"Paret," he asked, "have you time to come over to my rooms for a few
minutes this evening?"
"Certainly, sir."
He gave me his number in Brattle Street....
Like one running in a nightmare and making no progress I made my way
home, only to learn from Hallam,--who lived on the same floor,--that Tom
had inconsiderately gone to Boston for the evening, with four other weary
spirits in search of relaxation! Avoiding our club table, I took what
little nourishment I could at a modest restaurant, and restlessly paced
the moonlit streets until eight o'clock, when I found myself in front of
one of those low-gabled colonial houses which, on less soul-shaking
occasions, had exercised a great charm on my imagination. My hand hung
for an instant over the bell.... I must have rung it violently, for there
appeared almost immediately an old lady in a lace cap, who greeted me
with gentle courtesy, and knocked at a little door with glistening
panels. The latch was lifted by Mr. Cheyne himself.
"Come in, Paret," he said, in a tone that was unexpectedly hospitable.
I have rarely seen a more inviting room. A wood fire burned brightly on
the brass andirons, flinging its glare on the big, white beam that
crossed the ceiling, and reddening the square panes of the windows in
their panelled recesses. Between these were rows of books,--attractive
books in chased bindings, red and blue; books that appealed to be taken
down and read. There was a table covered with reviews and magazines in
neat piles, and a lamp so shaded as to throw its light only on the white
blotter of the pad. Two easy chairs, covered with flowered chintz, were
ranged before the fire, in one of which I sank, much bewildered, upon
being urged to do so.
I utterly failed to recognize "Alonzo" in this new atmosphere. And he
had, moreover, dropped the subtly sarcastic manner I was wont to
associate with him.
"Jolly old house, isn't it?" he observed, as though I had casually
dropped in on him for a chat; and he stood, with his hands behind him
stretched to the blaze, looking down at me. "It was built by a certain
Colonel Draper, who fought at Louisburg, and afterwards fled to England
at the time of the Revolution. He couldn't stand the patriots, I'm not so
sure that I blame him, either. Are you interested in colonial things, Mr.
Paret?"
I said I was. If the question had concerned Aztec relics my answer would
undoubtedly have been the same. And I watched him, dazedly, while he took
down a silver porringer from the shallow mantel shelf.
"It's not a Revere," he said, in a slightly apologetic tone as though to
forestall a comment, "but it's rather good, I think. I picked it up at a
sale in Dorchester. But I have never been able to identify the coat of
arms."
He showed me a ladle, with the names of "Patience and William Simpson"
engraved quaintly thereon, and took down other articles in which I
managed to feign an interest. Finally he seated himself in the chair
opposite, crossed his feet, putting the tips of his fingers together and
gazing into the fire.
"So you thought you could fool me," he said, at length.
I became aware of the ticking of a great clock in the corner. My mouth
was dry.
"I am going to forgive you," he went on, more gravely, "for several
reasons. I don't flatter, as you know. It's because you carried out the
thing so perfectly that I am led to think you have a gift that may be
cultivated, Paret. You wrote that theme in the way Peters would have
written it if he had not been--what shall I say?--scripturally
inarticulate. And I trust it may do you some good if I say it was
something of a literary achievement, if not a moral one."
"Thank you, sir," I faltered.
"Have you ever," he inquired, lapsing a little into his lecture-room
manner, "seriously thought of literature as a career? Have you ever
thought of any career seriously?"
"I once wished to be a writer, sir," I replied tremulously, but refrained
from telling him of my father's opinion of the profession. Ambition--a
purer ambition than I had known for years--leaped within me at his words.
He, Alonzo Cheyne, had detected in me the Promethean fire!
I sat there until ten o'clock talking to the real Mr. Cheyne, a human Mr.
Cheyne unknown in the lecture-room. Nor had I suspected one in whom
cynicism and distrust of undergraduates (of my sort) seemed so ingrained,
of such idealism. He did not pour it out in preaching; delicately,
unobtrusively and on the whole rather humorously he managed to present to
me in a most disillusionizing light that conception of the university
held by me and my intimate associates. After I had left him I walked the
quiet streets to behold as through dissolving mists another Harvard, and
there trembled in my soul like the birth-struggle of a flame something of
the vision later to be immortalized by St. Gaudens, the spirit of Harvard
responding to the spirit of the Republic--to the call of Lincoln, who
voiced it. The place of that bronze at the corner of Boston Common was as
yet empty, but I have since stood before it to gaze in wonder at the
light shining in darkness on mute, uplifted faces, black faces! at
Harvard's son leading them on that the light might live and prevail.
I, too, longed for a Cause into which I might fling myself, in which I
might lose myself... I halted on the sidewalk to find myself staring from
the opposite side of the street at a familiar house, my old landlady's,
Mrs. Bolton's, and summoned up before me was the tired, smiling face of
Hermann Krebs. Was it because when he had once spoken so crudely of the
University I had seen the reflection of her spirit in his eyes? A light
still burned in the extension roof--Krebs's light; another shone dimly
through the ground glass of the front door. Obeying a sudden impulse, I
crossed the street.
Mrs. Bolton, in the sky-blue wrapper, and looking more forbidding than
ever, answered the bell. Life had taught her to be indifferent to
surprises, and it was I who became abruptly embarrassed.
"Oh, it's you, Mr. Paret," she said, as though I had been a frequent
caller. I had never once darkened her threshold since I had left her
house.
"Yes," I answered, and hesitated.... "Is Mr. Krebs in?"
"Well," she replied in a lifeless tone, which nevertheless had in it a
touch of bitterness, "I guess there's no reason why you and your friends
should have known he was sick."
"Sick!" I repeated. "Is he very sick?"
"I calculate he'll pull through," she said. "Sunday the doctor gave him
up. And no wonder! He hasn't had any proper food since he's be'n here!"
She paused, eyeing me. "If you'll excuse me, Mr. Paret, I was just going
up to him when you rang."
"Certainly," I replied awkwardly. "Would you be so kind as to tell
him--when he's well enough--that I came to see him, and that I'm sorry?"
There was another pause, and she stood with a hand defensively clutching
the knob.
"Yes, I'll tell him," she said.
With a sense of having been baffled, I turned away.
Walking back toward the Yard my attention was attracted by a slowly
approaching cab whose occupants were disturbing the quiet of the night
with song.
"Shollity--'tis wine, 'tis wine, that makesh--shollity."
The vehicle drew up in front of a new and commodious building,--I believe
the first of those designed to house undergraduates who were willing to
pay for private bathrooms and other modern luxuries; out of one window of
the cab protruded a pair of shoeless feet, out of the other a hatless
head I recognized as belonging to Tom Peters; hence I surmised that the
feet were his also. The driver got down from the box, and a lively
argument was begun inside--for there were other occupants--as to how Mr.
Peters was to be disembarked; and I gathered from his frequent references
to the "Shgyptian obelisk" that the engineering problem presented struck
him as similar to the unloading of Cleopatra's Needle.
"Careful, careful!" he cautioned, as certain expelling movements began
from within, "Easy, Ham, you jam-fool, keep the door shut, y'll break
me."
"Now, Jerry, all heave sh'gether!" exclaimed a voice from the blackness
of the interior.
"Will ye wait a minute, Mr. Durrett, sir?" implored the cabdriver.
"You'll be after ruining me cab entirely." (Loud roars and vigorous
resistance from the obelisk, the cab rocking violently.) "This gintleman"
(meaning me) "will have him by the head, and I'll get hold of his feet,
sir." Which he did, after a severe kick in the stomach.
"Head'sh all right, Martin."
"To be sure it is, Mr. Peters. Now will ye rest aisy awhile, sir?"
"I'm axphyxiated," cried another voice from the darkness, the mined voice
of Jerome Kyme, our classmate.
"Get the tackles under him!" came forth in commanding tones from
Conybear.
In the meantime many windows had been raised and much gratuitous advice
was being given. The three occupants of the cab's seat who had previously
clamoured for Mr. Peters' removal, now inconsistently resisted it;
suddenly he came out with a jerk, and we had him fairly upright on the
pavement minus a collar and tie and the buttons of his evening waistcoat.
Those who remained in the cab engaged in a riotous game of hunt the
slipper, while Tom peered into the dark interior, observing gravely the
progress of the sport. First flew out an overcoat and a much-battered
hat, finally the pumps, all of which in due time were adjusted to his
person, and I started home with him, with much parting counsel from the
other three.
"Whereinell were you, Hughie?" he inquired. "Hunted all over for you. Had
a sousin' good time. Went to Babcock's--had champagne--then to see Babesh
in--th'--Woods. Ham knows one of the Babesh had supper with four of 'em.
Nice Babesh!"
"For heaven's sake don't step on me again!" I cried.
"Sh'poloshize, old man. But y'know I'm William Shakespheare. C'n do
what I damplease." He halted in the middle of the street and recited
dramatically:--
"'Not marble, nor th' gilded monuments
Of prinches sh'll outlive m' powerful rhyme.'"
"How's that, Alonzho, b'gosh?"
"Where did you learn it?" I demanded, momentarily forgetting his
condition.
"Fr'm Ralph," he replied, "says I wrote it. Can't remember...."
After I had got him to bed,--a service I had learned to perform with more
or less proficiency,--I sat down to consider the events of the evening,
to attempt to get a proportional view. The intensity of my disgust was
not hypocritical as I gazed through the open door into the bedroom and
recalled the times when I, too, had been in that condition. Tom Peters
drunk, and sleeping it off, was deplorable, without doubt; but Hugh Paret
drunk was detestable, and had no excuse whatever. Nor did I mean by this
to set myself on a higher ethical plane, for I felt nothing but despair
and humility. In my state of clairvoyance I perceived that he was a
better man, than I, and that his lapses proceeded from a love of liquor
and the transcendent sense of good-fellowship that liquor brings.