The hours that Dink Stover sat puffing his pipe before the yellow-eyed
owls that blinked to him from the crackling fireplace were hours of
revolution. His imagination, stirred by the recital of Swazey's life,
returned to him like some long-lost friend. Sunk back in his familiar
arm-chair, his legs extended almost to the reddening logs, his arms
braced, he seemed to see through the conjuring clouds of smoke that rose
from his pipe the figures of a strange self, the Dink Stover who had
fought his way to manhood in the rough tests of boarding-school life,
the Dink Stover who had arrived so eagerly, whose imagination had leaped
to the swelling masses of that opening night and called for the first
cheer in the name of the whole class.
That figure was stranger to him than the stranger in his own entry.
Together they sat looking into each other's eyes, in shy recognition,
while overhead on every quarter-hour the bell from Battell Chapel
announced the march toward midnight. Several times, as he sat plunged in
reverie, a knock sounded imperiously on the locked door; but he made no
move. Once from the campus below he heard Dopey McNab's gleeful voice
mingling with the deep bass of Buck Waters:
"_Oh, father and mother pay all the bills,_
_And we have all the fun._
_That's the way we do in college life._
_Hooray!_"
[Illustration: "'OH, FATHER AND MOTHER PAY ALL THE BILLS, AND WE HAVE
ALL THE FUN'"--_Page 229._]
For a moment the song was choked, and then he heard it ring in
triumphant crescendo as the two came up his steps, pounding out the
rhythm with enthusiastic feet. Before his door they came to a stop, sang
the chorus to a rattling accompaniment of their fists, and exclaimed:
"Oh, Dink Stover, open up!"
Receiving no response, they consulted:
"Why, the geezer isn't in."
"Let's break down the door."
"What right has he to be out?"
"Is there any one else we can annoy around here?"
"Bob Story is in the next entry."
"Lead me to him."
"About face!"
"March!"
"_Oh, father and mother pay all the bills,_
_And we have all the fun:_
_That's the way we do--_"
The sound died out. Upstairs a piano took up the refrain in a thin,
syncopated echo. From time to time a door slammed in his entry, or from
without the faint halloo:
"Oh, Jimmy, stick out your head."
Dink, shifting, poked another log into place and returned longingly to
his reverie. He could not get from his mind what Swazey had told him.
His imagination reconstructed the story that had been given in such bare
detail, thrilling at the struggle and the drama he perceived back of it.
It was all undivined. When he had thought of his classmates, he had
thought of them in a matter-of-fact way as lives paralleling his own.
"Wonder what Regan's story is--the whole story?" he thought musingly.
"And Pike and all the rest of--" He hesitated, and then added, "--of the
fellows who don't count."
He had heard but one life, but that had disclosed the vista of a hundred
paths that here in his own class, hidden away, should open on a hundred
romances. He felt, with a sudden realization of the emptiness of his own
life, a new zest, a desire to go out and seek what he had ignored
before.
He left the fire suddenly, dug into his sweater, and flung a great
ulster about him. He went out and across the chilly campus to the very
steps where he had gone with Le Baron on his first night, drawing up
close to the wall for warmth. And again he thought of the other self,
the boyish, natural self, the Dink Stover who had first come here.
What had become of him? Of the two selves it was the boy who alone was
real, who gave and received in friendship without hesitating or
appraising. He recalled all the old schoolmates with their queer
nicknames--the Tennessee Shad, Doc MacNooder, the Triumphant Egghead,
and Turkey Reiter. There had been no division there in that spontaneous
democracy, and the Dink Stover who had won his way to the top had never
sought to isolate himself or curb any natural instinct for skylarking,
or sought a reason for a friendship.
"Good Lord!" he said, almost aloud, "in one whole year what have I done?
I haven't made one single friend, known what one real man was doing or
thinking, done anything I wanted to do, talked out what I wanted to
talk, read what I wanted to read, or had time to make the friends I
wanted to make. I've been nothing but material--varsity
material--society material; I've lost all the imagination I had, and
know less than when I came; and I'm the popular man--'the big man'--in
the class! Great! Is it my fault or the fault of things up here?"
Where had it all gone--that fine zest for life, that eagerness to know
other lives and other conditions, that readiness for whole-souled
comradeship with which he had come to Yale? Where was the pride he had
felt in the democracy of the class, when he had swung amid the torches
and the cheers past the magic battlements of the college, one in the
class, with the feeling in the ranks of a consecrated army gathered from
the plains and the mountains, the cities and villages of the nation,
consecrated to one another, to four years of mutual understanding that
would form an imperishable bond wherever on the face of the globe they
should later scatter? And, thinking of all this young imagination that
somehow had dried up and withered away, he asked himself again and
again:
"Is it my fault?"
Across the campus Buck Waters and Dopey McNab, returning from their
marauding expedition, came singing, arm in arm:
"_Oh, father and mother pay all the bills,_
_And we have all the fun._
_That's the way we do in college life._
_Hooray!_"
The two pagans passed without seeing him, gloriously, boyishly happy and
defiant, and the rollicking banter recalled in bleak contrast all the
stern outlines of the lives of seriousness he had felt for the first
time.
At first he revolted at the extremes. Then he considered. Even their
life and their point of view was something unknown. It was true he was
only a part of the machine of college, one of the wheels that had to
revolve in its appointed groove. He had thought of himself always as one
who led, and suddenly he perceived that it was he who followed.
A step sounded by him, and the winking eye of a pipe. Some one unaware
of his tenancy approached the steps. Stover, in a flare-up of the
tobacco, recognized him.
"Hello, Brockhurst," he said.
"Hello," said the other, hesitating shyly.
"It's Stover," said Dink. "What are you doing this time of night?"
"Oh, I prowl around," said Brockhurst, shifting from one foot to the
other.
"Sit down."
"Not disturbing you?"
"Not at all," said Stover, pleased at this moment at the awe he
evidently inspired. "I got sort of restless; thought I'd come out here
and smoke a pipe. Amusing old spot."
"I like it," said Brockhurst. Then he added tentatively: "You get the
feeling of it all."
"Yes, that's so."
They puffed in unison a moment.
"You're hitting up a good pace on that _Lit_ competition," said Dink,
unconscious of the tone of patronage into which he insensibly fell.
"Pretty good."
"That's right. Keep plugging away."
"Why?" said Brockhurst, with a little aggressiveness.
"Why, you ought to make the chairmanship," said Dink, surprised.
"Why should I?"
"Don't you want to?"
"There are other things I want more."
"What?"
"To go through here as my own master, and do myself some good."
"Hello!"
Stover sat up amazed at hearing from another the thoughts that had been
dominant in his own mind; amazed, too, at the trick of association which
had put into his own mouth thoughts against which a moment before he had
been rebelling.
"That's good horse sense," he said, to open up the conversation. "What
are you going to do?"
"I'm going to do the best thing a fellow can do at our age. I'm going to
loaf."
"Loaf!" said Dink, startled again, for the word was like treason.
"Just that."
"But you're not doing that. You're out to make the _Lit_. You're heeling
something, like all the rest of us," said Stover, who suddenly found
himself on the opposite side of the argument, revolting with a last
resistance at the too bold statement of his own rebellion.
"I'm not 'heeling' the _Lit_," said Brockhurst. His shyness disappeared;
he spoke energetically, interested in what he was saying. "If I were, I
would make the chairmanship without trouble. I'm head and shoulders over
the rest here, and I know it. As it is, some persistent grubber who sits
down two hours a day, thirty days a month, nine months of the year for
the next two years, who will regularly hand in one essay, two stories, a
poem, and a handful of portfolios will probably beat me out."
"And you?"
"I? I write when I have something to write, because I love it and
because my ambition is to write."
"Still, that's not exactly loafing."
"It is from your point of view, from the college point of view. It isn't
what I write that's doing me any good."
"What then?" said Stover, with growing curiosity.
"The browsing around, watching you other fellows, seeing your mistakes."
"Well, what are they?" said Dink, with a certain antagonism.
"Why, Stover, here are four years such as we'll never get again--four
years to revel in; and what do you fellows do? Slave as you'll never
slave again. Why, you're working harder than a clerk supporting a
family!"
"It's a good training."
"For a certain type, yes, but a rather low type. Thank you, I prefer to
go my own way, to work out my own ideas rather than accept others'.
However, I'm a crank. Any one who thinks differently here must be a
crank."
While they were talking the hour of twelve had struck, and presently
across the campus came a mysterious line of senior society men, marching
silently, two by two, returning to their rooms.
"What do you think of that?" said Stover, with real curiosity.
"That. A colossal mumbo-jumbo that has got every one of you in its
grip." He paused a moment and gave a short laugh. "Did you ever stop to
think, Stover, that this fetish of society secrecy that is spread all
over this Christian, democratic nation is nothing but a return of
idol-worship?"
This idea was beyond Stover, and so, not comprehending it, he resented
it. He did not reply. Brockhurst, perceiving that he had spoken too
frankly, rose.
"Well, I must be turning in," he said. "So long, Stover. You go your way
and I'll go mine; some day we'll talk it over--four years out of
college."
"The fellow _is_ a crank," said Dink, going his way. "Got some ideas,
but an extremist. One or two things he said, though, are true. I rather
like to get his point of view, but there's a chap who'll never make
friends."
And he felt again a sort of resentment, for, after all, Brockhurst was
still unplaced according to college standards, and he was Stover,
probable captain, one of those rated sure for the highest society
honors.
When he awoke the next morning, starting rebelliously from his bed, his
head was heavy, and he did not at first remember the emotions of the
night, as sleepily struggling through his sweater he ran out of his
entry for a hurried cup of coffee. Bob Story hailed him:
"Hold up, you crazy man."
"What's the matter?"
"What the deuce got into you last night?"
"Last night?" said Stover, rubbing his eyes.
"You hauled me out of bed to shout out a lot of crazy nonsense."
"What did I say?" said Dink, trying to open his eyes.
"Nothing new," said Bob maliciously. "You said you were a plain damn
fool, and were anxious for me to know it."
"Oh, I remember."
"Well?"
"Well what?"
"Explanations?"
Stover did not feel in the mood; besides, the new ideas were too big
and strange. He wanted time to understand them. So he said:
"Why, Bob, I just woke up, that's all. I'll tell you about it
sometime--not now."
"All right," said Story, with a quick look. "Drop in soon."
The following night Stover again went over to Swazey's rooms. It being
Saturday, one or two men had dropped in: Ricketts, a down-East Yankee
who recited in his divisions, a drawling, shuffling stripling with a
lazy, overgrown body and a quick, roving eye; Joe Lake, a short,
rolling, fluent Southerner from Texas; and Bud Brown, from a small
village in Michigan, one of the class debaters who affected a Websterian
deportment.
"I brought my pipe along," said Stover genially. "Got a place left where
I can stow myself? Hello, Ricketts. Hello, Lake. Glad to shake your
hand, Brown. How's the old _News_ getting along, Pike? By the way, I'll
give you a story Monday."
"Right in here, sir," said Lake, making room.
A couple of stout logs were roaring in the fireplace, before which,
propped up with cushions, the majority of the company were sprawling.
Stover took his place, filling his pipe. His arrival brought a little
constraint; the conversation, which had been at fever pitch as he stood
rapping at the door, dwindled to desultory remarks on inconsequential
things.
"Well, I certainly am among the fruits of the class," thought Stover,
eyeing the rather shaggy crowd, where sweaters and corduroys
predominated and the razor had passed not too frequently.
In the midst of this hesitation, Regan's heavy frame crowded the
doorway, accompanied by Brockhurst. Both were surprised at Stover's
unaccustomed presence, Brockhurst looking at him with a little
suspicion, Regan shaking his hand with new cordiality.
"Have you, too, joined the debating circle?" he said, crowding into a
place by Stover and adjusting the fire with a square-toed boot.
"Debating circle?" said Stover, surprised.
"Why, this is the verbal prize ring of the college," said Regan,
laughing. "We settle everything here, from the internal illnesses of the
university to the external manifestations of the universe. Pike can tell
you everything that is going to happen in the next fifty years, and so
can Brocky--only they don't agree. I'm around to get them out of
clinches."
"Reckon you get rather heated up yourself, sometimes, Tom," said Lake.
"Oh, I jump in myself when I get tired of listening."
Swazey, Lake, Ricketts, and Brown in one corner installed themselves for
a session at the national game, appropriating the lamps, and leaving the
region about the fireplace to be lit by occasional gleams from the
fitful hickories.
Brockhurst, the champion of individualism, was soon launched on his
favorite topic.
"The great fault of the American nation, which is the fault of
republics, is the reduction of everything to the average. Our
universities are simply the expression of the forces that are operating
outside. We are business colleges purely and simply, because we as a
nation have only one ideal--the business ideal."
"That's a big statement," said Regan.
"It's true. Twenty years ago we had the ideal of the lawyer, of the
doctor, of the statesman, of the gentleman, of the man of letters, of
the soldier. Now the lawyer is simply a supernumerary enlisting under
any banner for pay; the doctor is overshadowed by the specialist with
his business development of the possibilities of the rich; we have
politicians, and politics are deemed impossible for a gentleman; the
gentleman cultured, simple, hospitable, and kind, is of the dying
generation; the soldier is simply on parade."
"Wow!" said Ricketts, jingling his chips. "They're off."
"Everything has conformed to business, everything has been made to pay.
Art is now a respectable career--to whom? To the business man. Why?
Because a profession that is paid $3,000 to $5,000 a portrait is no
longer an art, but a blamed good business. The man who cooks up his
novel according to the weakness of his public sells a hundred thousand
copies. Dime novel? No; published by our most conservative
publishers--one of our leading citizens. He has found out that
scribbling is a new field of business. He has convinced the business
man. He has made it pay."
"Three cards," said Swazey's voice. "Well, Brocky, what's your remedy?"
"A smashing war every ten years," said Brockhurst shortly.
"Why, you bloody butcher," said Regan, who did not seize the idea, while
from the card-table came the chorus:
"Hooray, Brocky, go it!"
"That's the way!"
"You're in fine form to-night!"
"And why a war?" said Pike, beginning to take notice.
"A war has two positive advantages," said Brockhurst. "It teaches
discipline and obedience, which we profoundly need, and it holds up a
great ideal, the ideal of heroism, of sacrifice for an ideal. In times
of war young men such as we are are inspired by the figures of military
leaders, and their imaginations are stirred to noble desires by the word
'country.' Nowadays what is held up to us? Go out--succeed--make money."
"That's true, a good deal true," said Regan abruptly. "And the only
remedy, the only way to fight the business deal, is to interest young
men in politics, to make them feel that there are the new
battle-fields."
"Now Tom's in it," said Lake, threshing the cards through his fingers.
At the card-table the players began to listen, motioning with silent
gestures.
"I _am_ off," said Regan, bending forward eagerly and striking his fist
against his open hand. "That's the one great thing our colleges should
stand for; they ought to be great political hotbeds."
"And they're not," said Brockhurst shortly.
"The more's the pity," said Regan. "There I'm with you. They don't
represent the nation: they don't represent what the big masses are
feeling, fighting, striving for. By George, when I think of the
opportunity, of what this place could mean, what it was meant to mean!
Why, every year we gather here from every State in the Union a picked
lot, with every chance, with a wonderful opportunity to seek out and
know what the whole country needs, to be fired with the same great
impulses, to go out and fight together--" He stopped clumsily in the
midst of a sentence, and flung back his hair, frowning. "Good
government, independent thinking, the love of the fight for the right
thing ought to begin here--the enthusiasm of it all. Hang it, I can't
express it; but the idea is immense, and no one sees it."
"I see it," said Pike. "That's my ambition. I'm going back; I'm going
to own my own newspaper some day, and fight for it."
"But why don't the universities reflect what's out there?" said Regan
with a gesture.
"Because, to make it as it should be, and as it was, a live center of
political discussion," said Brockhurst, "you've got to give the
individual a chance, break through this tyranny of the average, get away
from business ideas."
"Just what do you mean when you say we are nothing but a business
college?" said Stover, preparing to resist any explanation. He
understood imperfectly what Regan was advocating. Politics meant to him
a sort of hereditary division; what new forces were at work he
completely ignored, though resolved on enlightenment. Brockhurst's
attack on the organization of the college was personal, and he felt that
his own membership in the sophomore society was aimed at.
"I mean this," said Brockhurst, speaking slowly in the effort to express
a difficult thought. "I hope I can make it clear. What would be the
natural thing? A man goes to college. He works as he wants to work, he
plays as he wants to play, he exercises for the fun of the game, he
makes friends where he wants to make them, he is held in by no fear of
criticism above, for the class ahead of him has nothing to do with his
standing in his own class. Everything he does has the one vital quality:
it is spontaneous. That is the flame of youth itself. Now, what really
exists?"
As he paused, Stover, unable to find an opening for dissent, observed
with interest the attitudes of the listeners: Pike, his pipe forgotten
in the hollow of his hand, was staring into the fire, his forehead drawn
in difficult comprehension; Regan was puffing steady, methodical puffs,
nodding his head from time to time. In the background Swazey's earnest
face was turned in their direction, and the cards, neglected, were
moving in a lazy shuffle; Brown, the debater, man of words rather than
ideas, was running his fingers nervously through his drooping hair,
chafing for the chance to enter the fray; Lake, tilted back, his fat
body exaggerated under the swollen rolls of his sweater, from which from
time to time he dug out a chip, kept murmuring:
"Perfectly correct, sir; perfectly correct."
Ricketts, without lifting his head, arranged and rearranged his pile of
chips, listening with one ear cocked, deriving meanwhile all the profit
which could be gained from his companions' divided attention. Two things
struck Stover particularly in the group--the rough, unhewn personal
exteriors, and the quick, awakened light of enthusiasm on their faces
while listening to the expounding of an idea. Brockhurst himself was
transformed. All the excessive self-consciousness which irritated and
repelled was lost in the fervor of the thinker. He spoke, not as one who
discussed, but as one who, consciously superior to his audience,
announced his conclusions; and at times, when most interested, he seemed
to be addressing himself.
"Now, what is the actual condition here?" He rose, stretching himself
against the mantel, lighting a match which died out, as did a half-dozen
others, unnoticed on his pipe. "I say our colleges to-day are business
colleges--Yale more so, perhaps, because it is more sensitively
American. Let's take up any side of our life here. Begin with athletics.
What has become of the natural, spontaneous joy of contest? Instead you
have one of the most perfectly organized business systems for achieving
a required result--success. Football is driving, slavish work; there
isn't one man in twenty who gets any real pleasure out of it.
Professional baseball is not more rigorously disciplined and driven than
our 'amateur' teams. Add the crew and the track. Play, the fun of the
thing itself, doesn't exist; and why? Because we have made a business
out of it all, and the college is scoured for material, just as drummers
are sent out to bring in business.
"Take another case. A man has a knack at the banjo or guitar, or has a
good voice. What is the spontaneous thing? To meet with other kindred
spirits in informal gatherings in one another's rooms or at the fence,
according to the whim of the moment. Instead what happens? You have our
university musical clubs, thoroughly professional organizations. If you
are material, you must get out and begin to work for them--coach with a
professional coach, make the Apollo clubs, and, working on, some day in
junior year reach the varsity organization and go out on a professional
tour. Again an organization conceived on business lines.
"The same is true with the competition for our papers: the struggle for
existence outside in a business world is not one whit more intense than
the struggle to win out in the _News_ or _Lit_ competition. We are like
a beef trust, with every by-product organized, down to the last
possibility. You come to Yale--what is said to you? 'Be natural, be
spontaneous, revel in a certain freedom, enjoy a leisure you'll never
get again, browse around, give your imagination a chance, see every one,
rub wits with every one, get to know yourself.'
"Is that what's said? No. What are you told, instead? 'Here are twenty
great machines that need new bolts and wheels. Get out and work. Work
harder than the next man, who is going to try to outwork you. And, in
order to succeed, work at only one thing. You don't count--everything
for the college.' Regan says the colleges don't represent the nation; I
say they don't even represent the individual."
"What would you do?" said Brown. "Abolish all organizations?"
"Absolutely," said Brockhurst, who never recoiled.
"What! Do you mean to say that the college of 1870 was a bigger thing
than the college of to-day?"
"My dear Brown, it isn't even debatable," said Brockhurst, with a little
contempt, for he did not understand nor like the man of flowing words.
"What have we to-day that is bigger? Is it this organization of external
activities? We have more bricks and stones, but have we the great
figures in the teaching staff? I grant you, this is purely an economic
failure--but at the bottom of the whole thing compare the spirit inside
the campus now and then. Who were the leaders then? The men of brains.
Then the college did reflect the country; then it was a vital hotbed of
political thought. To-day everything that has been developed is outside
the campus; and it's so in every college. This is the
tendency--development away from the campus at the expense of the campus.
That's why, when you ask me would I wipe out our business athletics and
our professional musical and traveling dramatic clubs, I say, yes,
absolutely. I would have the limits of college to be the walls of the
campus itself, and we'd see, when men cease to be drafted for one grind
or another, whether they couldn't begin to meet to think and to
converse. However, that brings up the whole pet problem of education,
and, I'm through talking. Go on, Pike; tell us that we are, after all,
only schools for character."
"Brocky, you certainly are a radical--a terrific one," said Pike,
shaking his head. Regan, smoking, said nothing.
"A sort of red-shirt, eh?" said Brockhurst, smiling.
"You always go off on a tangent."
"Well, there's a good deal in what Brocky says," said Regan, nodding
slowly, "about bringing us all back into the campus and shutting out the
world. It's the men here, all sorts and conditions, that, after all, are
big things, the vital thing. I'm thinking over what you're saying,
Brocky--not that I follow you altogether, but I see what you're after--I
get it."
Stover, on the contrary, was aware of only an antagonism, for his
instinct was always to combat new ideas. There were things in what
Brockhurst had said that touched him on the quick of his accepted
loyalty. Then, he could not quite forget that in the matter of his
sophomore society he had rejected him as being a little "queer." So he
said rather acidly:
"Brockhurst, one question. If you feel as you do, why do you stay here?"
Brockhurst, who had withdrawn after his outburst, a little
self-conscious again, flushed with anger at this question. But with an
effort he controlled himself, saying:
"Stover has not perceived that I have been talking of general conditions
all through the East; that I am not fool enough to believe one Eastern
university is different in essentials from another. What I criticize
here I criticize in American life. As to why I remain at Yale, I remain
because I think, because, having the advantages of my own point of view,
I can see clearer those who are still conventionalized."
"But you don't believe in working for Yale," persisted Stover, for he
was angry at what he perceived had been his discourtesy.
"Work for Yale! Work for Princeton! Work for Harvard! Bah! Sublime
poppycock!" exclaimed Brockhurst, in a sort of fury. "Of all drivel
preached to young Americans, that is the worst. I came to Yale for an
education. I pay for it--good pay. I ask, first and last, what is Yale
going to do for me? Work for Yale, go out and slave, give up my leisure
and my independence--to do what for Yale? To keep turning the wheels of
some purely inconsequential machine, or strive like a gladiator. Is that
doing anything for Yale, a seat of learning? If I'm true to myself, make
the most of myself, go out and be something, stand for something _after_
college, then ask the question if you want. Ridiculous! Hocus-pocus and
flap-doodle! Lord! I don't know anything that enrages me more. Good
night; I'm going. Heaven knows what I'll say if I stay!"
He clapped his hat on his head and broke out of the door. The chorus of
exclamations in the room died down. Ricketts, still shifting his
victorious pile, began to whistle softly to himself. Regan, languidly
stretched out, with a twinkle in his eyes kept watching Stover, staring
red and concentrated into the fire.
"Well?" he said at last.
Stover turned.
"Well?" said Regan, smiling.
Dink rapped the ashes from his pipe, scratched his head, and said
frankly:
"Of course I shouldn't have said what I did. I got well spanked for it,
and I deserve it."
"What do you think of his ideas?" said Regan, nodding appreciatively at
Stover's fair acknowledgment.
"I don't know," said Stover, puzzled. "I guess I haven't used my old
thinker enough lately to be worth anything in a discussion. Still--"
"Still what?" said Regan, as Dink hesitated.
"Still, he has made me think," he admitted grudgingly. "I wish he didn't
quite--quite get on my nerves so."
"There's a great deal in what he said to-night," said Pike meditatively;
"a great deal. Of course, he is always looking at things from the
standpoint of the individual; still, just the same--"
"Brocky always states only one side of the proposition," said Brown, who
rarely measured swords when Brockhurst was present in the flesh. "He
takes for granted his premise, and argues for a conclusion that must
follow."
"Well, what's your premise, Brown?" said Stover hopefully, for he wanted
to be convinced.
"This is my premise," said Brown fluently. "The country has changed, the
function of a college has changed. It is now the problem of educating
masses and not individuals. To-day it is a question of perfecting a high
average. That's what happens everywhere in college: we all tend toward
the average; what some lose others gain. We go out, not as individuals,
but as a type--a Yale type, Harvard type, Princeton type, five hundred
strong, proportionately more powerful in our influence on the country."
"Just what does our type take from here to the nation?" said Stover; and
then he was surprised that he had asked the question that was vital.
"What? What does this type stand for? I'll tell you," said Brown
readily, with the debater's trick of repeating the question to gain
time. "First, a pretty fine type of gentleman, with good, clear, honest
standards; second, a spirit of ambition and a determination not to be
beaten; third, the belief in democracy."
"All of which means," said Regan, "that we are simply schools for
character."
"Well, why not?" said Pike. "Isn't that a pretty big thing?"
"You're wrong on the democracy, Brown," said Regan, with a snap of his
jaws.
"I mean the feeling of man to man."
"Perhaps."
Stover at that moment was not so certain that he would have answered the
same. The discussion had so profoundly interested him that he forgot a
certain timidity.
"What would Brockhurst answer to the school-for-character idea?" he
said.
"I calculate he'd have a lovely time with it," said Ricketts, with a
laugh, "a regular dog-and-slipper time of it."
"In all which," said Swazey's quick voice, "there is no question about
our learning a little bit."
A laugh broke out.
"Lord, no!"
"That doesn't count?"
"Why the curriculum?"
"That," said Regan, rising, "brings up the subject of education, which
is deferred until another time. Ladies and gentlemen, good night. Who's
winning? Ricketts. That's because he's said nothing. Good night,
everybody."
Stover went with him.
"Tom," he said, when they came toward the campus, "do you know what I've
learned to-night? I've learned what a complete ignoramus I am."
"How did you happen in?" said Regan.
Stover related the incident without mincing words.
"You're a lucky boy," said Regan, at the conclusion. "I'm glad you're
waking up."
"You know I know absolutely nothing. I haven't thought on a single
subject, and as for politics, and what you men talk about, I don't know
the slightest thing. I say, Tom, I'd like to come around and talk with
you."
"Come," said Regan; "I've had the door on the latch for a long while,
old rooster."