Gussie Thompson was an angel-faced child with pretty ringlety hair,
and he had come to college from a strict boarding-school with the
intention of making a bad man of himself. And when a boy wants badly
to go to the devil there is no reason why he should find it very
difficult. In this thought I find I have been anticipated by Virgil.
But though the descent is easy it does not follow that it is always
graceful. Thompson, who was conscientiously trying to do it properly,
had his discouragements and sour balls just as often as the poler who
sat in the next seat and wore trousers that were too short.
People persistently considered Gussie disgustingly good, when in
reality he was very bad and smoked big black cigars with red and gilt
bands about them. And indeed it is discouraging to walk down to the
football practice with the gang, breathing cigarette-smoke at every
fifth step, and then have some class-mate you have nothing to do with
ask you, before all the fellows, to lead class prayer-meeting the
next Sunday. But all that was over long ago.
He now wore the dark bad expression without any conscious effort. No
one asked him where the Greek lesson was any more. He seldom had to
blow his breath in fellows' faces. And at the club he was no longer
obliged to blink and say, "How do I look this morning?" they asked of
their own accord, "Full last night, Gus?" just as some people say
"Good-morning."
One evening, at about the beginning of the season known to some as
"bock beer time," he was in his room surrounded with a few of his own
sort, and a knock came at the door. But it was not a very loud one, so
he did not take the trouble to answer until there came a second knock,
an emphatic one. Then he emptied a lungful of cigarette-smoke and
shouted, "Come in and shut your damn racket." He looked up.
Lawrence was framed in the door-way, Lawrence the senior, with his
'varsity sweater and his impressive air.
On the campus Lawrence generally nodded to Thompson, when he
remembered him. Once, not long ago, he had walked up the rear stairs
of Dickinson with him and said, "What do you fellows have at this
hour?" and Gussie wondered when the clubs held their first elections.
With his words of apology and welcome Thompson felt a wave of
satisfaction at having a gang about the table with cards and beer-mugs
on it. He was glad he had strung the champagne-corks over the
mantel-piece.
All of the gang had arisen, and yet this was a Princeton room. If the
senior observed the unusual mark he showed little gratitude, for
without seeming to be aware of their presence he said, in his gruff
voice, "When will you be at leisure, Thompson?" and looked at his
watch.
He was the sort of senior that could do these things, and it had the
desired effect. They all remembered that they had engagements and
picked up their caps and said, "So long, old man," and got out. This
was not done constrainedly but as a perfectly natural thing. And
Gussie beamed.