Until he reached the age of twelve, Georgie’s education was a domestic
process; tutors came to the house; and those citizens who yearned
for his taking down often said: “Just wait till he has to go to
public school; _then_ he’ll get it!” But at twelve Georgie was sent
to a private school in the town, and there came from this small and
dependent institution no report, or even rumour, of Georgie’s getting
anything that he was thought to deserve; therefore the yearning still
persisted, though growing gaunt with feeding upon itself. For, although
Georgie’s pomposities and impudence in the little school were often
almost unbearable, the teachers were fascinated by him. They did
not like him—he was too arrogant for that—but he kept them in such
a state of emotion that they thought more about him than they did
about all of the other ten pupils. The emotion he kept them in was
usually one resulting from injured self-respect, but sometimes it was
dazzled admiration. So far as their conscientious observation went, he
“studied” his lessons sparingly; but sometimes, in class, he flashed an
admirable answer, with a comprehension not often shown by the pupils
they taught; and he passed his examinations easily. In all, without
discernible effort, he acquired at this school some rudiments of a
liberal education and learned nothing whatever about himself.
The yearners were still yearning when Georgie, at sixteen, was sent
away to a great “Prep School.” “Now,” they said brightly, “he’ll get
it! He’ll find himself among boys just as important in their home towns
as he is, and they’ll knock the stuffing out of him when he puts on
his airs with them! Oh, but that _would_ be worth something to see!”
They were mistaken, it appeared, for when Georgie returned, a few
months later, he still seemed to have the same stuffing. He had been
deported by the authorities, the offense being stated as “insolence
and profanity”; in fact, he had given the principal of the school
instructions almost identical with those formerly objected to by the
Reverend Malloch Smith.
But he had not got his come-upance, and those who counted upon it
were embittered by his appearance upon the down-town streets driving
a dog-cart at criminal speed, making pedestrians retreat from the
crossings, and behaving generally as if he “owned the earth.” A
disgusted hardware dealer of middle age, one of those who hungered for
Georgie’s downfall, was thus driven back upon the sidewalk to avoid
being run over, and so far forgot himself as to make use of the pet
street insult of the year: “Got ’ny _sense!_ See here, bub, does your
mother know you’re out?”
Georgie, without even seeming to look at him, flicked the long lash of
his whip dexterously, and a little spurt of dust came from the hardware
man’s trousers, not far below the waist. He was not made of hardware:
he raved, looking for a missile; then, finding none, commanded himself
sufficiently to shout after the rapid dog-cart: “Turn down your pants,
you would-be dude! Raining in dear ole Lunnon! Git off the earth!”
Georgie gave him no encouragement to think that he was heard. The
dog-cart turned the next corner, causing indignation there, likewise,
and, having proceeded some distance farther, halted in front of the
“Amberson Block”—an old-fashioned four-story brick warren of lawyers’
offices, insurance and realestate offices, with a “drygoods store”
occupying the ground floor. Georgie tied his lathered trotter to
a telegraph pole, and stood for a moment looking at the building
critically: it seemed shabby, and he thought his grandfather ought to
replace it with a fourteen-story skyscraper, or even a higher one,
such as he had lately seen in New York—when he stopped there for a few
days of recreation and rest on his way home from the bereaved school.
About the entryway to the stairs were various tin signs, announcing the
occupation and location of upper-floor tenants, and Georgie decided to
take some of these with him if he should ever go to college. However,
he did not stop to collect them at this time, but climbed the worn
stairs—there was no elevator—to the fourth floor, went down a dark
corridor, and rapped three times upon a door. It was a mysterious door,
its upper half, of opaque glass, bearing no sign to state the business
or profession of the occupants within; but overhead, upon the lintel,
four letters had been smearingly inscribed, partly with purple ink and
partly with a soft lead pencil, “F. O. T. A.” and upon the plaster
wall, above the lintel, there was a drawing dear to male adolescence: a
skull and crossbones.
Three raps, similar to Georgie’s, sounded from within the room. Georgie
then rapped four times the rapper within the room rapped twice, and
Georgie rapped seven times. This ended precautionary measures; and
a well-dressed boy of sixteen opened the door; whereupon Georgie
entered quickly, and the door was closed behind him. Seven boys of
congenial age were seated in a semicircular row of damaged office
chairs, facing a platform whereon stood a solemn, red-haired young
personage with a table before him. At one end of the room there was
a battered sideboard, and upon it were some empty beer bottles, a
tobacco can about two-thirds full, with a web of mold over the surface
of the tobacco, a dusty cabinet photograph (not inscribed) of Miss
Lillian Russell, several withered old pickles, a caseknife, and a
half-petrified section of icing-cake on a sooty plate. At the other end
of the room were two rickety card-tables and a stand of bookshelves
where were displayed under dust four or five small volumes of M. Guy
de Maupassant’s stories, “Robinson Crusoe,” “Sappho,” “Mr. Barnes
of New York,” a work by Giovanni Boccaccio, a Bible, “The Arabian
Nights’ Entertainment,” “Studies of the Human Form Divine,” “The Little
Minister,” and a clutter of monthly magazines and illustrated weeklies
of about that crispness one finds in such articles upon a doctor’s
ante-room table. Upon the wall, above the sideboard, was an old framed
lithograph of Miss Della Fox in “Wang”; over the bookshelves there was
another lithograph purporting to represent Mr. John L. Sullivan in a
boxing costume, and beside it a halftone reproduction of “A Reading
From Horner.” The final decoration consisted of damaged papiermache—a
round shield with two battle-axes and two cross-hilted swords, upon
the wall over the little platform where stood the red-haired presiding
officer. He addressed Georgie in a serious voice:
“Welcome, Friend of the Ace.”
“Welcome, Friend of the Ace,” Georgie responded, and all of the other
boys repeated the words, “Welcome, Friend of the Ace.”
“Take your seat in the secret semicircle,” said the presiding officer.
“We will now proceed to—”
But Georgie was disposed to be informal. He interrupted, turning to
the boy who had admitted him: “Look here, Charlie Johnson, what’s Fred
Kinney doing in the president’s chair? That’s my place, isn’t it? What
you men been up to here, anyhow? Didn’t you all agree I was to be
president just the same, even if I was away at school?”
“Well—” said Charlie Johnson uneasily. “Listen! I didn’t have much to
do with it. Some of the other members thought that long as you weren’t
in town or anything, and Fred gave the sideboard, why—”
Mr. Kinney, presiding, held in his hand, in lieu of a gavel, and
considered much more impressive, a Civil War relic known as a
“horse-pistol.” He rapped loudly for order. “All Friends of the Ace
will take their seats!” he said sharply. “I’m president of the F. O.
T. A. now, George Minafer, and don’t you forget it! You and Charlie
Johnson sit down, because I was elected perfectly fair, and we’re goin’
to hold a meeting here.”
“Oh, you are, are you?” said George skeptically.
Charlie Johnson thought to mollify him. “Well, didn’t we call this
meeting just especially because you told us to? You said yourself we
ought to have a kind of celebration because you’ve got back to town,
George, and that’s what we’re here for now, and everything. What do you
care about being president? All it amounts to is just calling the roll
and—”
The president _de facto_ hammered the table. “This meeting will now
proceed to—”
“No, it won’t,” said George, and he advanced to the desk, laughing
contemptuously. “Get off that platform.”
“This meeting will come to order!” Mr. Kinney commanded fiercely.
“You put down that gavel,” said George. “Whose is it, I’d like to know?
It belongs to my grandfather, and you quit hammering it that way or
you’ll break it, and I’ll have to knock your head off.”
“This meeting will come to order! I was legally elected here, and I’m
not going to be bulldozed!”
“All right,” said Georgie. “You’re president. Now we’ll hold another
election.”
“We will not!” Fred Kinney shouted. “We’ll have our reg’lar meeting,
and then we’ll play euchre & nickel a corner, what we’re here for. This
meeting will now come to ord—”
Georgie addressed the members. “I’d like to know who got up this thing
in the first place,” he said. “Who’s the founder of the F.O.T.A., if
you please? Who got this room rent free? Who got the janitor to let us
have most of this furniture? You suppose you could keep this clubroom
a minute if I told my grandfather I didn’t want it for a literary club
any more? I’d like to say a word on how you members been acting, too!
When I went away I said I didn’t care if you had a _vice_-president or
something while I was gone, but here I hardly turned my back and you
had to go and elect Fred Kinney president! Well, if that’s what you
want, you can have it. I was going to have a little celebration down
here some night pretty soon, and bring some port wine, like we drink
at school in our crowd there, and I was going to get my grandfather to
give the club an extra room across the hall, and prob’ly I could get my
Uncle George to give us his old billiard table, because he’s got a new
one, and the club could put it in the other room. Well, you got a new
president now!” Here Georgie moved toward the door and his tone became
plaintive, though undeniably there was disdain beneath his sorrow. “I
guess all I better do is—resign!”
And he opened the door, apparently intending to withdraw.
“All in favour of having a new election,” Charlie Johnson shouted
hastily, “say, ‘Aye’!”
“Aye” was said by everyone present except Mr. Kinney, who began a hot
protest, but it was immediately smothered.
“All in favour of me being president instead of Fred Kinney,” shouted
Georgie, “say ‘Aye.’ The ‘Ayes’ have it!” “I resign,” said the
red-headed boy, gulping as he descended from the platform. “I resign
from the club!”
Hot-eyed, he found his hat and departed, jeers echoing after him as he
plunged down the corridor. Georgie stepped upon the platform, and took
up the emblem of office.
“Ole red-head Fred’ll be around next week,” said the new chairman.
“He’ll be around boot-lickin’ to get us to take him back in again, but
I guess we don’t want him: that fellow always was a trouble-maker. We
will now proceed with our meeting. Well, fellows, I suppose you want
to hear from your president. I don’t know that I have much to say, as
I have already seen most of you a few times since I got back. I had a
good time at the old school, back East, but had a little trouble with
the faculty and came on home. My family stood by me as well as I could
ask, and I expect to stay right here in the old town until whenever I
decide to enter college. Now, I don’t suppose there’s any more business
before the meeting. I guess we might as well play cards. Anybody that’s
game for a little quarter-limit poker or any limit they say, why I’d
like to have ’em sit at the president’s card-table.”
When the diversions of the Friends of the Ace were concluded for that
afternoon, Georgie invited his chief supporter, Mr. Charlie Johnson, to
drive home with him to dinner, and as they jingled up National Avenue
in the dog-cart, Charlie asked:
“What sort of men did you run up against at that school, George?”
“Best crowd there: finest set of men I ever met.”
“How’d you get in with ’em?”
Georgie laughed. “I let them get in with me, Charlie,” he said in a
tone of gentle explanation. “It’s vulgar to do any other way. Did I
tell you the nickname they gave me—‘King’? That was what they called me
at that school, ‘King Minafer.”
“How’d they happen to do that?” his friend asked innocently.
“Oh, different things,” George answered lightly. “Of course, any of ’em
that came from anywhere out in this part the country knew about the
family and all that, and so I suppose it was a good deal on account
of—oh, on account of the family and the way I do things, most likely.”