crowd of others. Everybody knew his friend, Trefethen remarked. There
was a shouted word for him from almost every boat which scurried in
for shelter, and the boy responded with ready friendliness always,
yet also, it seemed to the older man, with an unconscious air of
being somebody. A rowboat with two students came bumping alongside,
and one caught the stern of the canoe and pulled in to it. “Here,
you, Dick—you can’t take all of the roof, if you are a great man,” he
threw at Elliot.
“Lots of room,” said the boy cheerfully. “I want to present you to my
friend, Mr. Lord. Mr. Selden—Mr. Van Arden,” and two hands gripped
him heartily in spite of the inconveniences of the situation. “Mr.
Lord was captain of the ’Varsity crew of his year,” Dick Elliot
hurried to explain, and there was instant deep respect in the
newcomer’s manner. “Won’t go to the boat-house. He’s tired—doesn’t
want to be fussed over,” he forestalled their suggestions, and they
met this with a cloud of protestation. He ought—the men would want
to see him. It wasn’t right for Dick Elliot to keep a good thing to
himself.
“Ought to get you two out of conjunction, anyway,” Van Arden remarked
in a half-shy, eager, boyish manner. “Two captains in one canoe are
overallowance!” and Trefethen looked inquiringly at him and then at
Elliot.
“Why, he doesn’t know,” Jimmy Selden burst out. “Mr. Lord doesn’t
know that Dick Elliot’s the great and only captain of the football
team! Holy smoke! But they make ’em ignorant down in New York!”
And Trefethen—railroads and combinations entirely overshadowed—was
deeply confused. Certainly he should have known—Elliot—last
November’s victorious team—certainly. But he had forgotten the first
name; he hadn’t thought of such luck—he simply hadn’t placed him. And
the boy laughed at him as a kind and modest emperor might laugh at an
obscure subject unaware of his greatness.
“Tell you what,” he flung at them, “if Mr. Lord is game, what do you
fellows say to coming to feed with me at Mory’s this evening?”
“O. K.,” spoke Selden. “_We’ll_ come, anyway.”
“No, you don’t,” responded the host promptly. “This is a party for a
distinguished stranger, and there ain’t going to be no party without
him. Will you come, Mr. Lord?”
“My train goes at—”
“Oh, there’s another one at nine, and ten—and maybe eleven,” urged
Jimmy Selden. “And we’ll have big chops and wonderful potatoes and—”
“Look here, Jimmy, who’s giving this dinner?” demanded Elliot. “Will
you come, Mr. Lord? We will have those chops and things, and they’re
great; but it’s none of his old business.”
“Yes, I’ll come,” said Trefethen. “I never was as hungry for a chop
in my life.”
“Let’s invite Pearly Gates, so he can sing and tell about outdoor
sports,” suggested Selden enthusiastically. “And you might ask Pat
O’Connor—he does lovely stunts. And what about—”
“Jimmy,” shouted the entertainer, “will you let me run my own
dinner?”
[Illustration: “Two captains in one canoe are overallowance!”]
“Well, I don’t know,” growled Jimmy. “The last one wasn’t
satisfactory. You’ve got the cash, but I’ve got the sense.”
And with that there was a spectacular, close race coming down the
water—the rain was over—the canoe and rowboat flew out to posts of
vantage, with parting arrangements for dinner-time called back and
forth.
Mory’s is a low, wooden, two-story house on Temple Street. Trefethen,
looking at it, as he and Elliot turned the corner that evening,
suddenly remembered it well. It had looked just like that, small
and dirty-white, twenty-five and thirty years ago. Up five or six
steps and into a side door they went. In each of the three or four
rooms—low rooms, with bare floors and a few cheap sporting prints
about the walls—are perhaps three heavy oblong oak tables covered
thick with initials cut deep into the top. They are initials of
students of Yale who for twenty-odd years have been making monuments
of Mory’s tables. Against the walls of some of the rooms hang other
tables, initial-covered, and the legs taken off. Freshmen are not
allowed in this holy place, but the three upper classes constantly
give dinners here—little dinners of six or so, for the most part, and
the boys sing college songs all through them. The especial feature of
such a meal is a chop, enormous in size, and served on a plate twelve
or fourteen inches across and supported by glorified potatoes. The
chops and potatoes at Mory’s are famous.
Marcus Trefethen looked over the array of grouped letters, many
of them standing for names now on the country’s roll of honor,
carved when their owners were fresh-faced lads like these who stood
about him, who leaned over him with a big young hand now and then
familiarly, comrade-like, on his shoulder. Earnestly they studied out
famous name after name to show him.
“There’s a futurity list, too, you know,” Van Arden spoke in his
buoyant, eager way. “Here’s Dickey Elliot’s mark—football captain
to-day, President of the United States to-morrow—who knows?”
“What’s the matter with Daisy Van Arden, editor Yale _News_
to-day—Emperor of Russia next week-ski?” Jimmy Selden contributed,
and then, in an awed tone, with a big forefinger pointed to letters
freshly cut, “Boys, here’s Carl.”
“Ah!” A sound that was half a groan came from them all in unison, and
they leaned across each other’s shoulders and looked. “C. R.” and the
year. There was a minute’s serious silence as the heads bent, crowded
together.
“It’s a darned shame,” Dick Elliot said slowly, and then: “Well,
let’s have some eats. Our table’s this way, Mr. Lord.”
Selden’s suggestions, though frowned upon, had been carried out
rather closely. Pat O’Connor, indeed, turned up missing, but enormous
chops and marvellous potatoes appeared, and Pearly Gates was on
hand with the two gifts which made him a desired dinner guest. His
father’s fortune having been won by Gates’s Pearly Capsules for
Rheumatism, it was perhaps inevitable that the heir, Alexander,
should be known in college as Pearly Gates. He was a Glee Club
man with a remarkable voice, and, as Selden put it, a “peculiarly
ready warbler,” and also he was born with a marvellous ineptness
for athletics which amounted to an inverted genius. It had been
discovered that his _au naturel_ descriptions of a sporting event
threw a light on the occasion which could not be found otherwise;
also it was impossible to him, though healthy and well made, to jump,
run, vault, swim, skate, play football, baseball, tennis, or any
known game.
“The blame thing can walk,” Elliot assured Trefethen, patting the
exhibit fondly as he inventoried his qualities. “Show the gentleman
how pretty you walk, Pearly,” he urged, and Pearly beamed from behind
his glasses and kicked out affectionately. “Trainer says he’s made up
all right,” Elliot went on. “It’s just a sort of foolishness of the
muscles. We’re proud of him, you know,” he explained. “He’s the only
one. There isn’t such a fool in college. Pearly, which will you do
first, sing or tell Mr. Lord about the football game?”
“I’ll do anything you want in about a minute,” responded the obliging
gentleman, “but I do like to chew this chop. Let me alone just a
minute. Talk about me, but just let me alone.”
“Now look here, Pearly,” Jimmy Selden spoke severely. “I didn’t get
you here to eat—primarily, that is. You were asked here to sing and
be foolish—now do your part like a man. You’re to amuse Mr. Lord.
That’s what I got you for.”
“You got him—I like your nerve,” observed the host, outraged. “Am I
giving this dinner, I’d like to know?”
And the songster stuffed food placidly as war went on over him.
“In a way—in a way, certainly,” Selden agreed soothingly. “But you
know, Dickey, you do give the rottenest dinners when my fatherly care
isn’t about you. You know you do. Now you’d never have thought of
Pearly, would you? And he’s going to be the life of the thing in a
minute. Pearly—that’s enough—tune up!”
“All right,” agreed the sweet-tempered youth, and pushed his chair
away a bit and tossed back his blond head, and out through the room
floated, in the purest, most thrilling baritone, the words of “Amici.”
Our strong band can ne’er be broken;
Firm in friendship’s tie,
Far surpassing wealth unspoken,
It can never die,
he sang, and the words and the young voice went to the soul of
Trefethen. Twenty-five odd years ago a lad like these and other lads,
his friends, had sung that song in these low, old rooms, and in
their hearts was the promise—he remembered how hotly it had risen in
his—that the good friendship would last out their lives. How had he
kept it? What had he to show for the years—what that was worth the
price paid—good-will toward the world, belief in ideals, altruism on
fire to brighten the earth? Little by little he had paid these out,
each bit wrapped in its cover of happiness, for a heap of money. The
boys were all gone—the men—his friends—He had not seen any of them
for years. He had not taken any interest. Now he thought of it, he
had no friends. His fortune had followers; he had associates—that was
all. And with that all the voices together rose happily in the chorus:
_Amici usque ad aras_
Deep graven on each heart
Shall be found unwavering, true,
When we from life shall part.
“Hooray!” yelled Jimmy Selden vociferously. “Pearly, you’re the
shark on the warble. Now buck up and tell Mr. Lord how you saw the
football game.”
Pearly was seized with shyness. “You fellows make a fool out of me,”
he complained.
“No trouble at all,” Selden assured him.
“It’s this way, Mr. Lord,” the pink-faced, spectacled, good-humored
songster confided. “All these chaps pretend they see extraordinary
things and talk about ’em with queer words an’ things. An’ I don’t
understand an’ I don’t think most of the others do. So I just tell
’em about how it looks to the eye of nature, an’ they think it’s
funny. ’Tisn’t funny. _I_ don’t think it’s funny. I went to that
game an’ I ate my sandwiches in the open, on a shelf with more
like me. Humans—rows of ’em—thirty thousand. The fellows trotted
on, pitter-patter, lookin’ foolish, and all of us cheered—thirty
thousand. Then the other fellows trotted on, lookin’ foolish, an’ we
cheered. I knew precious little what they were doin’ in the game, but
it was pleasant to know they were doin’ their best an’ that we had an
object in bein’ there ’s long ’s they kept it up. They squatted and
reflected an’ then they fell on each other, an’ then everybody rose
and yelled and waved flags and Yale had the ball—or else Harvard had
it. Then they scattered out, and Harvard’s red-head got hurt once in
so often, and then twice somebody—I think Yale—kicked the ball over
the shinto shrine at the end. Oh, this is truck”—he appealed to his
_confrères_—“don’t make me tell any more,” he pleaded. And Trefethen
shook with laughter as he had not shaken for years. “’S cruel to make
sport of my infirmity,” reasoned Pearly. “But it looked that way to
me, anyhow.”
The dinner was over; pipes came out of coat pockets. Elliot produced
cigars for his guest of honor, and the military formation of the
party “fell out” about the table; chairs grouped at every angle.
Jimmy Selden pumped a profound sigh.
“Gosh! how Carl would have enjoyed them mushrooms!” he said
sorrowfully.
Dick Elliot’s level black eyebrows drew into a frown. “I don’t
know if we’d better talk about Carl to-night,” he said. “It’s a
pretty melancholy subject to drag a visitor in on,” and he turned
to Trefethen. “You see, Mr. Lord,” he explained, “the whole college
is sore. Ruthven was popular with both the undergraduates and the
faculty. Everybody was proud of him. He was just a miracle, you see.
A whooping good fellow, a fine student, but no grind, and a tiptop
athlete. The worst is the race in June. There’s nobody fit for his
place. Harvard will likely smear us. It’s taken the heart out of the
whole business. It’s hard on us all.”
Van Arden spoke in his nervous, graceful way. “It’s hardest on Dick,
Mr. Lord. Ruthven was his roommate, and he and Dick had it arranged
to go abroad after they graduated this summer. It’s been cut and
dried for two years.”
“Yes, Dickey-bird’s chief mourner, all right,” Selden agreed sadly,
and with that he burst forth: “If about four like us had Trefethen
clasped inside these loving arms, we’d fit him for a career of
sausage-meat pretty quick.”
“I give you my word,” Dick Elliot said, and he threw back his great
shoulders and threw up his square chin, and his brown eyes blazed at
Trefethen—“I give you my word, Mr. Lord, that if that man Trefethen
should get alone with a bunch of us to-night, feeling the way we do,
I’d hate to be responsible for his safety. I believe we’d hurt him.”
This nervous English and the muscles that loomed back of it gave the
guest of honor a sensation. He pulled at his cigar, and his eyes did
not meet the football captain’s.
At last, “You’re a belligerent young lot,” he reflected aloud, and
then, “I dare say the man’s a beast,” he brought out slowly, “but
you boys ought not to be swept away by half of a question. Remember,
there are always two sides—get at the other and found your judgment
on knowledge—don’t let personal feeling place you.”
“It isn’t all personal feeling, Mr. Lord,” Van Arden threw at him
eagerly. “It’s the big question of the day; it happens to have fired
a broadside into us just this minute, and we’re hurt and howling—but
it’s the big question we’re up against—the magnates—the huge
overweight fortunes that destroy the balance. You’re an unprejudiced
man”—and Trefethen smiled inwardly—“you know they don’t play the game
fairly, these captains of industry—don’t you?”
“I do not,” Trefethen said with emphasis. “I know of no proof for a
general statement like that. Of course there is plenty of advantage
taken—you can’t help that when men are human and the stake is worth
while, but—”
“You can’t help it?” Dick Elliot flung at him. “Of course you can
help it—if you’re civilized and decent. What’s a standard for if not
to live up to, Mr. Lord? What would you think of a football man that
‘took advantage’ and then said he couldn’t help it because he was
human and the game was worth while? We’re penalized if we try that
on; we’re kicked out if we keep it up—and that’s right. Lord, that
stake looks bigger to us than a billion dollars! I don’t see why fair
play isn’t the thing—the only thing—for a white man after he leaves
college as much as before.”
“Hold on, Mr. Elliot, give me a show,” Trefethen protested. “I’m
not advocating dishonesty. I was going to say that there are hosts
of men who have made fortunes honorably—don’t you hope to be rich
yourselves?”
There was a short stillness, and Pearly—the richest—broke it. They
turned in their chairs and looked at him surprised. “Seems this way
to me—like th’ story in th’ op’ra, y’ see. When the gold shines over
the waters of the Rhine, an’ the Rhine-maidens guard it, it’s nice,
an’ everybody would like it. But when the ugly dwarf, Alberich,
climbs up and grabs it, you feel as if you’d rather get nothin’ than
get it by turnin’ into a beast like that.”
“Hooray for Pearly! He’s turning into poetry,” Jimmy Selden
contributed in an undertone, but Van Arden’s keen face was alert and
serious.
“It’s so, what Pearly says—he wouldn’t have any money but clean
money. Nor I. But there’s more. Even if huge fortunes are made
straight we don’t want them—Americans. We don’t want kings, good or
bad, and we don’t want plutocrats, good or bad. They don’t fit us.
We won’t have them, either, I’ll bet,” he added sagely, this college
editor, speaking as a man with his hand on the pulse of the people.
[Illustration: “I don’t see why fair play isn’t the thing—the only
thing—for a white man after he leaves college as much as before.”]
“You’ve missed some points,” said Trefethen quietly. “If we didn’t
have variety we wouldn’t have civilization. It’s the men who step out
of the ranks who make progress. We’d all be cave-dwellers yet if
some old skin-dressed fellow hadn’t begun to accumulate stone knives
and oyster-shells. I dare say they called him a menace to society.
It’s better for the world that some houses should be filled with
pictures and books than that all should be hovels alike.”
He stopped and considered, puffing at his cigar thoughtfully, and the
bright-faced boys, sitting about the table, regarded him eagerly,
respectfully.
“The race is tied together. The whole procession moves up when the
leaders take a step. The hovels of to-day have luxuries the palaces
didn’t have once. It’s competition; it’s survival of the fittest that
raises the standard for all. To the man fittest to organize and lead
goes the prize. It’s right it should go to him; he has earned it. He
has created capital by efficiency. Before long his income inevitably
exceeds his expenditures. A fortune is made, and it is a benefit to
mankind that men of mental grasp should handle such fortunes, have
the power to found libraries and hospitals and great public works;
doing good to thousands, rather than that the money should be
dribbled out in small sums among those who can’t accumulate and who
can’t spend wisely.”
Van Arden was on his feet; his tall, nervous figure quivered with
intensity. “That’s the optimist view, Mr. Lord; that’s not the
average. Here and there, one in a thousand, maybe, is a magnate
who takes his luck responsibly, but mostly what you see is vulgar
greed—use of privilege without genius—brutal indifference, power used
tyrannically, cynical hardness to human feelings. Why, the papers
are chuck-full of it. Look at our case; look at this Trefethen.” He
stopped and smiled a frank deprecation. “You see, I’m back to the
personal view. I own up. Well, it isn’t an abstract question in New
Haven to-night. It’s concrete as the dickens—it’s Carl.”
“This Trefethen,” lighting a fresh cigar, did not care to smile back
into the sincere eyes; he occupied himself closely with the cigar.
The football captain thundered in.
“Carl!” he echoed dramatically. “Of course it’s Carl, and he’s an
illustration of the whole mess. What sort of fairness has been
shown in his case? Legal, all right; but that play wouldn’t go in
football. Just because Trefethen & Co. think they might as well make
all the money in sight. He’s rolling now, but they say he’s going to
be the richest man in the world—a sweet ambition! Hope he’ll enjoy
himself! I’ll bet a doughnut he isn’t happy this second. I wouldn’t
be in his skin for a dollar a minute.”
And the silent Trefethen squirmed under that skin and agreed.
“He’s a Yale man,” put in Van Arden reflectively.
“More’s the pity,” growled Elliot. “We’re not proud of him. Do
you suppose any of us will ever turn into case-hardened octopuses
like that? Ginger! I’ll make a try at least not to be a disgrace
to my Alma Mater.” With that, as his guest sat quiet, his eyes on
his cigar, “We’re giving Mr. Lord a dickens of a gay time,” Elliot
announced cheerfully. “Unloading all our kicks for his benefit. Now
cut it out, fellows. Mr. Lord’s not crazy about our great thoughts
on political economy. He’s no captain of industry—” All at once he
seemed to realize that in fact they did not know what their guest
might be. “You said you were a lawyer, didn’t you?” he demanded a bit
anxiously.
Trefethen smiled. “I’ve been called as bad as that,” he answered
truthfully—for he had been admitted and had practised twenty years
ago. And the boy was quite satisfied.
“That’s all right,” he said, relieved. “Pearly Gates, you sing.”
And Pearly’s lovely voice floated out as promptly and as easily as if
some one had started a music-box. First an old song adapted to the
football captain of the year, and all the room—but one—joined in as
he led it:
Here’s to Dick Elliot, Dick Elliot—
Here’s to Dick Elliot, he’s with us to-night.
He’s with us, God bless him; he’s with us, God bless him;
Here’s to Dick Elliot, he’s with us to-night.
With its never-ending chorus of
Chug-a-chug, chug-a-chug, chug-a-chug—
Then, slipping effortless from one air to another, he was singing a
favorite of Trefethen’s own time.
Winds of night around us sighing,
sang Pearly,
’Neath the elm-trees murmur low.
And the other voices joined in, and the deep sound flooded the room
as the boys sang words about
The merry life we lead ’neath the elms,
’Neath the elms of dear old Yale.
They were out in the street now, marching together, arm linked in
arm. Dick Elliot’s big hand was on the older man’s shoulder, and the
touch was pleasant to him—so pleasant that his voice stopped in the
middle of a line once, and the phalanx burst into a roar of young
laughter.
“Did it swallow a fly?” Jimmy Selden inquired impudently. They were
all boys together now for sure.
So, singing and laughing, the five went down the dark street to the
station, Trefethen in the midst, the guest, the hero, quite dazed,
and happy as he thought he had forgotten how to be happy.
“You wouldn’t let us give you a real red celebration,” Selden
explained, as they stood on the platform, waiting. “It was fittinger
that a crew captain should be officially blowed to a party, and that
dinner wasn’t much—just a snack. But we done what we could—I done my
durndest,” he finished modestly. And Dick Elliot’s scornful “Huh!”
came out of darkness.
“Did we give you the time of your life? Do you like us?” Jimmy
investigated further, and Trefethen laid a hand on his arm.
“You’ve given me the best time I’ve had in twenty-five years,” he
said. “And I like you a lot.”
“Well, we like you; you’re the right sort,” Van Arden’s quick tones
threw back frankly, and with that Pearly broke easily, sweetly, into
He’s a jolly good fellow
As nobody can deny.
And the others chorused it with ringing notes. And as the train moved
slowly out—Trefethen standing on the platform, watching his friends
with intent eyes, with a new sense of loneliness—Pearly Gates’s
thrilling, clear music rose again in “Bright College Years,” the
other voices instantly lifting to his.
The seasons come, the seasons go;
The earth is green or white with snow;
But time and change shall naught avail
To break the friendships formed at Yale
they sang. And the train moved faster, and the boys stood in the
half-light of the station, arms around each other’s shoulders,
leaning on each other, singing. And the train drew away.
* * * * *
On the 27th of August the _Celtic_ sailed from Liverpool for New
York. As the land of Wales melted into clouds a young fellow with
conspicuous, broad shoulders walked aft and fell into conversation
with a man who stood watching the fading earth-line.
“I never can take any stock in the ship till the land’s clean gone,”
the man said. “It will be gone in a few minutes now.” He glanced
about the deck as if the next interest were awakening. “A crowd on
board,” he said. “Quite a lot of celebrities. Have you noticed the
passenger list?”
“No,” answered the boy politely, but a bit absent-mindedly.
“There’s Lord and Lady de Gray, and a French marquis—I forget his
name; and a Russian prince—I can’t pronounce his. And there are
several big Americans. That’s Trefethen over there—Marcus Trefethen,
the capitalist.” He nodded across the deck where a tall man stood
alone, smoking and staring out at sea.
The boy turned. “Marcus Trefethen? I’d like to see him.” His eyes
searched. “Where?”
“The tall fellow with a cigar—right where you’re looking.” The gaze
changed to bewilderment, and with that there flashed to his face an
astonished delight. “Marcus Trefethen your grandmother!” he threw at
the man, and with a leap he was gone.
“Mr. Lord—why this is great! You haven’t forgotten me—Dick Elliot—the
races on Lake Whitney last May. Yes—I didn’t think you would.”
Trefethen’s hand hurt with the grip it got.
“So you and young Ruthven had your trip, after all?” he said five
minutes later.