I Many fellows seem to think that all an athletic officer has to do is to look important and travel about the United States with his team and make out a bill for expenses. It's easy enough to carry a japanned tin box, and sell tickets through a hole where the wind blows, as treasurer. As president it is a fine thing to make frequent trips to New York, and attend conclaves that are secret, and make speeches in conventions and read your opinions next morning in the paper in fine long sentences prefixed with "President So-and-so said last night," and to be lunched by famous authorities and interviewed by rapacious reporters who think that because the public supports football they have a right to see all the inside workings of intercollegiate diplomacy. All this is the pretty part of it. But like all greatness there is a deal of hard hustling and perspiration and discouragement and annoyance underneath. So much so, that one seldom has time to tell himself how fine a thing it is to wear a 'varsity blazer with the orange monogram on the breast-pocket. And this is usually heavy with bills to pay and memoranda of things to see to. Besides, the responsibility is tremendous. H. Lawrence, Ninety Blank, had blood-shot eyes this morning, and he hurried down the clattering iron stairs of West College tying his neck-tie. As the ugly entry door slammed behind him he did not put his hands in his pockets and begin to whistle, as he used to do in under-classman days, because he was not sauntering over to Reunion to smoke a pipe, or down to Witherspoon to loaf until the next lecture. He glanced at the clock in old North tower and hit up his pace. He had given orders to the team to be at the station with their grips packed at 9.38, and before that time he had to wire a member of the Graduate Advisory Committee, asking where he could find him that evening, and to an official of the Manhattan Athletic Club that he should not be able to consider his proposition He took long, strong strides and looked straight ahead of him, which was in the direction of an old shop opposite the gate, with a picturesquely warped roof which he did not see. He did not see the fellows along the walk either, and those he did not cut he nodded to absently without removing his frown. This caused certain passers-by to shake their heads and say, "Harry Lawrence is getting a swelled head since he's become so important," especially those who greatly wanted to be important themselves but weren't, and so had plenty of time to criticise those who were. But Lawrence, with a half dozen unopened letters in his pocket which he would read on the train going up, did not dream of being criticised. And if he had he would not have felt very badly about it. He did not have time. Nor would he have had time to stop and thank his good friends Nolan and Linton, who, when Lawrence had rushed by with one of those "How-do's" which make one think that one's name has been forgotten, had looked worried and then said, "Harry'll kill himself before the end of the season," while Lawrence tore open a telegram with which the boy met him in front of College Offices and hurried on. He had no time for breakfast, because the man had forgotten to wake him, and the night before he had been handling the files of applications for the Thanksgiving game seats with Sinclair and dictating to a stenographer until 2 A.M. Every evening from eight until midnight there was a reception in his room, with Sinclair to help receive. It began when they came in from the club after dinner, with a workman or two from the town waiting in the entry, who touched their hats and said, "Please, sir, Mr. McMaster says this bill is correct." Then would come members of the team who wanted the management to remove conditions for them, and coachers who wanted to talk serious business and had but a short time to spare, and some of the fellows who wanted to smoke and chat and seemed hurt when told to get out; and in addition, the hordes of applicants for seats, who kept running in and out, incessantly buzzing in the management's ears like flies, and just as pestiferously merciless, from eight until twelve, when the door was locked. These represented all phases of college life, from the professor who "never incurred any difficulty in getting all the seats he wanted in previous years" to the young freshman whose mother knew the management's mother, and thought he might be especially considered for that reason, and including class-mates who made it a personal matter of friendship, and thought they ought to be considered ahead of mere strangers for that reason. Also emissaries from But this was not what made Lawrence scowl and look fierce as he hurried by a little, wistful-eyed freshman, whom he did not see, and who had been hoping all the way from the First Church gate to the dean's that maybe this time the senior would recognize him. Lawrence was used to all this, and he liked it. He liked having a lot of things to attend to in a short time, to see many people and give orders and talk fast and feel his brain warm with quick thinking. He enjoyed responsibility, and he thought it was thrilling to get in a situation and then take a long breath, so to speak, and command it. Nor was he too old to fully appreciate his privilege of being on intimate terms with ancient heroes of the football field, and he was glad to be thrown with so many other prominent alumni. And he took great satisfaction in watching the long-headed Advisory Except that he would have liked to have a little time to loaf and enjoy life, he was quite well pleased with being president of the P. U. F. B. A., and did not care a rap whether the college considered him arrogant or not. He was attending to his own business and had the satisfaction of knowing that he was doing it rather well, with the attendant satisfaction of having had the honorable position given him by the vote of the college body without his or his friends' boot-licking one of them for it. And that is one of the most satisfactory feelings in the world. The thing that troubled him was a letter in his pocket. That was the reason that when the ninth old grad. approached him on the field and said, "Say, Lawrence, just between us now, what do you think of the chances with Yale?" he replied, curtly, "How do I know?" and hurried on up the side lines. This was decidedly fresh, and he jumped on himself afterward The letter had come the day before. It was from his father and enclosed Lawrence's November allowance. He never received but one letter a month from the governor, and it nearly always contained two statements: "Enclosed please find ..." and "Your mother and all are well," both of which make very agreeable reading. This time the letter was not dictated, but written in the Colonel's own small, straight hand, and there was an extra paragraph. It ran thus: "Had I known what this official position of yours involved, the amount of time, the number and variety of interruptions, and the vulgar prominence that your name and movements occupy in the press, I should never have given my consent, which, as you may remember, I did reluctantly, to your acceptance of it. In my opinion what you are learning at college could better be acquired at home: a little of business down-town with me, your other accomplishments up-town in the clubs and other places with your friends." This was not the sort of letter to do any good. "'Your other accomplishments'—now what After this when in New York he did not go up-town to dine with the family as often as formerly. When he did his father merely said, "Judge Hitchcock told me he saw you on Broadway last Wednesday," and similar remarks in a casual tone. "Yes, sir," Harry would reply, with his attention on the crest on his plate. Then each would wonder what the other meant, until Helen would interrupt with, "By the way, I saw by the Tribune this morning that 'President Lawrence of Princeton' says that Yale will beat Harvard at Springfield. So it's all right then, Winston." He was her husband, Yale '86, and Helen was a good sister, who had a large intuition and knew things. On Thanksgiving Day the College of New During the dinner after the game, Lawrence was dignified and silent. People thought he was rattled, if anyone thought about anything else than the one big, sad fact. He presided gracefully though. He was very good to look at. The dinner, which is usually very long, was wound up early, few being unwilling, and Lawrence helped put one of the blubbering backs to bed who had taken too much for a training stomach and head. Then he went downstairs, saying, "Now, then, my responsibility is over with. I am going to have a good time." II He had done it hard because he did everything hard. It had lasted several days and ended in a hospital in West Philadelphia, where he had three stitches put in his forehead. Now he was back in his old room in West College, with a pipe in his mouth, drumming on the arms of his chair and staring straight at his feet, which were upon the roller-top desk. Dark rings were under his eyes and he told himself that he had had a good time. He was thinking that it was quite a storybook coincidence that they should have come together, those two letters. They were so different and yet so much the complement of each other. The first was from his father. He had torn it open with his pen, as he would any other letter, and though he saw that it was several pages in length and knew intuitively that it would not be like any other letter he had ever read, he had deliberately rolled up the envelope to get a light for his pipe from the fire, and he had stretched Then he had commenced to smoke very hard, and presently stopped rocking back and forth as he read the words written in that clear, even hand, without a flourish or a superfluous mark, words that had caused him to gnaw the mouth-piece of his pipe as they burned their way into him. And all the while he pictured to himself a tall figure in a smoking-jacket trimmed with white braid sitting up straight and rigid at his desk in the corner of the cosey inner room of the office in William Street, and recalled how once, when an absconding clerk had left a temporary cloud on the name of the firm, the old, steely eyes had flashed under the lowering brows as the old gentleman had taken his seat at the breakfast-table, where he ate nothing. The letter sounded very like the governor. There was no mistaking its meaning. It was a succinct and comprehensive report of dissatisfaction at the younger Lawrence's methods, with a list of debts of filial affection and memoranda of overdraws on parental patience covering the last three years, and accompanied by a brief prospectus for the unpromising future. It was the sort of a letter he would have fancied a Only it would have been just as well, Lawrence thought, to have omitted that part of the letter. He was quite willing to admit most of the hard things his father said of him because they were facts, but this about dishonorable cowardice and the family name was going a little too far, and he told himself that he did not quite see how he could stand that from anyone. And he sat up straight and pressed hard on the arms of his chair and looked very like the indignant old Colonel who had written the words. It was uncalled for, it was unjust, it was ridiculous. If his father would stop to think of things as they really were in this world, thought Lawrence, Ninety Blank, these little shortcomings of his would not appear a bit worse than those of some of the very same young men in town whose industry and clean business ability the Colonel so much admired, and whom he spoke of as the hope or flower or something of Manhattan's commercial supremacy or something. It was merely that he happened to be indiscreet the last time he was having a good time. He had made a little too much noise, and the Then he had carefully arranged the leaves of the letter in order, mechanically folded and put them in a pigeon-hole of the desk, and opened and spread out the other letter before him. But he did so unconsciously, for he was staring straight out ahead of him into the face of the future, which had expressionless features. His father had concluded with "Signify to me at once your intention of a complete change in your career, or, notwithstanding your nearness to graduation, I shall take you out of college and put you at work in Van Brunt's." That is not the way a boy likes to be written to. "Oh, no, I don't think I'd do all that if I were you." He could not abide his father's tone when he spoke of taking him out of college or putting him at work, or doing anything with him. He was still young enough not to fancy being considered young. And then the actuality of the situation occurred "Picture of a young man taken out of college because he is bad." He smiled broadly at himself in the glass over the mantelpiece. But it wasn't very funny. And it was at this point that he dropped his eyes to read his father's words once more, and was startled for an instant to see a strange handwriting, and then remembered the other letter. He was again startled by the first words that met his glance. "Haven't you had enough of college?" At the top of the paper was the name of a La Salle Street, Chicago, firm. It was not so very queer after all. It was only that it was so startlingly apropos. He read the letter in eager gulps. Then he read it again. It was from his friend Clark, who had been so kind to him when he was out there. And now he was still more kind. It was singular that the offer should come just now, on that very day, at that very hour. He would wire back his acceptance that afternoon. "Now, of course, it is too bad to make you stop in the middle of your last year," the letter ran, "but The bell in Old North broke in on him. He looked at the clock on the mantelpiece, and was surprised to see that it was only four, and that it must have been but a half hour since he received those two letters. Then he remembered that he had a lecture at that hour. It made him smile to think of it. But, it occurred to him, it would be a right good idea to go—he would be going to few enough more—anything to get out of the close As he opened the entry door and stepped out into the open air of the campus, the old bell began throbbing, clear and strong, in his ears. It somehow recalled freshman year and how he used to run to reach his seat before it stopped ringing. He was in the crowded quadrangle now, with fellows all about him with books or note-books under their arms, whistling and singing and hallooing and scraping their feet along the walks just as they had always done. Over in front of Reunion was the usual crowd kicking football and squabbling over their points. The side over by College Offices was shouting exultingly "Nine to seven!" and a fellow on the side near by was announcing with equal conviction, as he turned the ball over in his It struck him as queer that all this was going on just as it always had, without a single variation to show that this day was different from other days. It seemed odd to think that he was not to be a part of this any more. It somehow seemed more odd than sad. He told himself that it would be a great relief to fly far away from it all. Down the walk came a group of his own class-mates, carelessly slouching along from lecture, laughing and joking, with their arms on one another's shoulders. It was Linton and Nolan and Stehman and others. "Hello, there, Harry!" they said and passed on down the walk. Lawrence turned and watched them. He had replied to their salute in his usual manner. It had seemed natural and his voice was in perfect imitation of heartiness, and yet he could not help thinking how little difference it would make to him if they all fell down dead. The sight of them bothered, Nolan's bow legs annoyed The bell was echoing and re-echoing in his ears, and each stroke fairly made him jump. The sight of so many people and the knowledge that there were others behind him were beginning to give him a feeling of distress. He felt that he could not stand having so many people press close to him. It was somehow rattling him. Everything he saw hurt, and he only wanted to get far away from it all. For he told himself that he hated the campus and its life, and everything that had to do with it. The very expression of the buildings was offensive to him. He wanted to upset the wheelbarrow and its sticky contents when old black Jimmie touched his hat to him, and he felt like kicking two innocent seminoles that hurried past with quick, conscientious steps that made their coat-tails flap behind. All of this was nervous nonsense, and he knew it. He left the crowded walk and walked over toward the cannon and leaned against a nearby elm-tree. Then he fixed his gaze steadily upon the top of the old cannon and tried to think of nothing else. He had learned to take himself in hand this way during his overworked football season. "It isn't so bad as all this," he In a moment he started on toward Dickinson Hall again. "We are going to a lecture now," he explained to himself in a whisper, "and we're going to hear lots of interesting things. We can talk over all those other matters later on. There's plenty of time, plenty of time." He took a long, full breath, as though to hold on tight, and threw up his head and looked squarely into a pair of brown eyes that were gazing intently at him. It was That Freshman. He had often wondered why he was constantly running across this same little freshman with the sensitive mouth and the large, thoughtful eyes. He did not know his name, but he enjoyed observing from the patronizing height of a senior an air of delicate refinement in the features and movements of the boy. Sometimes when in a good humor he nodded to him. But just now the peculiar wistful gaze breaking in on him in his tossed-up state of mind seemed eerie. For an instant he had a feeling of guilty fright, as if caught doing something. And then, because angry with himself for being startled The under-classman blushed and stepped back. He said something incoherent ending with "Why—er—nothing— I beg pardon." He attempted a smile, failed, colored more than ever, dropped his eyes in embarrassment, and with a sort of shiver turned on his heel. The senior, with his own harsh voice still echoing in his ear, stood there with his hands in his pockets watching the younger boy shrinking before him. Then something inside of him was touched. He felt how brutally rude he had been, and he wanted to make amends for it. He felt more than that. He wanted to be kind to this boy with the refined face; he wanted to be tender toward him, to protect him, or something queer and wild like that. Though he did not acknowledge it to himself tears were ready to come to his dark, blood-shot eyes with the dark rings under them, and he had an impulse to throw his arm about the freshman's shoulder and say: "You dear little fellow!" Neurasthenia could account for some of this. As it was he turned and followed the freshman from the side of the new bulletin-elm, where this took place, to the corner of the Old North. Here, hardly realizing what he was doing, But even if he had stopped to think about its being an odd thing to do, it would have made no difference. He was hardly in a mood for considering conventionalities. After awhile he found himself walking with the freshman way out toward the Prep. school. To the left was the old view of rolling fields and the gentle hill. Underfoot were the uneven stones of the old walk with water-puddles in the hollowed-out places. And there beside him walked the freshman, talking in a natural tone about a fine tennis-player that he thought was coming to college next year. It was all quite as if it were an ordinary occurrence. Lawrence could remember the freshman's look of surprise as they started across the campus, and he recollected murmuring some apology for his rudeness by saying that he thought it was someone else at first. Then he must have started the conversation by asking the freshman what recitation he had just had. But after that it was all a blank until now. He was under the impression that he had been nodding to people, but he could not remember who they were or anything about them except a big-visored, faded Perhaps it was a sort of hypnotism, though very likely it could be explained as nothing of the kind, but at any rate from the moment his thoughts had been stopped with a jerk at meeting the freshman they had taken a different turn. With the boy at his side and his gentle voice in his ears Lawrence had begun thinking about another red-cheeked boy he had known once; and it seemed much more than four years ago. He felt again the very expression of those old bright days at school when he took prizes and played on the eleven. He remembered the old field and how the afternoon sun used to reflect from one of the windows near by. There came back to him the very odor of the polished desk in the school-room where he scratched H. L. L., and all the little details of those dear old days of happy monotony and innocent amusements. He felt again the old excitement of an approaching vacation. He remembered how he used to check off the days on the calendar over the mantelpiece, and he remembered But instead of everything springing back to actuality immediately as one would suppose, it took some time to hammer things into seeming as they really were in their proper proportions. It was like trying to act sober. He began by paying conscious attention to what his young friend was saying. After all he was only a freshman. He talked like any other fellow except that his voice was more gentle, and he had a deferential manner when addressing him. Though rather young to be in college and of unusual appearance, there was not enough about him to affect a fellow in such a queer sentimental way. And yet he did. To Lawrence he seemed different from everyone else in the world. He had never experienced this peculiar melting feeling toward anyone before. What was more, he liked it, and he had no thought of laughing himself out of it. He had an undefined idea that it was doing him good. He felt like clinging close to this companion who was younger and seemed so many times better and purer than himself. Then suddenly the senior was struck by something he had not remarked before. He waited a moment to make sure. Then it came again. There was no mistaking it this time. The refined voice was dragging in profanity at absurdly frequent intervals, with every other sentence almost. He had very likely been doing so all along. And the odd part of this was that every word of it was making Lawrence wince and shiver like seeing a respectable woman drunk. It was none of his business. It was all nonsense. The expletives were not very bad ones He did not stop to see how the freshman took it. He did not want to think of him now. He fairly ran up Nassau Street with a feeling as though someone was after him. He rushed past the fellows along the walk and nearly bumped into the three old professors starting off with the Irish setter for their sedate evening stroll. He was trembling when he reached his room, and he slammed the door and threw himself down on the rug before the fire. He knew something was coming. He knew what it was, too, but he was going to fight it off as long as he could. He drew the end of the fur skin up over his head and pressed hard with both hands, as though that would keep him from thinking of what he did not want to think. Then he rubbed the back of his hand across his wet brow and tried to sneer the thing away as he had always been able to do at other times. But this was not at all like any of the other times, and it would not work. Besides his nerves were in no shape for a fight of this sort, And it was not as if he had only a little to feel sorry over. He could not even say, "I'm no worse than most fellows," for he had gone quite far indeed, much farther than anyone in the world, except two or three, had any idea of, and he had things to remember that very few older sinners than he would often care to think about. It seemed so certain to him now, as he lay there breathing hard and staring at the fire as though expecting it to jump out at him, that these remembrances were never going to let up on him for a single moment; as long as he lived, no matter how he might live in the future, these unforgetable things were, from this time on, to rise up and spoil every bit of sweetness in life for him. But that was not what hurt the most. It was just and reasonable that all that should be as it was. It was the thought of his people at home that was making him squirm and roll over toward the desk and then back again toward the fire. What had they done to deserve this? He could not understand. Aside from all consideration For an hour he lay there on the floor, with his remorse and his sick nerves, telling himself the kind of a fellow he was, while the rest of the college went to dinner. After this came the reaction, the natural instincts of love and yearning for the home that he had left. He told himself how that vacations would come, and little Dick, the prep., would come, and Helen and all would come out there to the old place on Long Island—all but one. His place at the table would be vacant. No, there would be no place for him. They would avoid mentioning his name. They would change the subject when visitors referred to him. After awhile visitors would learn not to refer to him. He would be known as "the one that went to the devil." All his self-reliance had been squeezed out of him. He did not care to be independent now. He did not want to be free. He wanted—oh, how he wanted!—a place to go to and people to care about him, like everyone else. He The more he thought of it the more impossible it appeared. Why, for four years—he half arose from the rug and his face became hot at the thought of it—for four years he had been doing things that she would not believe him capable of; not if he told her himself. No, he was not going to sneak into the home-fold like a cowardly prodigal, bleating, "I have been a bad little boy, papa. Take me back, and I'll promise not to be bad any more." He was not that kind. He deserved his husks, and he meant to chew them, even though they stuck in his throat. To keep away, he showed himself, was one means left him to regain a little of the self-respect that he had lost. Then he arose with something of his former indifference and laughed at himself a little. "You've felt sorry for yourself long enough," he said aloud; "what you've got to do now is to make the best of it." He started toward the He lighted a pipe to show himself how much better he felt, and began to word a telegram to Clark. That would finish a good day's work, he thought. A very long day it seemed, too. Some things were hazy and dream-like. That walk with the freshman— But he did not want to think about that, and he wrote down "W. G. Clark, care West, Houston & Co." Yet, though he tried not to listen, there began coming up to him the tones of the gentle voice dragging in profanity with such pathetic pains. "But I don't want to think about that!" Lawrence exclaimed. But all the while he wrote the message he heard the timid voice with the incongruous words. "I wish you wouldn't do that," he said aloud. "It bothers me. Why do you want to do that?" He dipped his pen in the ink and held it there. Why did he? Then it came over him with a blush of shame that it was doubtless to find favor in his sight. Most people would have guessed it before. And then something flashed through his mind, It was quite ridiculous. He tried to sneer it out of his mind. But he could not. He was finding that there were some things that could not be sneered away. But that was not all. A big question met him like a huge, choking wave—"What will this boy's future be?" And Lawrence pleaded, "Oh, let me alone! Never mind all that." The wave drew back and another came drenching over him—"Will he do as you have done?" "Don't, please don't!" cried Lawrence. There came up before him in his sick mind lurid, revolting scenes, and in them a fair-faced boy with a sensitive mouth learning to like it all. Then came a third wave—"Who will be responsible? What are you going to do about it?" This was a little too much for Lawrence. He felt powerless to think it out just now. He would need time for this. Unconsciously he Then he arose, a very different boy from Lawrence the President, greatly feared of under-classmen, and felt his way through the dark to the bedroom. Here he locked the door and prayed to God, as he had been brought up to do. The next morning one of the clerks, harrying by the ticker where Colonel Lawrence seemed to be bending over the tape, suddenly exclaimed, "Why, what is it, sir? Nothing serious, I hope?" Old Colonel Lawrence, drawing himself up and gazing straight ahead of him as he crumpled a telegram in his hand, made answer, "No. My son is coming home to spend Sunday with me. That is all." The clerk did not know that they were tears of joy. |