THE HAZER HAZED.
Accordingly Geoffrey smiled and bowed, remarking, in an off-hand way:
“I fear that my powers as orator will be somewhat disappointing to you,
gentlemen; nevertheless, I will favor you to the extent of my ability.”
Assuming a somewhat exaggerated attitude of dignity, he began reciting
one of Cicero’s orations, rendering it in the original with perfect ease
and fluency, while his audience listened as if spell-bound to the
smoothly rolling sentences.
But this display did not satisfy Mapleson. He insisted that Geoffrey
should give a recitation in a reversed position—the speaker standing on
his head.
This proposal was received with shouts of “Shame!” “No, no!” “You are
going too far, Everet!”
Geoffrey’s eyes glowed with indignation, and a spot of vivid scarlet
settled on each cheek. He saw that the young Southerner intended to
degrade him.
“I think you have made a serious mistake,” said Geoffrey, boldly
approaching Everet Mapleson, “if you expect to humiliate me. If you are
_sure_ that these gentlemen will not be satisfied until they see how I
would look standing in a reversed attitude——”
“Quite sure, and we’ll soon prove it if you don’t get about it,” was the
satirical interruption.
“Then I will give you a text from the ancient Phœdrus, and at the same
time gratify your friends—by proxy.”
Geoffrey made a sudden spring as he uttered those last words, seized the
young Southerner about the waist, whirled him to the floor quick as a
flash, and grasping him by the legs, held him aloft in this reversed
position with a grip of iron, while he repeated, in a voice of thunder,
that Latin maxim:
“_Sæpe intereunt aliis meditantes necem._ Often they who plot the
destruction of others become the victims of their own machinations.”
Then he released his hold upon the young man, politely assisted him to
rise to his feet, and making a profound bow before him, gravely
remarked:
“I think I have satisfied all requirements. I have shown your friends,
if not you, how I should look standing on my head, while I have given
you a quotation which may prove useful to you in the future.”
It had all been done so quickly and so resolutely that there had
scarcely been time for the others to interfere had they been so
disposed; hardly time, even, for Mapleson himself to resist, he had been
so completely taken by surprise, while every one was amazed at the
wonderful strength and dexterity that Geoffrey displayed.
But once more on his feet, Mapleson flew into a white heat of rage.
All his hot Southern blood was up, and he dashed at Geoffrey with
blazing eyes, crimson face, and with fists clenched and uplifted as if
to smite him to the floor.
But Geoffrey caught him by the wrists, with a grip that rendered him
instantly powerless, while he said, with the utmost good nature:
“Mr. Mapleson, you are no match for me; I measured you well before I
touched you; my muscles and sinews are like iron from long gymnastic
training, so I advise you not to waste your strength. I am sorry to have
offended you, but this affair was none of my seeking, and you tried my
patience altogether too far. I have simply acted in self-defense.”
But Mapleson had lost his head entirely, and blustered and swore in the
most passionate manner, while his comrades were so struck with
admiration for Geoffrey and his masterly self-control in the face of
such excessive provocation, that not one of them was disposed to meddle
in the quarrel.
“Let go! you cold-blooded Yankee!” Everet Mapleson cried, hoarsely,
through his tightly locked teeth.
“I will release you, Mapleson, but you must not try the same thing
again,” Geoffrey returned, with quiet firmness, and instantly loosed his
hold upon the young man’s wrists.
With another violent oath, quick as a flash, and before any one
suspected his intention, Mapleson whipped out a pistol from an inner
pocket, cocked and pointed it at Geoffrey.
What might have been the result no one can tell, if a young man named
Abbott had not dashed forward, and thrown up his arm.
The next instant he had wrenched the weapon from his grasp.
“Are you mad, Mapleson?” he cried; “we shall have the whole faculty down
upon us if you trifle with such a plaything, and then there will be a
fine row.”
The other sophomores now gathered around and tried to pacify their
enraged leader, but he only grew the more furious and vowed that he
would yet have the Yankee’s heart’s blood for his insolence in laying
hands upon him.
“No, no, Mape, you drove him to it,” interposed one; “you can’t blame
him, and you would have done the same had you been in his place.”
“Who ever heard of a ‘fresh’ getting the upper hand of a half-dozen
‘sophs’ before?” he retorted, angrily. “You’re a set of cowards, every
one of you.”
Two of the students seized Mapleson by the arms, and he was forced from
the room, muttering threats of vengeance as he passed out.
When Geoffrey was at length left alone, he closed and locked his door,
and then sat down and fell into troubled thought.
He was sure that he had made a bitter and lasting enemy of the young
man, and he regretted it, for Geoffrey Huntress was one who loved to be
at peace with all mankind; but he could only wait patiently to see how
the matter would end, and having reached this conclusion, he resumed his
interrupted studies. But he could not put his mind upon them, for all at
once the remarkable resemblance between himself and the young Southerner
began to haunt him.
Could it be possible that any of the same blood flowed in their veins?
If so, how?
Why was Everet Mapleson the favored son of a proud and wealthy father,
while he had been a poor, demented outcast, abandoned in the streets of
a large city and left to his fate.