“Said Plato unto Aristotle,
‘Thank you, I prefer the bottle.’”
“In here, are you?” said their beaming host at the door. “Now, I think
you’d find my department of the premises cosier, so to speak.” He
nudged Bertie. “Do you boys guess it’s too early in the season for a
silver-fizz?”
We must not wholly forget Oscar in Cambridge. During the afternoon he
had not failed in his punctuality; two more neat witnesses to this lay
on the door-mat beneath the letter-slit of Billy’s room, And at the
appointed hour after dinner a third joined them, making five. John found
these cards when he came home to go to bed, and picked them up and stuck
them ornamentally in Billy’s looking-glass, as a greeting when Billy
should return, The eight o’clock visit was the last that Oscar paid
to the locked door, He remained through the evening in his own room,
studious, contented, unventilated, indulging in his thick notes, and
also in the thought of Billy’s and Bertie’s eleventh-hour scholarship,
“Even with another day,” he told himself, “those young men could not
have got fifty per cent,” In those times this was the passing mark.
To-day I believe you get an A, or a B, or some other letter denoting
your rank. In due time Oscar turned out his gas and got into his bed;
and the clocks of Massachusetts struck midnight.
Mrs. Diggs of the Bird-in-Hand had retired at eleven, furious with rage,
but firm in dignity in spite of a sudden misadventure. Her hair, being
the subject of a sporting event, had remained steadily fixed in Billy’s
mind,--steadily fixed throughout an entertainment which began at an
early hour to assume the features of a celebration. One silver-fizz
before dinner is nothing; but dinner did not come at once, and the
boys were thirsty. The hair of Mrs. Diggs had caught Billy’s eye again
immediately upon her entrance to inform them that the meal was ready;
and whenever she reentered with a new course from the kitchen, Billy’s
eye wandered back to it, although Mr. Diggs had become full of anecdotes
about the Civil War. It was partly Grecian: a knot stood out behind to
a considerable distance. But this was not the whole plan. From front to
back ran a parting, clear and severe, and curls fell from this to the
temples in a manner called, I believe, by the enlightened, a l’Anne
d’Autriche. The color was gray, to be sure; but this propriety did not
save the structure from Billy’s increasing observation. As bottles
came to stand on the table in greater numbers, the closer and the more
solemnly did Billy continue to follow the movements of Mrs. Diggs. They
would without doubt have noticed him and his foreboding gravity but for
Mr. Diggs’s experiences in the Civil War.
The repast was finished--so far as eating went. Mrs. Diggs with
changeless dudgeon was removing and washing the dishes. At the
revellers’ elbows stood the 1820 port in its fine, fat, old, dingy
bottle, going pretty fast. Mr. Diggs was nearing the end of Antietam.
“That morning of the 18th, while McClellan was holdin’ us squattin’ and
cussin’,” he was saying to Bertie, when some sort of shuffling sound in
the corner caught their attention. We can never know how it happened.
Billy ought to know, but does not, and Mrs. Diggs allowed no subsequent
reference to the casualty. But there she stood with her entire hair at
right angles. The Grecian knot extended above her left ear, and her nose
stuck through one set of Anne d’Autriche. Beside her Billy stood, solemn
as a stone, yet with a sort of relief glazed upon his face.
Mr. Diggs sat straight up at the vision of his spouse. “Flouncing
Florence!” was his exclamation. “Gee-whittaker, Mary, if you ain’t the
most unmitigated sight!” And wind then left him.
Mary’s reply arrived in tones like a hornet stinging slowly and often.
“Mr. Diggs, I have put up with many things, and am expecting to put
up with many more. But you’d behave better if you consorted with
gentlemen.”
The door slammed and she was gone. Not a word to either of the boys, not
even any notice of them. It was thorough, and silence consequently held
them for a moment.
“He didn’t mean anything,” said Bertie, growing partially responsible.
“Didn’t mean anything,” repeated Billy, like a lesson.
“I’ll take him and he’ll apologize,” Bertie pursued, walking over to
Billy.
“He’ll apologize,” went Billy, like a cheerful piece of mechanism.
Responsibility was still quite distant from him.
Mr. Diggs got his wind back. “Better not,” he advised in something near
a whisper. “Better not go after her. Her father was a fightin’ preacher,
and she’s--well, begosh! she’s a chip of the old pulpit.” And he rolled
his eye towards the door. Another door slammed somewhere above, and they
gazed at each other, did Bertie and Mr. Diggs. Then Mr. Diggs, still
gazing at Bertie, beckoned to him with a speaking eye and a crooked
finger; and as he beckoned, Bertie approached like a conspirator and sat
down close to him. “Begosh!” whispered Mr. Diggs. “Unmitigated.” And at
this he and Bertie laid their heads down on the table and rolled about
in spasms.
Billy from his corner seemed to become aware of them. With his eye fixed
upon them like a statue, he came across the room, and, sitting down near
them with formal politeness, observed, “Was you ever to the battle of
Antietam?” This sent them beyond the limit; and they rocked their heads
on the table and wept as if they would expire.
Thus the three remained, during what space of time is not known: the
two upon the table, convalescent with relapses, and Billy like a seated
idol, unrelaxed at his vigil. The party was seen through the windows by
Silas, coming from the stable to inquire if the gelding should not be
harnessed. Silas leaned his face to the pane, and envy spoke plainly in
it. “O my! O my!” he mentioned aloud to himself. So we have the whole
household: Mrs. Diggs reposing scornfully in an upper chamber; all parts
of the tavern darkened, save the one lighted room; the three inside that
among their bottles, with the one outside looking covetously in at them;
and the gelding stamping in the stable.
But Silas, since he could not share, was presently of opinion that this
was enough for one sitting, and he tramped heavily upon the porch. This
brought Bertie back to the world of reality, and word was given to fetch
the gelding. The host was in no mood to part with them, and spoke of
comfortable beds and breakfast as early as they liked; but Bertie had
become entirely responsible. Billy was helped in, Silas was liberally
thanked, and they drove away beneath the stars, leaving behind them
golden opinions, and a host who decided not to disturb his helpmate by
retiring to rest in their conjugal bed.
Bertie had forgotten, but the playful gelding had not. When they came
abreast of that gate where Diggs of the Bird-in-Hand had met them at
sunset, Bertie was only aware that a number of things had happened at
once, and that he had stopped the horse after about twenty yards of
battle. Pride filled him, but emptied away in the same instant, for a
voice on the road behind him spoke inquiringly through the darkness.
“Did any one fall out?” said the voice. “Who fell out?”
“Billy!” shrieked Bertie, cold all over. “Billy, are you hurt?”
“Did Billy fall out?” said the voice, with plaintive cadence. “Poor
Billy!”
“He can’t be,” muttered Bertie. “Are you?” he loudly repeated.
There was no answer: but steps came along the road as Bertie checked and
pacified the gelding. Then Billy appeared by the wheel. “Poor Billy fell
out,” he said mildly. He held something up, which Bertie took. It
had been Billy’s straw hat, now a brimless fabric of ruin. Except for
smirches and one inexpressible rent which dawn revealed to Bertie a
little later, there were no further injuries, and Billy got in and took
his seat quite competently.
Bertie drove the gelding with a firm hand after this. They passed
through the cool of the unseen meadow swamps, and heard the sound of the
hollow bridges as they crossed them, and now and then the gulp of some
pouring brook. They went by the few lights of Mattapan, seeing from some
points on their way the beacons of the harbor, and again the curving
line of lamps that drew the outline of some village built upon a hill.
Dawn showed them Jamaica Pond, smooth and breezeless, and encircled with
green skeins of foliage, delicate and new. Here multitudinous birds were
chirping their tiny, overwhelming chorus. When at length, across the
flat suburban spaces, they again sighted Memorial tower, small in the
distance, the sun was lighting it.
Confronted by this, thoughts of hitherto banished care, and of the
morrow that was now to-day, and of Philosophy 4 coming in a very
few hours, might naturally have arisen and darkened the end of their
pleasant excursion. Not so, however. Memorial tower suggested another
line of argument. It was Billy who spoke, as his eyes first rested upon
that eminent pinnacle of Academe.
“Well, John owes me five dollars.”
“Ten, you mean.”
“Ten? How?”
“Why, her hair. And it was easily worth twenty.”
Billy turned his head and looked suspiciously at Bertie. “What did I
do?” he asked.
“Do! Don’t you know?”
Billy in all truth did not.
“Phew!” went Bertie. “Well, I don’t, either. Didn’t see it. Saw the
consequences, though. Don’t you remember being ready to apologize? What
do you remember, anyhow?”
Billy consulted his recollections with care: they seemed to break off
at the champagne. That was early. Bertie was astonished. Did not Billy
remember singing “Brace up and dress the Countess,” and “A noble lord
the Earl of Leicester”? He had sung them quite in his usual manner,
conversing freely between whiles. In fact, to see and hear him, no one
would have suspected--“It must have been that extra silver-fizz you took
before dinner,” said Bertie. “Yes,” said Billy; “that’s what it must
have been.” Bertie supplied the gap in his memory,--a matter of several
hours, it seemed. During most of this time Billy had met the demands of
each moment quite like his usual agreeable self--a sleep-walking state.
It was only when the hair incident was reached that his conduct had
noticeably crossed the line. He listened to all this with interest
intense.
“John does owe me ten, I think,” said he.
“I say so,” declared Bertie. “When do you begin to remember again?”
“After I got in again at the gate. Why did I get out?”
“You fell out, man.”
Billy was incredulous.
“You did. You tore your clothes wide open.”
Billy, looking at his trousers, did not see it.
“Rise, and I’ll show you,” said Bertie.
“Goodness gracious!” said Billy.
Thus discoursing, they reached Harvard Square. Not your Harvard Square,
gentle reader, that place populous with careless youths and careful
maidens and reticent persons with books, but one of sleeping windows
and clear, cool air and few sounds; a Harvard Square of emptiness and
conspicuous sparrows and milk wagons and early street-car conductors in
long coats going to their breakfast; and over all this the sweetness of
the arching elms.
As the gelding turned down toward Pike’s, the thin old church clock
struck. “Always sounds,” said Billy, “like cambric tea.”
“Cambridge tea,” said Bertie.
“Walk close behind me,” said Billy, as they came away from the livery
stable. “Then they won’t see the hole.”
Bertie did so; but the hole was seen by the street-car conductors and
the milkmen, and these sympathetic hearts smiled at the sight of the
marching boys, and loved them without knowing any more of them than
this. They reached their building and separated.
V
One hour later they met. Shaving and a cold bath and summer flannels,
not only clean but beautiful, invested them with the radiant innocence
of flowers. It was still too early for their regular breakfast, and they
sat down to eggs and coffee at the Holly Tree.
“I waked John up,” said Billy. “He is satisfied.”
“Let’s have another order,” said Bertie. “These eggs are delicious.”
Each of them accordingly ate four eggs and drank two cups of coffee.
“Oscar called five times,” said Billy; and he threw down those cards
which Oscar had so neatly written.
“There’s multiplicity of the ego for you!” said Bertie.
Now, inspiration is a strange thing, and less obedient even than love
to the will of man. It will decline to come when you prepare for it with
the loftiest intentions, and, lo! at an accidental word it will suddenly
fill you, as at this moment it filled Billy.
“By gum!” said he, laying his fork down. “Multiplicity of the ego. Look
here. I fall out of a buggy and ask--”
“By gum!” said Bertie, now also visited by inspiration.
“Don’t you see?” said Billy.
“I see a whole lot more,” said Bertie, with excitement. “I had to tell
you about your singing.” And the two burst into a flare of talk. To hear
such words as cognition, attention, retention, entity, and identity,
freely mingled with such other words as silver-fizz and false
hair, brought John, the egg-and-coffee man, as near surprise as his
impregnable nature permitted. Thus they finished their large breakfast,
and hastened to their notes for a last good bout at memorizing
Epicharmos of Kos and his various brethren. The appointed hour found
them crossing the college yard toward a door inside which Philosophy 4
awaited them: three hours of written examination! But they looked more
roseate and healthy than most of the anxious band whose steps were
converging to that same gate of judgment. Oscar, meeting them on the
way, gave them his deferential “Good morning,” and trusted that the
gentlemen felt easy. Quite so, they told him, and bade him feel easy
about his pay, for which they were, of course, responsible. Oscar wished
them good luck and watched them go to their desks with his little eyes,
smiling in his particular manner. Then he dismissed them from his
mind, and sat with a faint remnant of his smile, fluently writing his
perfectly accurate answer to the first question upon the examination
paper.
Here is that paper. You will not be able to answer all the questions,
probably, but you may be glad to know what such things are like.