At nine o'clock that night Stover eluded Dennis de Brian de Boru
Finnegan and the Tennessee Shad and went across the dusky campus,
faintly lit by the low-hanging moon. Past him hundreds of gnomelike
figures were scurrying, carrying shadowy planks and barrels, while
gleeful voices crossed and recrossed.
"There's a whole pile back of Appleby's."
"We've got an oil barrel."
"Burn every fence in the county!"
"Who cares!"
"Where did you get that plank?"
"Up by the Rouse."
"Gee, we'll have a bonfire bigger'n the chapel!"
"More wood, Freshmen!"
"Rotten lot, those Freshmen!"
"Hold up your end, Skinny. Do you think I'm a pack mule?"
Dink pulled the brim of his hat over his eyes and slunk away, not to
be recognized. He went in a roundabout way past the chapel. He had
just one desire, to stand under the goalposts they had defended and to
feel again the thrill.
"Who's that?" The voice was Tough McCarty's.
"It's me. It's Dink," said Stover.
"I came down here," said McCarty, appearing from under the goalposts
and hesitating a little, "well, just to feel how it felt again."
"So did I."
Dink stood by the posts, taking one affectionately in his hand, and
said curiously: "They tell me, Tough, we held 'em four times inside
the ten-yard line."
"Four times, old boy."
"Funny I don't remember but two. Guess I was groggy."
"You didn't show it."
"It was you pulled me through, Tough."
"Rats!"
"It was. There at the last, I remember when you gripped me." As this
was perilously near sentiment he stopped. "I say, how many of us
tackled that fellow the last time?"
"The whole bunch. I say, Dink."
"Yes?"
"Stand out here--that's it, knee to knee. Can't you just feel it
behind you?"
"Yes," said Dink, surprised that in the big body there was an
imagination akin to his own. Then he said abruptly:
"Tough, I guess there won't be any fight."
"No--not after this."
"What the deuce did we get a grudge for, anyway?"
"I always liked you, Dink, but you wouldn't have it."
"I was a mean little varmint!"
"Rats! I say, Dink, we've got two years more on the old team. There's
nothing going to get around our end, is there, old boy?"
"You bet there isn't!"
All at once a flame ran up the towering bonfire and belched toward the
sky.
"Are you going to let them get you?" said McCarty.
"Me? Oh, Lord, no--I can't make a speech!"
"Neither can I!" said Tough mendaciously. "I wouldn't go back there
for the world!"
The thin posts stood out against the sheet of flame, gaunt, rigid,
imbued with a certain grandeur.
"I say, Dink," said McCarty.
"Yes?"
"I say, we're going to have some great old fights together. But, do
you know, I sort of feel after all, this will be the best."
Then a chorus of thin shrieks rose about them. They started
half-heartedly to run, pretending fury. A swarm of determined boyhood
rushed over them and flung them kicking, struggling into the air.
"Tough McCarty and Dink Stover!"
"We've got 'em!"
"On to the bonfire!"
"They're ours!"
"Hurray!"
"Help!"
"Help! We've got McCarty and Stover!"
Boys by the score came tearing out. The little knot under Dink became
a thick, black shadow, rushing forward with hilarious, triumphant
shouts. Then all at once he landed all-fours on a cart before the
flaming stack, greeted by fishhorns and rattles, his name shrieked out
in a wild acclaim.
"Three cheers for good old Dink!"
"Three cheers for honest John Stover!"
"Three cheers for the little cuss!"
He drew himself up, fumbling at his cap, terrified at the multiplied
faces that danced before his eyes.
"I say, fellows----"
"Hurray!"
"Good boy!"
"Orator!"
"I say, fellows, I don't see why you've got me up here."
"You don't!"
"We'll show you!"
"Dink, you're the finest ever!"
"You're the stuff!"
"Three cheers for good old Rinky Dink!"
"Fellows, I'm no silver-tongued orator----"
"Don't believe it!"
"You are!"
"Fellows, I haven't got anything to say----"
"That's the stuff!"
"Hurray!"
"Keep it up!"
"Oh, you bulldog!"
"Fellows, they were good----"
A derisive shout went up.
"Fellows, they were very good----"
"Yes, they were!"
"Fellows, they were re-markably good--but _they didn't beat the old
school team_! That's all."
He dove headlong into the crowd, unaware that he had repeated for the
sixth time the stock oration of the evening.
"Good old Dink! Good old Rinky Dink!"
The cry stuck in his memory all through the jubilant night and long
after, when in his delicious bed he tossed and worried over the
tackles he had missed.
"It's a bully nickname--bully!" he repeated drowsily, again and again.
"It sounds as though they liked you! And Tough McCarty, what a bully
chap--bully! We're going to be friends--pals--what a bully fellow!
Everything is bully--everything!"
* * * * *
With the close of the football season and the advent of December, with
its scurries of snow and sleet, what might be termed the open season
for masters began.
A school of four hundred fellows is a good deal like a shaky monarchy:
the football and baseball seasons akin to foreign wars; so long as
they last the tranquillity of the state is secure, but with the return
of peace a state of fermentation and unrest is due.
The three weeks that lead to the Christmas vacation are too filled
with anticipation to be dangerous. It is the long reaches after
January fifth, the period of arctic night that settles down until the
passing of the muddy month of March, that tries the souls of the
keepers of these caged menageries.
Since those days a humane direction has built a gymnasium to lighten
the condition of servitude, preserve the health and prolong the lives
of the Faculty. But at this time, with the shutting of the door on the
treadmills of exercise, the young assistant master arranged his warm
wrapper and slippers at the side of his bed and went to sleep with one
ear raised.
Dink Stover entered this season of mischief with all the ardor and
intensity of his nature, the more so because, owing to his weeks of
strict training and his virtual isolation of the year before, it was
all strange to him. And at that period what is forbidden, dangerous
and, above all, untried, must be attempted at least once.
Now, owing to the foresight of a wise father, Dink had never been
forbidden to smoke. Of a consequence when, at an early age, he
practiced upon an old corncob pipe and found it violently disagreed
with him, the desire abruptly ceased and, as the athletic ardor came,
he consecrated his years to the duty of growing, with not the
slightest regret.
But between smoking under permission and squeezing close to a cold-air
ventilator, stealthily, in the pin-drop silences of the night, with
frightful risks of detection, was all the difference in the world. One
was a disagreeable, thoroughly unsympathetic exercise; the other was a
romantic, mediaeval adventure.
So when Slops Barnett, who roomed below and was the proprietor of a
model air flue with direct, perpendicular draught, said to him with an
air of mannish _insouciance_:
"I say, old man, I've got a fat box of 'Gyptians. Glad to have you
drop in to-night if you like the weed."
Dink answered with blase familiarity:
"Why, thankee, I've been aching for just a good old coffin-nail."
He slipped down the creaking, nervous stairs, and found Slops
luxuriously reclining before the ventilator, on a mattress re-enforced
by yellow and green sofa pillows, that gave the whole somewhat of the
devilishly dissipated effect of the scenes from Oriental lands that
fascinated him on the covers of cigarette boxes.
Slops made him a sign in the deaf-and-dumb language to extinguish the
light and creep to his side.
"Comfy?" said Slops, whispering from the darkness.
"Out of sight!"
"Here's the filthy weed."
"Thanks."
"Always keep the cig in front of the ventilator," said Slops, applying
his lips to Dink's ear. "Get a light from mine. Talk in whispers."
Stover filled his cheeks cautiously and blew out after a sufficient
period.
"You inhale?"
"Sure."
"Inhale a cigar?"
"Always."
"It's awful the way I inhale," said Slops with a melancholy sigh. "I'm
undermining my constitution. Ever see my hand? Shakes worse'n jelly.
Can't help it, though; can't live without the weed. I'm a regular cig
fiend!"
Stover, holding his cigarette gingerly, keeping the sickly smoke at
the end of his tongue, looked over at Slops' stupid little face,
flashing out of the darkness at each puff. He was no longer the
useless Slops Barnett, good only to fetch and carry the sweaters of
the team, but Barnett, man of the world, versed in deadly practices.
"I say, Slops----"
"Hist--lower."
"I say, Slops, what would they do if they caught us?"
"Bounce us."
"For good?"
"Sure! P. D. Q."
The cigarette suddenly had a new delight to Dink. He was even tempted
to inhale a small, very small puff, but immediately conquered this
enthusiastic impulse.
"Isn't this the gay life, though?" said Slops carelessly.
"You bet," said Dink.
From down the flue came three distinct taps.
"That's the Gutter Pup signaling," said Slops, putting his finger
over Dink's mouth. "Bundy is snooping around. Mum's the word."
Presently, as Dink sat there in the darkness, trying desperately to
breathe noiselessly, the sound of slipping footsteps was heard in the
hall. Slops' hand closed over his. The steps stopped directly outside
their door, waited a long moment and went on.
"Bundy?" said Dink in a whisper.
"Yes."
"Why did he stop?"
"He's got me spotted. He's seen the nicotine on my finger," said
Slops, showing a finger under a sudden glow of his cigarette.
A half-hour later when Dink crept up the stairs, homeward bound, he
swelled with a new sensation. Yesterday was months away; then he was a
boy, now that he had smoked up a cold-air ventilator, with Bundy
outwitted by the door, he had aged with a jump--he must be at last a
man.
The next week he added to his stature by going to P. Lentz's room for
a midnight session of the national game, where, after a titanic
struggle of three hours, he won the colossal sum of forty-eight cents.
Having sunk to these depths he began to listen to the Sunday sermons
with a thrill of personal delight--there being not the slightest
doubt that they were directly launched at him. Sometimes he wondered
how the Doctor and The Roman could remain ignorant of the extent of
his debauches, his transgressions were so daring and so complete. He
stood shivering up the Trenton road, under the shadow of an icy trunk,
of Sunday mornings, and met Blinky, the one-eyed purveyor of illicit
cigarettes and the forbidden Sunday newspapers, which had to be
wrapped around his body and smuggled under a sweater.
Secretly he rubbed iodine on his fingers to simulate the vicious stain
of nicotine that was such a precious ornament to Slops' squat fingers.
Only one thing distressed him, and that was his invincible dislike for
the cigarette itself.
Being now a celebrity, many doors were thrown invitingly open to him,
invitations that flattered him, without his making a distinction. He
went over to the Upper at times and into rooms where he had no
business, immensely proud that he was called in to share the delights
and liberties of the lords of the school.
At the Kennedy he was in constant rebellion against established
precedent, constantly called below to be lectured by The Roman. In
revenge for which at night he made the life of Mr. Bundy one of
constant insomnia, and, by soaping the stairs or strewing tacks in the
hall, seriously interfered with that inexperienced young gentleman's
nightly exercises.
The deeper he went the deeper he was determined to go; doggedly
imagining that the whole Faculty, led by The Roman, were bending every
effort to bring him down and convict him.
The Tennessee Shad had no inclinations toward sporting life--greatly
to Stover's surprise. When Dink urged him to join the clandestine
parties he only yawned in a bored way.
"Come on now, Shad, be a sport," said Dink, repeating the stock
phrase.
"You're not sports," said the Tennessee Shad in languid derision,
"you're bluffs. Besides, I've been all through it, two years ago.
Hurry up with your dead-game sporting phase, if you've got to, but get
through it; 'cause now you're nothing but a nuisance."
Dink felt considerably grieved at his roommate's flippant attitude
toward his career of vice. Secretly, he felt that a word of kindly
remonstrance, some friendly effort to pull him back from the frightful
abyss into which he was sinking, would have been more like a friend
and a roommate.
This same callous indifference to the fate of his roommate's soul so
incensed Stover that, to bring before the Shad's eyes the really
desperate state of his morals, he appointed a Welsh-rabbit party in
their room for the following night.
"Don't mind, do you?" he said carelessly.
"Not if I don't have to eat it!"
"It's going to be a real one," said Stover, "making a distinction."
"Come off!"
"Fact. It is not going to be flavored with rootbeer, toothwash,
condensed milk or russet polish; it is going to be the genuine,
satisfaction guaranteed, or you get your money back."
"With beer?"
"Exactly."
"Yes, it is!"
"It is."
"Where'll you get it?"
"I have ways."
"Oh," said the Tennessee Shad sarcastically, "this is one of your
real, sporting-life parties, is it?"
Stover disdained to answer.
"Is that bunch of slums going to be here?"
"Are you referring to my friends?" said Stover.
"I am," said the Tennessee Shad, "and all I ask while this feast of
bacchanalian orgies is going on, is that _I_ be allowed to sleep."
At eleven o'clock Stover, holding his shoes in his hand, went down the
stairs to meet Slops in Fatty Harris' room and thence into the
outlawed night. They stole over the crinkling snow, burying their
noses in their sweaters, until, having climbed several fences, they
arrived behind a shed of particularly cavernous appearance.
"Make the signal," said Slops, sheltering himself behind Stover.
Blinky appeared like a monster of the night.
"Hist, Blinky, O. K.?" said Slops, who, having his shoulder to Dink's
recovered his sporting manner. "Got the booze?"
"I got it," said Blinky in husky accents, with his hand behind his
back. "What's youse got?"
"The cash is here all right. How many bots did you bring?"
Blinky slowly brought forward one bottle.
"What, only one?" said Slops the bacchanalian, in dismay.
"All's left," said Blinky, with a double meaning.
"How much?"
"One dollar."
"What! You robber!"
"Take it or leave it--don't care," said Blinky, who sat down and
hugged the bottle to him like a baby.
They paid the extortion and slunk back.
"We'll have to cook up a story," said Dink.
"Sure!"
"Still, it's beer."
"It certainly is!"
"It's expulsion if we're caught."
"And a penal offense, don't forget that!"
Somewhat consoled by this delightful thought they cautiously tapped on
Fatty Harris' window and, removing their boots, tiptoed upstairs like
anarchists with a price on their heads.
In Stover's room three more desperate characters were waiting about
the chafing dish, Fatty Harris, Slush Randolph and Pee-wee Norris, all
determined on a life of crime--but all slightly nervous.
The Tennessee Shad, rolled into a ball on his bed, was venting his
scorn with an occasional snore.
Stover held up the lonely bottle.
"Is that all?" exclaimed the three in indignant whispers.
"All, and mighty lucky to get that," said Dink valiantly. "We were
chased by the constable, terrific time, pounced on us, desperate
struggle, just got away with our skins."
At this a distinct snort was heard from the direction of the Tennessee
Shad's bed.
"I say, isn't it rather--rather dangerous?" said Pee-wee Norris, with
his ears horribly strained.
"What of it?"
"Suppose he goes to the Doctor?"
"We'll have to take the risk."
"I say, though, let's be quick about it."
An uncongenial chill began to pervade the room. Fatty Harris, as
master cook, visibly hastened the operations.
The Tennessee Shad was now heard to say in a mumbled jumble:
"Hurrah for crime! Never say die, boys--dead game sports--give us a
drink, bartender!"
The revelers stood at the bed looking wrathfully down at the cynic,
who snored heavily and said drowsily:
"Talks in his sleep, he talks in his sleep, poor old Pol!"
"Don't pay any attention to him," said Stover angrily. "He's a cheap
wit. What are you doing at the door, Pee-wee?"
"I'm listening," said Norris, turning guiltily.
"You're afraid!"
"I'm not; only let's hurry it up."
Fatty Harris, watching the swirling yellow depths of the rabbit with
evident anxiety, emptied a third of the beer into it and held out the
bottle, saying:
"Here, sports, fill up the glasses with the good old liquor."
When the three glasses and two toothmugs had received their exact
portion of the bitter stuff, which had been allowed to foam copiously
in order to eke out, the five desperadoes solemnly touched glasses and
Slops Barnett, who had visited in Princeton, led them in that
whispered toast that is the acme of devilment:
"_Then stand by your glasses steady,_
_This world is a world full of lies._
_Then here's to the dead already dead,_
_And here's to the next man who dies!"_
It was terrific. Stover, quite moved, looked about the circle, thought
that Pee-wee looked the nearest to the earthworm and repeated
solemnly:
"To the next man who dies."
At this moment the Tennessee Shad was heard derisively intoning:
"_Ring around a rosie,
Pocket full of posie.
Oats, peas, beans and barley grows.
Open the ring and take her in
And kiss her when you get her in!_"
They paid no heed. They felt too acutely the solemnity of life and the
fleeting hour of pleasure to be deterred by even the lathery aspect of
their own faces, which emerged from the suds of the beer ready for the
barber.
"Dish out the bunny," said Slops, putting down his mug with a reckless
look.
Suddenly there came an impressive knock and the voice of Mr. Bundy
saying:
"Open the door, Stover!"
In a thrice the revelry broke up, the telltale bottle and glasses were
stowed under the window-seat, the visiting sporting gentlemen
precipitately groveled to places of concealment, while Stover
extinguished the lights and softly stole into bed.
"Open the door at once!"
"Who's there?" said Dink with a start.
"Open the door!"
All sleepy innocence Dink opened the door, rubbing his eyes at the
sudden glow.
"Up after lights?" said Mr. Bundy, marching in.
"I, sir?" said Dink, astounded.
All at once Mr. Bundy perceived the chafing-dish and descended upon
it. Stover's heart sank--if he tasted it they were lost; no power
could save them. Mr. Bundy turned and surveyed the room; one by one
the terrified roues were dragged forth and recognized, while the
Tennessee Shad sat on the edge of his bed, reflectively sharpening his
fingers on the pointed knee-caps.
Then, to the horror of all, Mr. Bundy, sniffing the chafing-dish,
inserted a spoon and tasted it. Immediately he set the spoon down with
a crash, gave a furious glance at Stover and departed, after ordering
them to their rooms.
The dead game sports, white and shaky, went without stopping.
"They're a fine sample of vicious bounders, they are!" said the
Tennessee Shad. "Bet that Slops Barnett is weeping to his pillow now!"
"I'm sorry I got you into this," said Stover gloomily.
"You've brought my gray hairs in sorrow to the grave!" said the
Tennessee Shad solemnly.
"Don't jest," said Dink in a still voice. "It's all up with me, but
I'll square you."
"Don't worry," said the Tennessee Shad, smiling. "I may not be a tin
sport, but I keep my thinker going all the time."
"Why, what do you mean?"
"I mean you'll get twigged for a midnight spread, that's all."
"But the beer. Bundy tasted the beer."
"Taste it yourself," said the Tennessee Shad, with a wave of his hand.
Stover hurriedly dipped in a spoon, tasted it and uttered an
execration.
"Murder, what did you put in it?"
"About half a bottle of horse liniment," said the Tennessee Shad,
crawling back into bed. "Only, don't tell the others if you want to
see how much dead game sportiness there is in them by to-morrow
morning."
The affair made a great noise and, as Stover suppressed the
transformation worked by the Tennessee Shad, Slops Barnett and his
companions did not exactly show those qualities of Stoic resignation
which might be expected from brazen characters with their view of
life.
Meanwhile, the skies cleared and the earth hardened, and the air
resounded with the cries of baseball candidates.
Much to his surprise, Dink found at the end of the strenuous day no
impelling desire to plunge into fast life. Still the conviction
remained for a long time that his soul had been surrendered, that not
only was he destined for the gallows in this world, but that only the
prayers of his mother might save him from being irrevocably damned in
the next. It was a terrific thought, and yet it brought a certain
pleasure. He was different from the rest. He was a man of the world.
He had known--LIFE!
The episode ended as episodes in the young days end--in a laugh.
"I say, Dink," said the Tennessee Shad one afternoon in April, as,
gloriously reveling on the warm turf, they watched the 'Varsity nine.
"Say it."
"In your dead-game sporting days did you ever, by chance, paint your
nicotine fingers with iodine?"
"How in blazes did you know?"
"Used to do it myself," said the Shad reminiscently. Then he added:
"Thought yourself a lost soul?"
Stover began to laugh.
"All alone in a cold, cold world--wicked, very wicked?"
"Perhaps."
"And it was rather a nice feeling, too, wasn't it?"
"I didn't know, you----" said Dink, blushing to find himself back in
the common herd.
"Me, too," said the Tennessee Shad, sucking a straw. "Good old
sporting days!" Presently he began mischievously:
"_Then stand by your glasses steady,
This world is a----_"
But here Dink, rising up, tumbled him over.