“Said Aristotle unto Plato,‘Have another sweet potato? ‘”
And Billy responded,—
“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.
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.
PHILOSOPHY 4
1. Thales, Zeno, Parmenides, Heracleitos, Anaxagoras. State briefly the doctrine of each.
2. Phenomenon, noumenon. Discuss these terms. Name their modern descendants.
3. Thought=Being. Assuming this, state the difference, if any, between (1) memory and anticipation; (2) sleep and waking.
4. Democritus, Pythagoras, Bacon. State the relation between them. In what terms must the objective world ultimately be stated? Why?
5. Experience is the result of time and space being included in the nature of mind. Discuss this.
6. Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensibus. Whose doctrine? Discuss it.
7. What is the inherent limitation in all ancient philosophy? Who first removed it?
8. Mind is expressed through what? Matter through what? Is speech the result or the cause of thought?
9. Discuss the nature of the ego.
10. According to Plato, Locke, Berkeley, where would the sweetness of a honeycomb reside? Where would its shape? its weight? Where do you think these properties reside?
Ten questions, and no Epicharmos of Kos. But no examination paper asks everything, and this one did ask a good deal. Bertie and Billy wrote the full time allotted, and found that they could have filled an hour more without coming to the end of their thoughts. Comparing notes at lunch, their information was discovered to have been lacking here and there. Nevertheless, it was no failure; their inner convictions were sure of fifty per cent at least, and this was all they asked of the gods. “I was ripping about the ego,” said Bertie. “I was rather splendid myself,” said Billy, “when I got going. And I gave him a huge steer about memory.” After lunch both retired to their beds and fell into sweet oblivion until seven o’clock, when they rose and dined, and after playing a little poker went to bed again pretty early.
Some six mornings later, when the Professor returned their papers to them, their minds were washed almost as clear of Plato and Thales as were their bodies of yesterday’s dust. The dates and doctrines, hastily memorized to rattle off upon the great occasion, lay only upon the surface of their minds, and after use they quickly evaporated. To their pleasure and most genuine astonishment, the Professor paid them high compliments. Bertie’s discussion of the double personality had been the most intelligent which had come in from any of the class. The illustration of the intoxicated hack-driver who had fallen from his hack and inquired who it was that had fallen, and then had pitied himself, was, said the Professor, as original and perfect an illustration of our subjective-objectivity as he had met with in all his researches. And Billy’s suggestions concerning the inherency of time and space in the mind the Professor had also found very striking and independent, particularly his reasoning based upon the well-known distortions of time and space which hashish and other drugs produce in us. This was the sort of thing which the Professor had wanted from his students: free comment and discussions, the spirit of the course, rather than any strict adherence to the letter. He had constructed his questions to elicit as much individual discussion as possible and had been somewhat disappointed in his hopes.
Yes, Bertie and Billy were astonished. But their astonishment did not equal that of Oscar, who had answered many of the questions in the Professor’s own language. Oscar received seventy-five per cent for this achievement—a good mark. But Billy’s mark was eighty-six and Bertie’s ninety. “There is some mistake,” said Oscar to them when they told him; and he hastened to the Professor with his tale. “There is no mistake,” said the Professor. Oscar smiled with increased deference. “But,” he urged, “I assure you, sir, those young men knew absolutely nothing. I was their tutor, and they knew nothing at all. I taught them all their information myself.” “In that case,” replied the Professor, not pleased with Oscar’s tale-bearing, “you must have given them more than you could spare. Good morning.”
Oscar never understood. But he graduated considerably higher than Bertie and Billy, who were not able to discover many other courses so favorable to “orriginal rresearch” as was Philosophy 4. That is twenty years ago, To-day Bertie is treasurer of the New Amsterdam Trust Company, in Wall Street; Billy is superintendent of passenger traffic of the New York and Chicago Air Line. Oscar is successful too. He has acquired a lot of information. His smile is unchanged. He has published a careful work entitled “The Minor Poets of Cinquecento,” and he writes book reviews for the Evening Post.