of the
blubbering backs to bed who had taken too much for a training stomach
and head. Then he went downstairs, saying, "Now, then, my
responsibility is over with. I am going to have a good time."