THE PHILOSOPHICAL ATTITUDE
IT happened on the day before school opened; at that moment when Skippy
returning from his first sentimental summer had no other thought than to
rest up from the fatigue of the vacation and devote his activities to
the serious business of life. There were the freshman (a discouraging
lot) to be properly educated, taught to punctuate their sentences with a
humble "sir," "if you please" and "thank you;" there was a certain score
to be settled with Al at the Jigger Shop and the basis of a new credit
to be argued, there was the prize room on the third floor overlooking
the campus to be re-decorated with the loot of the summer, and one
crucial question to be decided forthwith:
"Shall we start training now or gorge ourselves for just one more day?"
"The Jiggers are peach, soft and creamy," said Snorky with a pensive
look. "But we should set an example you know, old top, and all that sort
of thing."
"Keerect, we must."
"I can see the crowd up at Conover's putting away the pancakes," said
Snorky insidiously.
"Be firm," said Skippy, returning to his trunk.
"It isn't only the Jiggers," said Snorky, who sometimes practised virtue
but without the slightest enthusiasm, "it's--it's those eclairs--never
tasted anything like them, big, fat, luscious, oozing with cream--"
"Shut up," said Skippy indignantly. "Where's your house spirit?"
"Can't a fellow be human?" said Snorky in an aggrieved tone.
"All right, all right--but put your mind on other things," said Skippy
nervously.
He disengaged an armful from the bottom of his trunk and spreading it on
the window seat, contemplated the touch of many feminine hands with an
expression that was as cynically blase as that of the traditional
predatory bachelor. Whenever Skippy found a mood too elusive to be
expressed in words, his lips instinctively resorted to boyhood's musical
outlet. His eyes traveled appraisingly over sofa cushions, picture
frames, knitted neckties and flags that represent those select
institutions where young ladies are finished off. He began to whistle,
"I don't want to play in your yard,
I don't like you any more . . ."
"My, you're a cold-hearted brute," said Snorky, in whom perhaps the
spirit of envy was strong.
"I am," said Skippy unctuously, "and I am going to be brutier, take a
tip from yours truly, _Moony_."
He disposed of half a dozen cushions, draped two flags and carefully
placed three photographs amid the gallery on his bureau.
"Do you think that's honorable?" said Snorky resentfully.
"Scalps, that's all!" said Skippy with a grandiloquent wave of his hand.
"I get you. Heart whole and fancy free etcetera etceteray?"
"Every time."
"Since when?" said Snorky wickedly.
Skippy allowed this to pass, but having pensively contemplated the
effect produced by the addition of Miss Dolly Travers, Miss Jennie
Tupper and Miss Vivi Balou to the adoring galaxy of the past, he swung a
leg over the table and assuming that newly acquired manner of a man of
the world, which was specially galling to his chum, announced,
"Snorky, old horse, you play it wrong."
"I do, eh?"
"You do. There's nothing in that fussing game. Women, my boy, are our
inferiors."
"Well, it took you some time to find it out."
"Keerect, but now I'm wise. Woman is like a harp in the desert, played
upon by every passing wind."
"Where'd ye read that?"
"If you're going in for that sort of thing get promiscuous. The only
cure for one woman is another."
"You ought to know."
"Are you corresponding with Margarita?" said Skippy suddenly.
"And if I am?"
Skippy shook his head sadly.
"Woman--" he began sententiously and just then fate knocked at the door.
"Come in if you're good-looking," said Snorky, glad of the interruption.
The door opened and discovered a short bulbous freshman, just a whit
embarrassed as freshmen should be in the presence of royalty.
"Oh well, come in any way," said Skippy. "What's your name, freshman!"
"Potterman," said the rotund youngster squeezing in.
"Sir."
"Sir."
"What's the rest of it--the handle, the nickname."
"Are we telling our real names?" said the new arrival, cocking his
derby.
"Green, get out the bamboo cane," said Skippy solemnly.
"Oh well, they call me Hippo--sir," said Potterman hastily.
"Ah yes, Hippo Potterman. Of course. That's good, but we'll try to do
better by you. Where did they find you?"
"Philamedelphia, sir."
"What's that you've got there?" said Snorky just about to fall upon him
bodily.
"Please, sir, it's a letter from Mrs. Bedelle, your aunt."
"Oh, I see," said Skippy with a feeling of disappointment. "You know my
aunt? Well, freshman, you may give it to me. I permit you. Advance.
That's it. Curtsey. A little lower. Better."
DEAR JACK,
My very dear friend Susan Potterman is sending her
son Cornelius--
Skippy frowned and looked up incredulously.
"Is your name really Cornelius?"
Potterman flushed like the rose and said with a gulp:
"Yes, sir, it is."
"Too bad, too bad."
son Cornelius to Lawrenceville. Please do
everything you can to make him at home and see
that he meets the _best_ boys. His mother and
sister will go on with him and I want you
_particularly_ to be _very_ nice to them.
Affectionately,
AUNT CARRIE.
Skippy having read this twice, looked in the envelope to make sure that
a five dollar bill was not enclosed, as all aunts should remember to do,
and transferred his gaze to the fidgeting Hippo.
"H'm, first time at boarding school?"
"Yes, sir."
"Governesses before?"
Hippo, who had been recovering from his first feeling of awe, roared
loudly at this.
Skippy looked indignantly at this breach of etiquette and reached
thoughtfully for a tennis racket.
"Please, sir," said Hippo hastily, "High school."
Skippy considered him thoughtfully and something told him that in the
right-hand lower vest pocket there was undoubtedly a certain amount of
round hard silver bodies and moreover that this condition was not simply
episodic but chronic.
"That coot may be fresh but he is going to do a lot of heavy spending,"
he said to himself with conviction.
How he knew is immaterial. There is an instinct that guides--some have
it, some haven't it. You can't explain it. Doc Macnooder for instance
could diagnose a pocket-book as keenly as a surgeon. It's a gift, that's
all. Skippy possessed this gift.
"Mother just brought you in?"
Hippo acknowledged this with a look of the greatest distress.
"Sister too?"
"Damn it, yes!"
Skippy looked at Snorky and shook his head.
"Don't you know that profanity is a wicked, wicked habit, Hippo?"
Hippo's mouth started to swallow his ears, then returned to rest at
signs of a hostile atmosphere. He swung from foot to foot, looked
sheepish, looked terrified and finally blurted out:
"I beg pardon, sir."
"It is a wicked habit, Hippo, but we are here to help you. It is very
lucky for you that you have come to the right school, where you will
meet boys of fine manly standards. Kneel down, Hippo."
"What, sir?"
"Go over to the bed and kneel down," said Skippy in a voice of great
sadness. "Don't hesitate, Hippo. That's better. Now, Hippo, I want you
to reflect upon what a wicked, wicked thing profanity is and I want you
to ask God to forgive you and help you. Silently, Hippo."
Hippo, who was green and fresh but not at all green and gullible, went
through the prescribed program with the utmost gravity.
"Do you feel better now, Hippo?" said Snorky solemnly.
"Yes, sir, but I'd like a little more time, sir."
"Stand up," said Skippy frowning.
Hippo, unchastened, bounded to his feet and saluted.
"And, Hippo, I'm afraid," said Skippy relentlessly, "that you don't
appreciate what a mother's love means. Think how your mother has watched
over you all these years, think how she has scrubbed behind your ears,
think of the hundreds and hundreds of toothbrushes--"
But at this, as Snorky gulped and barely converted a laugh into a sneeze
with a hurried dive into the closet, Skippy abandoning his pedagogical
air said in a more natural tone:
"Well, Hippo, I shall want to talk with you very seriously on this some
other time. Your manners are shocking and your morals worse, but I am
here. Don't worry. Meanwhile, ahem, you can bring your family in to
tea."
"Thank you, kind sir."
"Hippo, you are fresh."
"But you _are_ kind, aren't you, sir?" said Hippo with assumed
innocence.
"Get your hat and wait downstairs," said Skippy deciding to abandon the
lighter tone.
"Yes, sir."
"Hippo?"
"What, sir?"
"Don't forget."
"What, sir?"
"The curtsey, you know."
* * * * *
A quarter of an hour later Skippy and Snorky with Hippo in tow started
across the campus to show their protege the historic spots, beginning
with Laloo's where the merry hot dogs whistled to one another in
steaming cans, by way of Bill Appleby's where ginger-pop and root-beer
waited, to the Jigger Shop where the Jigger cooled and Conover's where
the pancake sizzled.
Opposite the Jigger Shop the celebrated Doc Macnooder, resplendent in a
varsity sweater, was surveying the hungry Jigger-fed crowd and debating
whether to go right up and pay for his sustenance or wait a little
longer and see what might turn up.
"Well, Skippy, been inventing anything new?" said Macnooder pleasantly
after the introductions.
"I say, Doc, I want to put it up to you," said Skippy hastily, for he
feared any reference to bathtubs or mosquitoes might detract from the
respect which was essential in Hippo. "I'm out for the scrub, you know,
and what I wanted to ask you was do you think training ought to start
now or wait until school opens."
Macnooder's mind scorned subtleties. It moved by the shortest cuts to
the practical issue.
"Has he got the price?" he said looking at Hippo.
"He has."
"Let's eat."
Macnooder looked appraisingly at Hippo, whom Nature had destined to play
at center rush, to be mauled and cuffed and suffocated under scores of
scuffing, struggling bodies. A flicker of sympathy should have stirred,
but it didn't.
"You'll need quite a lot of stuff," he said pensively.
"Nothing doing, Doc," said Skippy, winking hard at his protege. "Hippo's
fitted out."
"How about fountain-pens or crockery sets, or patent nail clippers?"
"I dote on fountain-pens," began Hippo.
"Hippo's under my protection," said Skippy militantly. "We're sort of
related."
"Oh well, let's eat then," said Macnooder with a reluctant look.
"Don't take anything from that fellow even if he gives it to you," said
Skippy in a whisper to Hippo. "Elucidations later."
Al had two attitudes of welcome, according to the record of the books,
one in which the hand advanced impulsively and a smile broke from under
the shaggy yellow bang and another where the hand remained in a
stationary receptive cup, or sometimes caressed the limp ends of the
mustache in a way most discouraging and disheartening to the delinquent
debtor. When Doc Macnooder arrived, however, he paid him the further
honor to carefully close the glass cases where eclair and fruit cake
were waiting the call to service, and braced himself against the
counter.
"Hello, Al," said Skippy affably, "here we are again. Set 'em up four
times."
"I see you and I see that there Doc Macnooder," said Al in an
unconvinced sort of way.
"Set 'em up," said Macnooder in an encouraging tone.
"_Who's_ settin' 'em up?" said Al, resorting to his toothpick.
Macnooder looked at Skippy, Skippy looked at Snorky, then all three
looked at Hippo.
"The pleasure is mine," said Hippo and with a purse-proud gesture he
flicked on the counter a twenty dollar bill.
Al was not easily shocked but for once his perfect manner left him. He
glanced at Hippo and then enviously at Macnooder.
"I didn't know they picked them as early as that," he said
enigmatically. "Doc, you'll be buying this place in a week."
"I could buy it now," said Macnooder frowning, "and Al, step to the back
and have a little business talk with me."
Al, having received payment and displayed the Jiggers, left for the back
of the store to that secluded nook which had heard a hundred
explanations and supplications from the improvident and hungry. Skippy,
who despite the new assurance of his public manner, was willing to learn
at the feet of a master, Jigger in hand, moved into a position of
eavesdropping.
"Nineteen dollars and seventy-two cents," said Al, coming to the point.
"Exactly what my little proposition comes to," said Macnooder affably.
"Tear it up, Al, you'll do it sooner or later so why not now?"
"What's the flim-flam?" said Al, who recognized in Macnooder qualities
of a superior intelligence.
"I don't like the word," said Macnooder in a pained tone. "I've got an
idea and you're going to buy it. Al, the Jigger Shop has had a cinch, a
monopoly, a trust. You fixed prices and you've controlled the output.
Now answer me, yes or no. Have you ever paid out one cent in
commissions?"
"Get to the point."
"I will. I have an idea, I might say a brilliant idea and when I say I
like the idea better than any idea I can remember--you know me--I'm
modest, but Al, it's a wonder. You'll like it. No, change that line, you
may not like it but you'll respect it. Al, I'm going to let you in, give
you the first chance. Conover would double the commission. Appleby would
go wild over it. But, Al, I'm giving _you_ the first chance."
"Nineteen dollars and seventy-two cents," said Al, making a motion to
close his ears.
"Not a cent less," said Macnooder firmly, who according to his manner,
having produced the proper hypnotic effect, now came to the point. "Sit
down, Al, if you won't sit down--brace yourself. The idea's coming now
and the idea's loaded with dynamite. Suppose, I say suppose, it was in
my power to boycott you."
"God Almighty couldn't do that," said Al.
"Not as you see it--you're right there, Al, shrewd and clever! Al, there
are ten freshmen in the Dickinson. Think hard now, the idea's growing.
Ten freshmen. Suppose,--I only say suppose now that as a disciplinary
measure we should decide that no freshman could enter the Jigger Shop
say--well let's be moderate--for the space of three months. We might let
them go to Conover's or Laloo's and then again--"
"Macnooder," said Al explosively, "when they lead you to the gallows
I'll be sitting right up front if it cost every cent I have."
"Al, you grieve me."
"It's blackmail! It's extortion and blame it I believe you'd do it."
"No, Al, it's not blackmail, it's not extortion. If I came to you and
said out and out, flat, tear up that account of mine or I'll boycott
you--_that_, Al, that would be all you say."
"My Gawd, Doc, why do you waste your time in this little place anyhow?"
"You see, Al, it's this way," said Macnooder, smiling at the compliment,
"I'm coming to you as Macnooder your attorney, that's one person, to use
his influence with Macnooder the financier, that's another person--I'm a
lobbyist, a paid lobbyist."
"Nineteen dollars and seventy-two cents," said Al in a fainter voice.
"Al, I'm surprised and shocked. I thought your mind leaped at things.
You don't see it yet. You're thinking in terms of ten freshmen--"
"Nineteen doll . . ."
"But suppose the Dickinson lays down the law, suppose the Kennedy
follows suit. You saw what that fellow flashed, a twenty dollar
yellowback, a word to Skippy and the Kennedy would follow. Skippy, you
understand, would have to be _protected_, you get that. Well, what would
happen? Every house in the school would follow suit. What does that
mean? Figure it out. It means one hundred freshmen multiplied by ninety
days multiplied by at least two Jiggers a fresh--per day--you know how
freshmen eat--"
But here, Skippy, terrified, tiptoed away. Macnooder aroused in him the
lust for gold and he wished to retain a few simple ideals. He signaled
Snorky and Hippo and escaped up the road to the home of the pancake.
"Doc Macnooder is a wonder but he's not, well he's not quite the sort of
chap you want to associate with, Hippo. Understand?"
"I'm young but I'm not so green as all that," said Hippo winking wisely.
"In fact, Doc's a sponge and you made an awful break."
"I did, what's that, sir?"
"You shouldn't have shown him that twenty dollar bill. He'll never let
up so long as he remembers that."
"Skippy's right, Hippo," said Snorky.
"What'll I do?"
"Leave it to us. We'll think out some way."
After a good deal of thinking, they returned from a heavy performance at
Conover's, laden with a large creamcake, a half dozen eclairs, a box of
Huyler's and two pounds of Turkish paste, after placing an order for
tinned meats, cheese, saltines and root-beer.
"I say, this sort of removes the lurking danger, doesn't it?" said
Hippo, searching in his pocket for the last half-dollar.
"We'll store the grub in our rooms," said Snorky solemnly, "and then
there won't be any danger at all."
"Oh, thank you, kind sir," said the irrepressible Hippo, and only the
soothing presence of the layer cake against his breast kept Snorky from
a mood of wrath.
"If you've got to mother that little squirt," said Snorky wrathfully,
once they had returned to their room, "you'll have your hands full,
that's all I wish to remark. A fresher, nervier little nuisance--"
"Nuisance is going to get a lot of mothering," said Skippy with a
far-off look in his eyes. "But remember, old dear, that's why we're
here. That's why the faculty invites us to Lawrenceville."
"Well," said Snorky as he stowed away the purchases and arranged the
eclairs on the tea-table, "if we can keep him away from Doc Macnooder,
there's going to be a few compensations."
"Nuisance will neither be affectionate nor familiar by this time
to-morrow," said Skippy grinding his teeth.
"Cheese it! Hide the towels--here they come!"
A knock and then the voice of Hippo in flippant familiarity:
"All right, Skippy, we're good looking. Open up."
Skippy looked at Snorky and swallowed hard while his right arm worked
convulsively.
"Come in," he said with an effort.
The door opened and Miss Potterman triumphantly entered his life. Mrs.
Potterman was there and Hippo with his impertinent smirk but neither
Skippy nor Snorky saw anything else but that wonderful vision. Something
unbelievable had suddenly stepped out of their favorite Gibson picture
and was advancing in a halo. Violets and daffodils began to sprout from
the carpet and birds sang in the window frames. It was instantaneous and
it was terrific.