I
The wisest thing Prof. Stuart Litton was ever caught at was the thing he
was most ashamed of. He had begun to accumulate knowledge at an age when
most boys are learning to fight and to explain at home how they got
their clothes torn. He wore out spectacles almost as fast as his
brothers wore out copper-toed boots; but he did not begin to acquire
wisdom until he was just making forty. Up to that time, if the serpent
is the standard, Professor Litton was about as wise as an angleworm.
He submerged himself in books for nearly forty years; and then--in the
words of Leonard Teed--then he "came up for air." This man Teed was the
complete opposite of Litton. For one thing he was the liveliest young
student in the university where Litton was the solemnest old professor.
Teed had scientific ambitions and hated Greek and Latin, which Litton
felt almost necessary to salvation. Teed regarded Litton and his Latin
as the sole obstacles to his success in college; and, though Litton was
too much of a gentle heart to hate anybody, if he could have hated
anybody it would have been Teed. A girl was concerned in one of their
earliest encounters, though Litton's share in it was as unromantic as
possible.
Teed, it seems, had violated one of the rules at Webster University. He
had chatted with Miss Fannie Newman--a pretty student in the Woman's
College--after nine o'clock; nay, more, he had sat on a campus bench
bidding her good night for half an hour, and, with that brilliant
mathematical mind of his, had selected the bench at the greatest
possible distance from the smallest cluster of lampposts.
On this account he was haled before the disciplinary committee of the
faculty. Litton happened to be on that committee. Teed made the best
fight he could. He showed himself a Greek--in argument at least--and,
like an old sophist, he tried to prove, first, that he was not on the
campus with the girl and never had spooned with her; second, that if he
had been there and had spooned with her it was too dark for them to be
seen; and third, that he was engaged to the girl, anyway, and had a
right to spoon with her.
The accusing witness was a janitor whom Teed had played various jokes on
and had neglected to appease with tips. Teed submitted him to a fierce
cross-examination; forced him to admit that he could not see the loving
couple and had identified them solely by their voices. Teed demanded
the exact words overheard; and, as often happens to the too-ardent
cross-examiner, he got what he asked for and wished he had not. The
janitor, blushing at what he remembered, pleaded:
"You don't vant I should say it exectly vat I heered?"
"Exactly!" Teed answered in his iciest tone.
"Vell," the janitor mumbled, "it vas such a foolish talk as--but--vell,
ven I come by I hear voman's voice says, 'Me loafs oo besser as oo loafs
me!'"
Teed flushed and the faculty sat forward.
"Den I hear man's voice says,'Oozie-voozie, mezie-vezie--' Must I got to
tell it all?"
"Go on!" said Teed, grimly; and the old German mopped his brow with
anguish and snorted with rage: "'Mezie-vezie loafs oozie-voozie
bestest!'"
The purple-faced members of the faculty were hanging on to their own
safety-valves to keep from exploding--all save Professor Litton, who
felt that his hearing must be defective. Teed, fighting in the last
ditch, said:
"But such language does not prove the identity of the--er--participants.
You said you knew positively."
The janitor, writhing with disgust and indignation, went on:
"Ven I hear such nonsunse I stop and listen if it is two people escapet
from de loonatic-houze. And den young voman says, 'It doesn't loaf its
Fannie-vannie one teeny-veeny mite!' And young man says, 'So sure my
name is Lennie Teedie-veedie, little Fannie Newman iss de onliest gerl I
ever loafed!'"
The cross-examiner crumpled up in a chair, while the members of the
faculty behaved like children bursting with giggles in church--all save
Litton, who had listened with increasing amazement and now leaned
forward to demand of the janitor:
"Mr. Kraus, you don't mean to say that two of our students actually
disgraced this institution with conversation that would be appropriate
only to a nursery?"
Mr. Kraus thundered: "De talk of dose stoodents vould disgrace de
nursery! It vas so sickenink I can't forget ut. I try to, but I keep
rememberink Oozie-voozie! Mezie-vezie!"
Mr. Kraus was excused in a state of hydrophobic rage and Teed withdrew
in all meekness.
Litton had fallen into a stupor of despair at the futility of learning.
He remained in a state of coma while the rest of the committee laughed
over the familiar idiocies and debated a verdict. Two of the professors,
touched by some reminiscence of romance, voted to ignore the incident as
a trivial commonplace of youth. Two others, though full of sympathy for
Teed--Miss Fannie was very pretty--voted for his suspension as a
necessary example, lest the campus be overrun by duets in lovers' Latin.
The result was a tie and Litton was roused from his trance to cast the
deciding vote.
Now Professor Litton had read a vast amount about love. The classics are
full of its every imaginable version or perversion; but Litton had seen
it expressed only in the polished phrases of Anacreon, Bion, Propertius,
and the others. He had not guessed that, however these men polished
their verses, they doubtless addressed their sweethearts with all the
imbecility of sincerity.
Litton's own experience gave him little help. In his late youth he had
thought himself in love twice and had expressed his fiery emotions in a
Latin epistle, an elegy, and a number of very correct Alcaics. They
pleased his teacher, but frightened the spectacles off one bookish young
woman, and drove the other to the arms of a prescription clerk, who knew
no Latin except what was on his drug bottles.
Litton had thenceforward been wedded to knowledge. He had read nearly
everything ancient, but he must have forgotten the sentence of Publilius
Syrus: "Even a god could hardly love and be wise." He felt no mercy in
his soft heart for the soft-headed Teed. He was a worshiper of language
for its own sake and cast a vote accordingly.
"I do not question the propriety of the conduct of these young people,"
he said. "Mr. Teed claims to be engaged to the estimable young woman."
"Ah!" said Professor Mackail, delightedly.
Teed was the brightest pupil in his laboratory and he had voted for
acquittal. His joy vanished as Professor Litton went on:
"But"--he spoke the word with emphasis--"but waiving all questions of
propriety, I do feel that we should administer a stinging rebuke to the
use of such appallingly infantile language by one of our students.
Surely a man's culture should show itself, above all, in the addresses
he pays to the young lady of his choice. What vanity to build and
conduct a great institution of learning, such as this aims to be, and
then permit one of its pupils to express his regard for a student from
the Annex in such language as even Mr. Kraus was reluctant to quote:
'Mezie-wezie loves oozie-woozie bestest!'--if I remember rightly.
Really, gentlemen, if this is permitted we might as well change the
university to a kindergarten. For his own sake I vote that Mr. Teed be
given six months of meditation at home; and I trust that the faculty of
the Woman's College will have a similar regard for its ideals and the
welfare of the misguided young woman."
Professor Mackail protested furiously, but his advocacy only embittered
Litton--for Mackail was the leader of the faction that had tried for
years to place Webster University in line with others by removing Latin
and Greek from the position of required studies.
Mackail and his crew pretended that French and German, or science, were
appropriate substitutes for the classic languages in the case of those
whose tastes were not scholastic; but to Litton it was a religion that
no man should be allowed to spend four years in college without at
least rubbing up against Homer, AEschylos, Vergil, and Horace.
As Litton put it: "No man has a right to an Alma Mater who doesn't know
what the words mean; and nobody has a right to graduate without knowing
at least enough Latin to read his own diploma."
This old war had been fought with all the bitterness and professional
jealousies of scholarship, which rival those of religion and exceed
those of the stage. For yet a while Litton and his followers had
vanquished opposition. He little dreamed what he was preparing for
himself in punishing Teed.
Teed accepted his banishment with poor grace, but a magnificent
determination to come back and graduate. The effect of his punishment
was shown when, after six months of rustic meditation, he set out for
the university, leaving behind him his Fannie, who had been too timid to
return to the scene of her discomfiture. Teed's good-by words ran
something like this:
"Bess its ickle heartums! Don't se care! Soonie as Teedle-weedle gets
graduated he'll get fine job and marry his Fansy-pansy very first sing."
Then he kissed her "Goo'byjums"--and went back with the face of a
Regulus returning to be tortured by the enemy.