"Johnnie, Johnnie, Dagnan,Johnnie, Johnnie, Dagnan,Do you want me?No, sir-r-ee,Not this afternoon, 'ternoon, 'ternoon, 'ternoon."
"Johnnie, Johnnie, Dagnan,Johnnie, Johnnie, Dagnan,Do you want me?No, sir-r-ee,Not this afternoon, 'ternoon, 'ternoon, 'ternoon."
"Johnnie, Johnnie, Dagnan,
Johnnie, Johnnie, Dagnan,
Do you want me?
No, sir-r-ee,
Not this afternoon, 'ternoon, 'ternoon, 'ternoon."
That is what a crowd of noisy, lazy, slouchy-looking fellows, in a circle in front of Reunion were singing to a little, old, dried-up man, with a plaintive face and blue uniform, in the centre of it.
John Dagnan, chief of college police and envoy extraordinary to the faculty, cast a sad reproachful glance at two of the number to whom he had borne many a summons to appear at one o'clock, and then relapsed into his characteristic melancholy silence, gazing inscrutably into the distance.
Over by the elm in front of thePrincetonianOffice were four seniors pitching pennies and looking very much in earnest over it. Up and down in front of the shambling old buildingtwo or three base-balls were flying back and forth over or against the heads of the loafers and passers-by. Several other groups were merely sitting on the steps or standing on the stone walks, talking or whistling or waiting for nothing.
The steps in front of the entry door were so crowded that young Symington, following his friend Tucker, had to tread upon some of the loungers to get inside. But the loungers were used to that and did not stop their conversation. It's easier than arising.
Symington would have liked to stop and watch the fellows pitching pennies, and hear more of the song, and see what the little policeman was going to do about it, but he did not say a word. He merely followed Tucker up to his room and wondered why he failed to notice it.
Charlie Symington was a well-built prep. boy who had been known to strike out three men with the bases full. He had been invited to spend Sunday in Princeton by some important athletic men in order that he might see how much better their college was than all others in the world. This was because Charles was young and foolish and had shown signs of shifting his youthful affections and his future athleticbrilliance to that other college where two of his intimate friends were going, and which had brilliance enough already.
These athletic officials thought that this would be narrow-minded in him, and they were giving him a very good time. The way they did it was not by treating him as a distinguished guest or by telling him what a fine fellow he was, which would have turned the little boy's head and have made him think he could do as he pleased. They simply said "Come," and when he came, let him walk around with them.
For they were a right conceited lot in regard to their college, and thought that all they had to do was put a boy on the campus, let him use his eyes and breathe the air and get it in his young system, and his good sense would do the rest. If it did not, his sense was not good and they did not want him, thought they.
As for the young pitcher, he did not quite understand why these great and awful men whom he had often heard of were so kind to him, and he did not care. He only opened his eyes and ears and shut his mouth, and let his friends do whatever they wanted with him and thought it was very nice in them.
And that is all I am going to tell of; whatSymington the prep. drank in with his eyes and ears open and his mouth closed. Nothing will happen.
A lame arm had laid him off his team for the usual Saturday game, so he had arrived in Princeton this afternoon in time to see the 'varsity play with a small college nine. He watched the game critically and closely, and passed judgment on each player—under his breath.
He knew the initials, age, class, and previous history of every man on the team, and he could have told you just what each one did and did not in the seventh inning of the Yale game two years before. In regard to the important games previous to that he was somewhat hazy. He was only sure of the scores by innings, the total base hits, and the errors, though he hated to confess it.
Tucker, the Base-ball president, had honored him to the extent of allowing him to sit on the bench under the canopy with the team. Here was a splendid opportunity of gazing upon their faces at close range. Once when the third baseman came in breathless from a home run, with perspiration running down his face, he tripped on Symington's toe and said to him in a loud tone, in order to be heard above theapplause, "Pardon me, Symington," which Charlie did.
After the game, which was of the subdued, half-holiday recreation sort, good to bring either a pipe or a girl to, without fear of putting either out by inattention, Tucker, the president, brought him up the street and through the noisy quadrangle to Reunion Hall where he now was ascending the stairs.
Tucker opened the door and picked up a dozen or more letters from the floor and said, "Sit down, Charlie," and began to assort them.
But he said "Sit down Charlie" in an absent-minded tone, and Charlie knew that, and so he looked about the room instead. He thought this was the kind of a room a college man ought to have. He gazed at everything in it from the oar of the last Princeton crew (which must have rowed in triremes—there are two hundred and nine of those oars) to the small photograph of a girl's face in a dainty little figured blue silk frame, all alone over Tucker's desk. That was the first thing he had discovered of which he could not approve. It grieved him to be obliged to think that of Tucker. He seemed such a fine fellow, too.
Just then Mercer, the treasurer, came in with his rattling tin-box, and talked business withTucker, who nodded his head and kept on opening and glancing through letters.
Symington tried not to listen, but he couldn't help hearing, so he got up again and went to the window. A great lot of racket was going on in the quadrangle below. Somebody had thrown some water out of a window at somebody else, and now they were trying to throw stones back without breaking glass, which was hard to do. Everyone was shouting or yelling, or both, and it was echoing from Old North and College Offices. This is called Horse.
It interrupted Tucker so that he had to raise his voice and repeat several times what he said to Mercer. Finally the voices became louder than he liked. Stepping across the room in a matter-of-fact way with an open letter in his other hand, he threw down the window from the top, with a shrill squeak, and said, in a casual tone, "Ah, I'm afraid you'll have to be just a little bit more quiet down there. You're getting a trifle too noisy. There, that's better," and went on with his sentence to Mercer, who answered, "That's so. Shall I wire him about it?" The racket had suddenly subsided.
Symington the prep. sat down and looked at Tucker. But the senior changed his expression no more than when he knocked the ashes out ofhis pipe. Charles asked no questions because he was not that kind of a prep., but he arose, went to the window again and looked at the horse-players. Then he looked at Tucker once more. Most of them were bigger than Tucker.
They acted as if nothing unusual had taken place. They were laughing now at something else, only it was quiet laughter. They were under-classmen.
The two athletic officers were busy now, the president talking very rapidly and seriously, and the treasurer listening intently. Symington, the prep., gazed out of the window as only preps. can gaze. He found it interesting enough.
It was that hour of the day when the undergraduate leaves whatever has been occupying his attention, and thrusts his hands deep into his pockets, and heads for the spot in town where he feels like going three times every day. There were dozens of them in sight doing it now.
The prep. thought it odd, the way some of them stood still out in the middle of the campus, and with their eyes turned toward an upper story of one of the buildings yelled, "Hello-o, Sam, going down to grub?" or beseechingly,"Please shake it up," or commandingly, "Get a move up there!" He liked it though.
He could hear footsteps rumbling down the entry stairs, then the door slam, and then the man himself would emerge in sight. He saw them coming out of North, too, and from West, and he could make out others, way over by East College. Many of them headed toward Nassau Street. Some set out in the direction of the Chapel. Others turned toward the Gymnasium. Nearly all of them whistled or made a noise of some sort as they went along.
One fellow, a tremendous man, was stalking by with his head thrown back, singing at the top of his voice. But the funny part of it to Symington was that the big fellow's face seemed utterly unconscious of whether any one was around to see him or not. He was all alone, and he seemed to be having a quiet, comfortable time of it.
When the clock tolled six Tucker arose and said, "Now we'll go and get some dinner, Charlie—Pat, Symington and I dine at the Athletic Club this evening. We'll see you later." Pat was Mercer's right name.
Symington was glad to hear that he was to dine at the Athletic Club this evening. He had read all about this affair, and had seen picturesof it inHarper's Weekly. But he listened attentively to all Tucker had to say on the way down.
His friend opened the heavy oaken door with a small flat key, explaining that it was necessary to keep the doors locked because the mob would otherwise make themselves at home in there. "You see, Charlie," he said, "although this is the training-quarters it is a private club, and not a public affair like the field-house we were in this afternoon. But the membership is open to every one for competition. When you come to college, if you make the team, you will be a member as long as you are training with it. If you become a captain or get any of the Athletic offices you'll be a life member."
But Symington the prep. was not listening to that. When the door opened he caught a glimpse of a big brick fireplace with tiling over it, on which was inscribed "Oranje Boven," and higher up were footballs hung in clusters with scores painted upon them, and all about the wainscoted walls of the hallway were baseball and football and lacrosse championship banners with gilt lettering. That's what he was paying attention to.
"Yes, leave your cap there, any place. Now I want to see what you're good for in this line.We'll go over the house afterward." Tucker led the way toward the sound of knives and forks.
Now it should be understood that Symington, the head man of the school, was not afraid of anything on earth, and if he were dining at Prospect with the President of the University, it would not have mattered. But to walk straight into a room and be introduced to the captain of the team was a little too much. It took his appetite away at first, and he thought he could eat none of that famous training food of which he had heard. However, the shock soon passed.
He was presented to all the members of the nine, and to the subs and to the trainer, and also to two professional pitchers from the Brooklyn League team, who were down to coach the players, and who were just now eating with their knives a huge meal at a little side-table.
Symington was given a seat next to Jack, the trainer, who was cordial and kind to him, and said, "Oh, me boy, you must eat more than that."
The meal seemed to be a very business-like affair. The men were brown from their exercise in the sun, and ruddy and glowing from their recent rub down, and hungry from both causes, and they devoured great sections of rare beef as though they knew it was their duty to get strong for Old Nassau.
The conversation was quite shoppy. When he had finished, the captain pushed back his chair from the table and said, "Fellows, you played a pretty good game to-day. But we've got to brace up in team work. When a man's on a base we must simply push him the rest of the way around."
As soon as dessert was finished, Tucker said, "I want to smoke. Let's start up for the singing, Charlie."
Symington would have liked to explore the rest of the club-house, though of course he did not say so. He did not even ask what the singing meant. But as they arose to leave the table he did ask a question about one of the portraits of the ancient and modern athletic heroes which line the walls.
"Yes, Charlie," said Tucker, "that's he."
"I remember just how he looked when he made that long, low drive, that time, in the ninth inning," Symington said, solemnly.
"Yes," said Tucker, briefly, "a great many of us will always remember his long, low drives. Here is your cap."
This was in reference to a large portrait at the end of the room. The frame had a deep black border.
Tucker and his friend, the other fellow, theUniversity treasurer, whose name the prep. had forgotten, waited until entirely out of the house before lighting their pipes.
Two or three of the team joined Tucker and Symington and the University treasurer. The prep. felt that one of them was coming up beside him. He waited a moment and then glanced out of the corner of his eye. He caught his breath, but did not fall down. It was the captain of the 'varsity nine.
It's a very fine thing to be head man of your school and pitcher on your team, but oh, if the school could see him now!
"How do you like our club?" asked the captain in a voice something like other men's.
"I like the club," said Symington.
"Yes, we think it's a pretty comfortable place. Come down to-morrow and we'll show you the Trophy-room and all." Then he began to question him about his team at school.
To Symington's surprise and delight the captain seemed to know the score of all the important games they had played and how many—or how few—base hits had been gained in each one off him, Charles Symington. And he can tell you to this day every word of the conversation and at what point of the walk it was when the captain said, "Well, you are pitchingpretty good ball this year. This is McCosh walk. Look at those trees."
"Yes," said Symington.
The soft evening light was sifting down through the interlacing branches, making a glow to dream about, which Symington did not notice. He had no time to waste at present.
They passed between Chapel and Murray Hall and across back of West toward North. Just as they reached Old Chapel strange notes of music broke in on the prep.'s ears. At first he could not make up his mind whether it was vocal or instrumental, or whether it was real at all, in fact, or part of a dream like everything else perhaps. The seniors were singing, and from that part of the campus it echoes oddly, as you doubtless know.
When they turned the corner and were on the front campus a wonderful sight met the prep.'s eyes. On the steps of Old North, and spilling over upon the stone walks in front and filling up the window casements on either side, was the senior class in duck trousers and careless attitudes with the dark green of many class-ivies for a background and the mellow brown wall of the ancient pile showing through in places. Most of the fellows had an arm about one or two others.
One of the number was standing up in front beating time with a foldedPrincetonian. They were singing a dear old song called "Annie Lyle." Their voices came rich and sweet in the twilight air.
Under the wide elms were the rest of the college. Also the poor post-graduates and some of the faculty's families and the little muckers, and even a few seminary students from over the way. But only the undergraduates seemed becoming to the scene. The others rather spoiled the effect.
Some of the fellows were sprawled out flat on their backs looking up through the tree-tops at the fading blue. Some rested their heads on each other and got all mixed up so that no one could tell which were his own legs. Others were strolling about or looking at the strangers who came to spend Sunday or to see the game. A few were passing tennis-balls and being cursed by the rest. All of them wore négligé clothes or worse.
The captain said he did not feel like singing and led Symington across in front of the seniors and made him sit down beside him on the grass. This was in the eyes of the whole University.
Symington was quite near the men on thesteps. He looked them over and tried to catch the joke they were all laughing at now the song was finished. He thought it would be a right fine thing to sit up there and sing to a college. And he made up his mind that if he ever did it he would climb up on top of one of the lion's heads like that little short fellow with the long pipe.
After singing "Rumski Ho" in long, measured cadence, and other good old things and several new ones, some one on the steps began shouting, "Brown! Brown!" Several voices said, in concert, "Wemusthave Brown." Out in the crowd they began crying, "Right! Brown. We want Brown! Wemusthave Brown!"
Three seniors lay hold of one senior and lifted him to his feet. Symington could hear him saying, "Don't, don't. I'm a chestnut. They won't listen to me any more. Please don't make a fool of me, fellows." But he was made to stand out in front and sing a solo.
While this was going on the rest of the college jumped up from their places and pressed up into a close semicircle about the steps. Symington and the captain had to arise to keep from being trampled on.
When Brown finished his solo he was applauded so much that he had to sing another,and Symington made up his mind that next to being the captain he would most like to be Brown.
Then the crowd called for "Timber," and a man got up who had the queerest face Symington ever saw. He looked as if he were trying with all his might to look serious and would never succeed. Everyone began to laugh the moment Timberly stood up, especially his own classmates. And when he began to sing his comic ballad they laughed still more.
When he finished, the audience clapped their hands and yelled. A crowd of juniors gave the college cheer and ended with the words "Timberly's Solo." In some respects Symington liked Timberly more than Brown.
When Timberly at last, looking sad, sat down, Symington heard several voices saying "Everybody up." Those on the ground arose, and those in the windows jumped down. Symington got up too, though he did not know why, and took off his cap when he saw the captain do it.
It was late twilight. The campus was becoming dusky. The faces were dim. The ball-throwing had ceased, and the little muckers had left. The elms were sighing softly overhead in a patriarchal sort of way. Symingtonthought everyone seemed more quiet and solemn than they were before. Perhaps he only imagined it.
Then, with all the seniors on their feet, with their heads uncovered, the leader waved his white baton, and over one hundred voices sang "Tune every heart and every voice, Bid every care withdraw," and the rest of the college hymn.
Many of the audience joined in, and nobody thought it fresh in them; and Symington would have liked to join in too, only he did not know how. He felt very queer for some reason, and forgot who was standing beside him for a moment. The poetry of the scene was getting into him. He didn't know that, of course, but he had a vague feeling that this was living, and that it was good for him to be there.
When the hymn was finished the class cheered for itself and for the college, and for itself again; and the senior singing was over.
From all over the front campus there suddenly broke out in many loud discordant keys, "Hello, Billy Minot" and "Hello, Jimmy Linton" and "hello" Johnnys and Harrys and Reddys and Dicks, and Drunks, and Deans, and Fathers, and Mables and horses and dogs and houses and others. As each found theman he wanted, an arm or two was thrown about a neck or two, and they started off for some other part of the campus or town.
The captain had also helloed for someone. Symington was left alone for a moment. But he was not exactly alone. He listened to the scraps of talk as the fellows moved past. "Pretty good singing this evening.... Get to work now.... At Dohm's.... I told him to come up.... New York to get advertisements.... The Trigonometry.... Trials for the Gun Club....PrincetonianSubscriptions now.... The mandolin to some girls that came to see the game with him.... You damn sour ball." Some of them were humming the last notes of the song. Others were saying nothing.
A loud clear voice beside him called "Hello, Charlie Symington." It was Tucker looking for him in the dusk, and he called him just as they called to college men. Symington was to meet the captain again later on. Tucker put his arm about Charlie's shoulders as they stepped along toward Reunion. Perhaps he did it unconsciously.
"You can amuse yourself with these," said Tucker, tossing into Charlie's lap a copy of theBric-a-Brac, which he had read long ago atschool, and a lot of photographs. "And if you want a nap," he added "just read that." He threw across the room the last number of theNassau Lit. That's a very old joke.
Tucker then turned to his desk and got to work over something. Symington did not know what it was, and of course did not ask. But it was not fifteen minutes before "Hello-o, Tommy Tucker" came in a loud voice from the quad, below. Tucker frowned and did not look up.
Then it came again, with a sharper accent on the second syllable, "Helloo, Tommy Tucker."
"Hello," Tucker replied, shortly.
"Are you up there?"
"No, I'm down at the 'varsity grounds running around the track."
"You busy?"
"Yes, Ted, I am. Don't come up."
"All right." Then a whistled tune began, and the shuffling of a pair of feet along the walk. Gradually they faded and mingled with other whistling and feet scraping.
While Symington was thinking this over he heard another voice calling for someone else, and when a muffled response came back, the clear, outside voice said, "Stick your head out!" He heard a window lowered and the inside voice say "Well?"
"Stick it in again."
The window slammed and the man below went on down to Dohm's, whistling softly to himself.
Symington, the prep., thought that was very funny and laughed aloud, and hoped he did not disturb his host by so doing.
Presently someone else yelled for Tucker, and when he replied, "Yes, of course, I'm busy," the man below called back, "Too bad," and the entry stairs began to clatter. In a moment a broad smile and a pair of clean duck trousers burst into the room.
"Timberly," said Tucker, smiling in spite of himself, "I thought I told you not to come up here this evening."
"I believe you did. That's so." Timberly was trying to look serious. Then brightening up at the sight of Symington as if remembering something. "But you see," he said, "I wanted to meet the pitcher." Tucker grinned and introduced them.
Timberly shook Symington's hand vigorously and said, "Wasn't that a smooth song I sang on the steps—hey? I'm a good one, only none of 'em appreciate me. Oh, yes, I nearly forgot—I'm up here on business. I'm up here on business, Tommy Tucker," he repeated, and daintilykicked off Tucker's cap and disappeared into one of the bedrooms. Tucker kept on working. Symington wondered what Timberly was doing.
It was nearly half-past eight now, and other fellows began dropping in. Some helloed first and some came unannounced. Tucker looked up to see who they were. Sometimes he said "Hello" and sometimes he did not. Some of them took off their caps. Others did not. Tucker left it to the first ones to introduce Symington to the later ones.
After half an hour's absence Timberly emerged from the room finishing a sentence he had begun before he opened the door. "And Tommy, you must do the rest. You can tie them so nicely too."
"Tommy, look," said the man with the banjo on the sofa.
Timberly was standing up straight, nicely incased in evening clothes and holding two ends of a white tie in his hands. He looked well-groomed and seemed like a different man now. Perhaps he was.
"What are you doing?" said Tucker, in a stern voice.
"I've got to do it. It's two years now, and it's not good form to let a dinner call go morethan two years in Princeton. Here, Tommy, fix this."
"Do it yourself."
"These were great friends of my brother's, and he made me promise on the Family Bible, if we have one. Here, tie this. Great Scott, I've done all the rest. They are your own clothes. You ought to at least be willing to fix the tie."
Tucker put his pen between his teeth and tied the knot with Timberly kneeling at his feet like a patient child having his face washed. Tucker was one of the three men in college who could make a decent job of a tie on another man's neck without standing behind him. The others looked on in silence. Timberly looked up and winked at the prep.
As a rule Symington did not like people to wink at him, as though he were a boy, but this was a most peculiar wink. He not only liked it but nearly snorted out with laughter, which would have been a very kiddish thing to do.
Timberly jumped up. "You're a pretty nice fellow, Tommy Tucker, even though you are arrogant," he said, and leaned over and rubbed his chin affectionately across Tucker's nose, then grabbed his cap and started for the door.
"By the way Timber," said Tucker. "Iwant you to return those clothes some time. Do you hear? I may go out of town next week."
"That sounds reasonable," replied Timberly, reflectively rattling the knob as he glanced about the room at the others.
"And I don't want to chase all over the campus for 'em. Do you hear?"
"Now, Tommy Tucker, you talk as if I were accustomed to keeping things I borrow. What are you fellows laughing at? Besides, you know very well, T. Tucker, that even if I should happen to forget to return your suit, all you would have to do would be to wire down home for mine—or, no, ask me and I'd wire down myself and save you the trouble." He banged the door.
"Now do you suppose," laughed the one with the cigar on the divan as Timberly's feet in Tucker's patent leathers went pattering down the stairs, "that Timber thought he was in earnest in that last brilliant remark of his, or was it meant for horse." You could seldom tell with Timberly.
"I don't believe he knew himself," said the man with his feet on the arms of Symington's chair. "He's on one of his streaks to-day. I saw the symptoms this morning in Ethics. And when he's that way he's as good as crazy."
"Right," said the one with the banjo. "He don't know what he's saying any more than he knows that he has a cap on his head with a dress suit. If he were in his right mind he would not go out calling."
"He'll either make a fool of himself this evening wherever he goes, or else he'll make one of those great tears of his."
But Symington the prep. thought Timberly was about the best fun in the world.
Some of the fellows left and others came in. Symington thought some of them behaved oddly. One man seemed very sour and came in scowling and sat down without saying hello to anybody. He put his feet on the table and pulled his cap down over his eyes. As soon as he finished his pipe and had emptied the ashes on the carpet to keep out the moths he arose and stretched himself and went away again. He had not said a word. And after he had left no one said anything about it.
That happened while the crowd was thickest. When there were only a few fellows in the room some one generally remembered to introduce the incomers to Symington. He rather liked the way they treated him. They did not, as a rule, patronize him because of his being a prep. And they did not take pains to make him feelat ease, which would have rattled him. They treated him more as if he were one of them, and talked to him, if they felt like it, and let him look after himself, if they did not. At least that is the way it seemed to Charlie. And they called him Charlie or Symington, without any Mister, which would have made him feel ridiculous.
And all this time Tucker at his desk kept on working and only looked up occasionally to say, "How are you, Willie, there's the tobacco, come in." The only time he arose from his seat was once when Jack the trainer came in, and looking at the crowd said, "Mister Tucker, can I speak with ye a moment." The busy man said "Certainly" and led the way into his bedroom and closed the door with a bang, and came out again in a few minutes saying, "All right Jack, I appreciate your position. I'll see to it. Good-night," and sat down to work again.
At a little before eleven the prep. began to feel the force of training habits. He was gritting his teeth hard to keep from yawning. Tucker, who had not looked up for nearly an hour, whisked his papers and things to one side, slammed two drawers, turned a lock, and suddenly jumped up from his chair. He ran across the room with a yell which startled the prep. andmade the chandelier ring. Then he threw himself upon two fellows on the divan and began calling them names. His teeth were set and his face so fierce that the prep. found it difficult to keep from believing him angry. And then the two on the divan arose in their might and cast him upon the floor, exclaiming, victoriously, "There, be Gosh." Tucker was through his work for the week and was feeling glad about it. That was his way of expressing it.
"Now, Charlie," he said in a loud, careless manner, "we go out and have some fun now. Here's a cap. Don't wear that ugly stiff hat any more. See?"
Symington had no idea where he was going, but he arose and said good-by to the three others in the room. They did not seem to feel badly in the least over their rude treatment on the part of their host. One of them, sitting on a table with one foot on a chair and the other on the floor, was reading a book of verses and did not look up when Tucker said, "So long." The other two, who had been talking about the baseball prospects and including Symington in their conversation, remained flat on their backs talking about the baseball prospects without Symington.
It was a beautiful evening. In other words itwas spring term and the night was clear. There were still groups of fellows seated on the doorsteps or stretched out under the trees. The gleam of their flannels could be seen in the dark. They were up in the balconies also. One of them knocked the ashes from his pipe and Symington saw the sparks float down. He heard a low laugh come from one of the wide open windows. Up from Witherspoon came the tinkle of mandolin music. They were playing to some visiting girls on those broad balconies in front.
"This is West," said Tucker; "Jack Stehman lives in that room up there and Harry Lawrence in the one below——"
"Oh, Stehman the tackle?" asked the prep.
"Yes. Have you met him?"
"No."
"You will to-night."
The prep.'s heart gave a bound. He was to meet Stehman.
They passed down by Clio Hall and dingy Edwards and turned toward a long gray building a little to the left.
"This is Dod Hall," Tucker said, and opened one of the big doors.
They went up two or three flights of stairs and turned down the hall, and Tucker kicked adoor at the end of it. Something clicked and the door opened of itself. Four or five voices shouted, "Come in."
Mingled bits of conversation and tobacco smoke and the odor of lemon-peel met them in the little hall-way as they entered it. But Symington the prep. looked behind the door and made up his mind that his door would have an electric apparatus like that when he came to college.
A fellow stuck his head out of one of the bedroom doors and pointing across the hall-way to the main room with a long, bright deer-knife, said, "Come in, Tom, I'll be there in a moment." He rubbed perspiration from his brow with the back of the hand which held a lemon and disappeared into the bedroom.
"Yea-a-a!" cried several voices as Tucker pushed back the portière and stood in the door-way. "Come in, Tommy," they said. "Come in, Symington," said one of the fellows that knew the prep.
"Fellows, this is my friend Symington, the prep.'" said Tucker; "Symington, this is de gang." Tucker tossed his cap and Symington's gracefully into the scrap-basket and pushed Charlie into a seat on the sofa. A fellow with spectacles began asking him what he thought ofthe afternoon's game. The prep. did not know the man's name, but that did not matter.
There were about a dozen fellows scattered about the room, but the thing that attracted Symington's attention was in the centre of it.
Two square-topped desks had been placed end to end. On these lay a table-cloth, or rather some sheets, and on them was stacked a pile of things good to look at and better to eat. The only reason the food did not immediately become part of the dozen fellows was because they were waiting with watering mouths for something to wash it down with. And this was being prepared as rapidly as Randolph and Ashley in the bedroom could do it. Perhaps they were trying to do it too rapidly, for Symington heard a voice exclaim, "Aw, look out, you ass, you're spilling it all over my bed."
While they were waiting, Dougal Davis and Reddy Armstrong and Harry Lawrence and Jim Linton and others came in. When the lounge, window-seat, chairs, tables, and coal-scuttle became crowded, the new-comers sat on the floor.
Presently the introductory strains of Mendelssohn's "Wedding March" came from the bedroom, followed by Randy and Dad Ashley and two assistants bearing aloft two basins, whichseemed to be heavy. They strode in, swinging their feet far out in front in a stagey manner to the tune of the "Wedding March" which they shouted with their heads thrown back.
Hunter Ramsay jumped up and marched behind them. The rest thought this a good idea and did likewise, and all sang loud and stamped hard and made the poler growl in the room below, which did no good. Then after marching twice around the table they carefully set the bowls down at either end of it with the ice tinkling against the sides. One of the bowl-bearers remarked, "Maybe you don't think those things are heavy."
"Now then!" said Stehman the tackle, approaching the table. "Ah!" said Symington's friend Tucker. The others may have said things also. If they did not they looked them.
No one waited to be asked. Everyone was supposed to know without being told what was the object of white breasts of cold chicken with russet-brown skin, and rich Virginia ham with spices sticking in the golden-brown outside fat, and little, thin, home-made sandwiches and olives and jellies, Virginia jellies, you know, and beaten biscuit and chocolate cake and fruit cake, or black cake, as they call it in the South. As a matter of fact they all did seem to know, andthis included Symington, who held his own with the others very well for a little prep. boy in training. He had forgotten to be sleepy now.
Thus began one of the greatest evenings in the life of Charlie Symington, and it lasted until two o'clock. It was an old-fashioned spread. There was no caterer with a gas-stove in the bedroom, or a table set with a bank of flowers down the centre, or properly attired waiters opening wine behind the chairs. Randolph's mother had sent up a lot of deliciously cooked stuff from the old place in Virginia. Randolph had said to some of the fellows, "I've got a box of grub. Can you come 'round this evening?" And by the looks of things most of them had found that they could as well as not.
Symington had the best time of them all, and, besides, he learned much. He noticed that quite as many fellows took lemonade as drank punch, and this was a matter of surprise to the prep. For his ideas of college men were largely drawn from would-be sportive young freshmen that drove through prep. school towns waving beer-bottles overhead and beating their horses into a gallop.
Nobody got drunk. Everyone became livelier and brighter and better, but that is the object ofsuch gatherings, and those who confined their attentions to the lemonade end of the table were as noisy as the others. No one was urged to take the red fluid rather than the yellow. In fact no one observed which fellows visited which punch-bowl. No one but Symington. And he had been under the impression that at college a fellow's jaws were pried open with a baseball bat and rum was poured down his throat, while three other men held his legs and arms.
The room had now become beautifully hazy with smoke. Some of the fellows tipped their chairs back and put their feet up. The window-seat was full to overflowing. One man rested his head on another fellow's shoulder and asked him to muss his hair. The legs of the one having his hair mussed stretched out over the legs of two other fellows and intertwined with those of a third. Two men were sitting beside the oranges on the table. Some were on the floor with their backs against the wall. All had full stomachs and light jovial spirits. Symington was watching Dougal Davis blow rings.
Harry Lawrence started up "The Orange and the Black." They sang all the stanzas. Then they sang more songs, old songs which are still popular and new songs which were then popularand are now quite forgotten, probably. Everyone sang, whether he knew how or not. Symington sang too. The one he liked the best was a funny song beginning, "Oh, to-day is the day that he comes from the city." They sang that one over and over again. Then they sang it once more. They were all having a good time.
After a while the room became quiet and someone turned down the lights and they told ghost stories, which frightened the prep.
They wound up the evening by trooping downstairs in the dark, for the lights were turned out long ago, and marching up to the front campus, singing as they went. And there they danced about the cannon and sang and whooped and yelled until Bill Leggett came over with his lantern and said, in his gruff voice and good-natured manner, "Boys, it's nearly Sunday morning."
"All right, Bill," they answered. Then all said good-night and went to bed.
Tucker had a roommate some place, but Symington had his bedroom that night.
"If you want anything, just yell for me, Charlie. My room is right next, you know. Goodnight." Tucker was half undressed.
"I sha'n't want anything. Wait a minute, Tucker, please. I'm not sure about something, and it bothers me."
"Well?"
"Princeton won the football championship in '78, didn't we?"
"Say that again."
"Didn't we win in '78?"
"Yes, Charlie, we did."
Symington thought his friend Tucker was smiling at his ignorance. But that wasn't it.
The Latin salutatory was finished. Dougal Davis bowed and took his seat and the applause began.
He had done well and he knew it, but he did not stop to dwell upon that now. There would be plenty of time to feel pleased with himself later on. At present his chief sensation was of jubilant relief at telling himself that the thing was over with at last.
Not many of his audience had understood much of what he had been saying, but that did not matter. The fellows smiled at the right time when he said something aboutpuellas pulchras, and they nodded their heads knowingly when he made the reference to athletics, as he had told them beforehand to do. And he had gotten through without forgetting the paragraph beginning with "Postquam," as he feared he would.
He was mopping his good-looking brow. His nerves were still quivering, but he felt perfectly cool and unafraid of anything, and he sat very still with his eyes half closed, and felt the tensionon his nerves soothingly relax. Then for the first time he heard the applause, and it occurred to him that all those many people out there were clapping their hands for him, and that for five minutes they had heard very little else but his voice, and he felt without glancing up that they were still looking at him and very likely thinking, "That is the man that led the class." He told himself all this with an inward smile of wonder at his own importance, and at his not being more impressed by it.
Then he slowly raised his eyes and moved his gaze around over the many fluttering fans to the right. He passed over it once without seeing it, then he found the face he was searching for. She was looking up at him with just the kind of a smile that he knew would be there, and when she caught his eye, the smile became radiant, and he fancied he saw a little look of triumph in it. This he answered with a shrug of his engowned shoulder and an almost imperceptible grimace, and quickly looked away again. No one else saw it, but she saw and she understood.
The applause had ceased, and the next man was introduced and the audience turned their attention to him.
Davis took a long breath and looked about him. There was a fat old lady fanning vigorously,and at every stroke of the fan a ray of light was reflected in his face. Over there on the right of the platform were the venerable trustees. Harry Lawrence's fine looking father, with the handsome head of gray hair, was in the front row, looking grave and indulgently interested. On the left were the faculty in their black gowns. They appeared more or less accustomed to all this. Down in front were his classmates, and back of these the many, many people closely crowded together. Their faces looked like little patches of white with dark marks for features, and nearly all of them seemed to be fanning.
He remembered the lining up under the elms this morning in front of North, and the band that played, and the girls that gazed, and the many classes calling "'82 this way!" and "'61 this way!" and the old-fashioned cheer that '79 gave. Then with the band taking a fresh hold on the air, how the long procession had begun its march under the trees toward the church, between the crowds of visitors who parted to either side and looked at them as they filed by.
First came that member of the faculty who is always grand marshal and carries an orange and black baton, then the august trustees followed by the faculty in their gowns and mortar boards,and behind these trooped the sons of Nassau; each class in the order of graduation, and last of all those who were about to become graduates, over whom all this fuss was being made, and who were somewhat impressed by it and by the length of their gowns.
He remembered the slow, dignified march led by the grand usher and his assistants up the aisle of the old church between the crowded pews of smiling fathers and proud mothers and the girls with bright-colored dresses. He recalled how amused and yet pleased he was at hearing a junior whisper to a girl beside him, "There he is—that's Davis, the one I was telling you about." This he remembered had interrupted the silent rehearsal of the sentence with the ablative absolute in it. But he did not have to rehearse it any more. All the salutatorian had to do was to sit still and hear what the other speakers had to say and feel good.
He was thinking about himself and the four years just past, and having a right good time at it. He recalled how he had been a nobody at the start, and he smiled as he remembered how some of these very fellows in the pews before him had looked down on him in freshman year, and how he had forced their respect and won their liking. He traced the progress of itfrom the first step when he gained the one freshman position on thePrincetonianboard and overheard someone say, "What! that poler?" up to the present time when people pointed him out on the campus and said, "There goes Dougal Davis." Few ambitious men graduate with as much to be proud of and as little to regret.
First there was the prize for leading the class in freshman year, then came the sophomore essay prize, and the Washington's birthday debate, and the next year a classical prize and two or three Hall honors, including one of the four appointments for the inter-Hall junior oratorical contest, in which he had won first place, and a number of other prizes of which he did not stop to think in detail, and finally the appointment as first representative of his Hall in the Lynde debate which had taken place the night before, and the result of which would be announced to-day. Intermingled with these were other honors, such as the membership of an elective club, and the presidency of his class in junior year, and the class oratorship on Class Day, and then the Latin salutatory to-day.
You see he had just about all one man could get, and before he left the room he was going to hear his name read out before everybody, as the winner of still a few more honors. This was theculmination of a rather successful career, and he told himself that he did not care how conceited it was, he was going to enjoy it for all it was worth, for before the sun set he would be an undergraduate no longer, and there would be plenty of time to find how small he was.
Dougal Davis was the son of a foreign missionary, and he had entered college with the intention of making a minister of the Gospel of himself. He still had that intention. He was one of the most popular men on the campus.
When he began his course he was as bristling with prejudices and as redolent of sanctimony as many high-minded young men of noble purpose and little tact, but unlike some of them he had sense of humor enough to find out pretty promptly that he was a young prig.
He soon shed many of his prejudices, and he was fair-minded enough to let the good wholesome atmosphere of the campus air out his sanctimony. This is a way of saying that early in freshman year he took himself in hand and decided that if he and a number of other fellows looked at a number of things in vastly different ways it did not necessarily follow that the other fellows were dead wrong. He was in evidence at class prayer-meetings, but not more than at the meetings at the lamp-post in front of Reunion,with his hands doubled up under a sweater, gossiping with the crowd. That is the sort of a fellow he was.
Davis's father had a small salary and a large family, like all missionaries, and one of the girls had come back to the States when Dougal did to go to a school in Philadelphia. So young Davis earned the price of his education.
But this was not so hard as it sounds. Being a minister's son he had a scholarship, which saved his tuition bills, and he ran a club, so that his board cost nothing. Leading the class in freshman year not only brought him the prize of $200, but the best kind of advertising with the faculty as well, so that in sophomore year he had more tutoring sent around to him than he knew what to do with. Then he became Princeton correspondent for several papers, and dropped tutoring except on special occasions and at very special rates. He had such a reputation that he could have had any price he asked. "Go to Davis; he can put you through any examination," they used to say.
In junior year he enlarged his newspaper correspondence and began doing some syndicate work. He gained a bit of reputation with football writing, and in his senior year he used to sign his name to a column of it every week."The joke of it is," Dougal used to explain, "I don't know beans about the game." This was not strictly true, for no one with eyes could go through four years of tramping down to 'varsity field without absorbing enough to enlighten the average sporting editor.
In short, before Davis was three-quarters of the way through his college course, he was paying his expenses and making a surplus which was considerably larger than that which poor young men who earn their way through college to preach the Gospel are supposed to have.
Now he might have sent a portion of it out to his hard-working parents in Persia, or have helped to defray the expenses of his ambitious sister at school. This would have been noble of him, but he did nothing of the kind. One does not need much money in Persia; there's nothing to spend it on. His people had a large, comfortable home with a dozen servants to look after it, and they seemed to have leisure enough to write articles for English and American magazines now and then. A rich aunt looked out for his sister, and she had the reputation of dressing more artistically than any girl in the Walnut Street school. The only thing he did for her was to send an occasional box of candy, or a book, likeany other brother. Davis did not even save his money. He blew it in on himself and his friends, like any other natural young man. What do you suppose he worked so hard for if it were not to go in with the rest of the club for coaches at Thanksgiving games, and to take runs to Philadelphia over Sunday, and to give spreads in his room on Saturday nights, and to do the other things for which one has sore need of money and for which he goes broke for about twenty days of each month? If Davis had been a modern undergraduate he would perhaps have spent money on good-looking clothes, though I hardly think that of him.
The only disadvantage in his way of living was that it took time, so that he did not have as much of it to loaf in as he would have liked. Especially as he was mixed up in half-a-dozen outside interests of the college world, and had a provokingly high stand in class to maintain besides. For although the fellows used to say he kept on leading his class from force of habit, as a matter of fact it took considerable valuable time.
The worst of it was that he had to do his reviewing up regularly week by week, for he was of no account at cramming all night for exams, he said. Perhaps this was true. When the crowdused to gather in half-undressed condition with wet towels around their heads and wild looks on their faces, Dougal generally stretched out upon the divan and drummed on a banjo, with his eyes half closed and a pipe in his mouth, and listened to the others quizzing and getting excited, and at twelve o'clock, except on rare occasions, he said good-night, and went to bed and slept like a child, and the next day would saunter into Examination Hall as fresh as a spring term Sunday, and write the best paper in the class. It is in this way that many fellows remember him best.
The reason he never seemed to be especially rushed was that he had the knack of arranging his time, and had learned while still in college that there are a great many moments in twenty-four hours. He went to breakfast before chapel, and he crammed a great deal into those odd hours that come between lectures, which most fellows spend in making up their minds what to do, and he found he better appreciated a loaf on Saturday night if he put in most of the daylight in work. It was in that way he managed to find time to keep up his Hall work and attend to hisPrincetonianduties and committee meetings and write orations and essays, besides managing one of the clubs and turning out an averageof one thousand words of copy a day in time to catch the afternoon mail.
And it was in this way that he managed to keep from breaking down under it. When the bell in North struck five he always tossed aside his book and ran down the stairs three steps at a time and yelled, "Hello, Tommy Tucker," or "Billy Nolan," or somebody with all his might, and with him took a rattling hard walk—not down Nassau Street, but 'cross country—or else an hour's pull at the weights in the gymnasium with a cold shower-bath and a hard rub at the end of it, and then walked tingling with health and content to the club, when he ate the largest meal of anyone there—except when big Stehman was back from the training-table.
After this he stretched his legs far under the table and leaned his head against the back of the chair, and there lingered with the coffee and gossip, blowing beautiful smoke rings for an hour. He had been known to refuse a $5 tutoring offer for this hour, just as he had once sacrificed an elective course in Greek philosophy for the five o'clock one.
During the past year Davis had been making up his mind to a few things. One of them was that he would go out to the foreign field. He could not say that he felt himself called to it.He did not sign the pledge that was circulated about in the colleges at that time as the "Student volunteer movement."
Ever since he could remember he had intended to be a preacher, though there was a period, which came about the same time as his first pair of trousers, when he thought he would rather be a dragoman with a fierce mustache and big buttons. And now he came to the conclusion that he would become a foreign missionary, like his father.
He felt that he was pretty well suited to the work and would make a success of it. He had a strong constitution, a good voice, and adaptability to circumstances. He knew pretty well by nature how to get at people, and the summer spent slumming down in Rivington Street, New York, had taught him considerably more. Besides, he already had the language down fine, and could stumble along tolerably well with two of the low dialects.
What is more, he thought he would like it. He did not tell himself that it was noble to go and bury himself way out there, for there wasn't any burying about it. He liked the climate and expected to have a good time in Persia, with a man-servant to bow low and make his coffee in the morning, and to fill his big, long pipe everyevening, and he pictured himself on a horse riding beside a certain blue river with peculiar big trees along the bank quite as often as saving souls.
At least this is the way he used to talk in pow-wows in fellows' rooms. But there were certain long-faced friends of his that misunderstood when he talked in this manner.
The salutatorian was not troubling himself about that just now, as he sat there on the stage resting his chin on one hand and fanning himself with a programme in the other. He had been idly listening to Nolan as he thundered and perspired about Purity in Politics. For his part he preferred gamey Billy Nolan, the all-round athlete, to earnest William the orator. Nervous little poler Stacy was now straining his lungs with his well-committed plea for the Greek Ideal. Davis was not following it very closely. He glanced down at his classmates in the front rows. He knew that before the day was over he was going to feel pretty sad. That was not troubling him very much now either. But every time he looked down there a certain thing bobbed up and spoiled the pleasant taste in his mouth. It was hardly worth getting uncomfortable over. This was the way it had begun, long ago lastfall, as they sat around the table after dinner talking football. And you can see how ridiculous it was to worry about it.
Davis was holding forth at some length with considerable earnestness, as he had a perfect right to do, of course, and Jim Linton had not joined in the discussion. He seldom did. He was quietly sipping his coffee at the end of the table and looking quizzically interested.
Presently he interrupted. "Oh, Dougal," he said. He had arisen to go and was refilling his pipe.
Dougal stopped short. "Yes?" he said in an intense tone.
Linton looked at him a moment, folded up his pouch, put it in his pocket, and struck a match.
Then he said, between puffs, "I'd a little rather you would not get excited, Dougal," and started off for the billiard-room.
It was nothing but a bit of ordinary club chaff such as passes back and forth every day, and Linton forgot the occurrence before he finished chalking his cue. But Dougal's cheeks had flushed crimson, and before he knew what he was saying he had come out with a muttered remark in which the word "gentleman" was loud enough for all at the table to hear, and that is a very awkward word to handle sometimes.
That was the reason no one said anything for a moment. Silences were rare in that room. He did not go on with the discussion of the defective coaching system. Nor did the others.
A little later as he started for the campus old Jack Stehman joined him and said, in his sober, conscientious way, "Say, Dougal, you had no business saying what you did about Jimmy. Of course you didn't mean it, but you had better apologize, don't you think?"
Davis said he did not look at it in that way, and changed the subject. Before he got to sleep that night he saw what a fool he had made of himself, and made up his mind to apologize to Linton before the whole table. But that was in the middle of the night.
The next day there were guests at the club. The following day Linton dined out. The day after that Davis tried to make himself do it as they sat about the fireplace, but he postponed it until some time when his heart was not beating so loud, for he did not feel himself called upon to make a scene before the whole club. When he thought over what he meant to say it all seemed very ridiculous, and he blushed at the thought of it. Linton of all fellows would dislike any slopping over of this sort. So hechanged his mind and decided to speak to Linton alone about it.
But it was a very hard thing for a man like Davis to talk to a man like Linton about a thing like this. There was something about Linton that he did not understand. He was the one man that made him self-conscious. He always felt as though Linton saw through him and understood how ambitious he was, and was laughing at him for his strenuous struggling. He told himself that he did not propose to be in awe of a lazy dilettante who thought himself a clever reader of human nature. But that did not help him to apologize. And the longer he put it off the harder it became, naturally. And the longer he put it off the more he found to dislike in Linton, which was also natural, only you would not have thought this of Davis.
After a while he began wondering how he had taken to Linton in the first place, and why the other fellows liked him so much. Every time they were together he began comparing himself with him. By most standards Davis ought to have been satisfied. Linton himself never seemed to think of comparison. He seemed to calmly take it for granted that Dougal was a wonderful man, and often referred to it as an acknowledged fact. He seemed to be glad tospeak of it. But he had a way of making fellows love him that was galling to the man that led the class.
All the college bowed down to Dougal Davis; not twenty under-classmen knew who Linton was. But Timberly and Reddy Armstrong and Jack Stehman had a way of throwing an arm about lazy Linton, whom they loved, that it did not occur to them to do with the wonderful Dougal Davis, whom they admired. Davis wanted that love. He wanted everything. You see he had quite a disposition to contend with.
So he kept on having disagreeable times with himself and the conscience which would not let up. Finally he made up his mind to patch it all up on Commencement Day, and he had hit upon a plan by which he could make just amends to Linton, he told himself, and duly punish himself at the same time, and then he could graduate in peace.
Meanwhile he would have to stop thinking about that and walk down from the stage with the other Commencement speakers, for Charles Benjamin Howard had finished telling people about the Utility of Difference, and the orchestra was playing "Ta-ra-ra boom de ay."
There was an intermission of ten minutes now. After that would come the announcementof prizes and the conferring of degrees, then Smith's valedictory, followed by the benediction, and then the class would walk out into the world with their little diplomas under their arms tied with pretty ribbons.
The audience changed their positions and looked about at the other people there, whispered to each other, and went to fanning again. Some of the fathers looked at their watches and yawned and wished Commencement was over with behind their programmes, and fell to thinking about things in the office which they had come here to forget.
Other old grads. smiled kindly, and remembered how they used to do when they were in college. The young alumnus looked pityingly at the graduating class in the front rows and thought how little these boys knew about the big world he knew so much of.
Meanwhile the juniors and the lower classmen were very active and noisy in the rear of the old church. The Whig men were gathering on the left-hand side, and Clio Hall on the right. Many reinforcements were arriving that had not been near the church during the other exercises. The aisles became jammed. The seats were already so.
Suddenly a man jumped up on a pew, andscreamed, "Now, fellows! Clio Hall, this way! Hip-hip!"
"Clio Hall—this way!" came out with startling force from many throats.
This woke everyone up, and those that had never been there before were a little shocked for a moment. The loud voices echoed strangely against the old walls and among the old pillars and under the old galleries, which by the way are used to all this and weren't surprised a bit. No doubt they miss it these days.
Then the left-hand side of the church raised its voice and said, "Whig Hall, this way! Whig Hall this wa-ay!" in still fiercer tones. Then Clio called itself together again, and then Whig Hall cheered and so did Clio, and gave a long cheer and so did Whig. Then both cheered for themselves at once, and tried to drown each other out, and succeeded. They kept this up until time was called. That is, the clerk of the board of trustees arose and stretched his long neck and began to announce the prizes from a long list in his hand. This was interesting.
Whenever he read out an award in his strong voice, it was met with a tremendous cheer from the Hall whose member won the prize. It mattered not whether the honor was one for which a literary society's training could count; theycheered anyway, whether it was a fellowship in modern languages or a prize in the School of Science draughtsmanship. Nor did it matter whether the man had never since the first week after his initiation worked the combination lock of the Hall door. They cheered him anyway. And when the two societies were in doubt as to which he belonged to, they both cheered. It made magnificent noise.
There are a great many of these prizes. One has no idea until Commencement comes that there are so many advertised in the catalogue; and the clerk read each one out in a loud voice, and then waited for the cheering to cease.
Dougal Davis had heard his name announced three times, and each time the cheer rang out from the enthusiastic throng in the rear he felt the little echoing thrill inside of him.
Once as he stepped down from the platform he caught a glimpse of a man leading the cheer for him. The man's back was turned, but he saw him standing there 'way up on the railing of the pew in his excitement, and he saw his arms vigorously jerking out the cheer.
Davis was used to this sort of thing and he held his features very well, though as he marched up for the third time he felt rather foolish, for the audience were smiling audibly atthe sight of Dougal Davis, of Persia, running off with so many prizes. Timberly asked him when he came down, "Why don't you stay up there, Dougal? I'd sit on the edge platform and swing my legs."
It was only at the announcement of the Lynde prize debate that he felt at all tremulous. His friends kept telling him that he was sure of it, but he felt that he would not get it. This is, as everyone knows, the greatest inter-Hall prize offered, and many people consider it the greatest honor of a college lifetime. It was quite enough for a fellow to feel weak at the stomach over. Dougal kept repeating under his breath, "What's the difference, what's the difference?" and he reminded himself that there were a second and a third prize as well as the first, and that any way, even if he won none of them, it was a pretty fine thing to have secured the appointment from his Hall. Besides, he was doing so many things that he could afford to drop an honor or two.
"The Lynde Prize Debate," came in the resonant tones of the tall, gaunt clerk. Everything was very still.
The cheerers were silent. The two leaders were standing on tip-toe, each with his elbows doubled up and mouth half open, ready to beginthe cheer. One of them, however, would have to keep still. Dougal shut his lips.
"First prize awarded to Dougal Davis, of Pers——"
Then came the loud, eager "'Ray! 'Ray! 'Ray!'" of the quick cheer, and then two more quick ones, and next a long one with "Davis!" on the end, then the word "Davis! Davis! Davis!" that way, three times. Then they began giving more quick cheers again and a few long ones, as if they had just started.
Meanwhile the clerk kept his sober gaze upon the paper in his hand, waiting to announce the second and third winners and pretending to be annoyed at the delay, though enjoying it as much as any girl in the audience.
"Good work, Dougal, good work," cried one of the four fellows pounding him on the back.
Dougal did not smile slightly or look unconcerned. He grinned all over his face and enjoyed it. As soon as the attention was taken away from him he leaned back in the corner of the pew and enjoyed it some more. That is the way to do.
He was still tense and excited from his victory when a few minutes later he heard the clerk reading off something about the new fellowship in Political Science. This was the onehe had gone in for, and he had felt doubtful over the result, because he had not been able to spend as much time upon it as he wanted to, and it required a great deal. However, the only other man in the race was nothing to be afraid of. But all the same a little dart of dread shot through him now, and he thought what if he should lose it after all. It would not do at all. This was what he wanted more than any of the honors. He had a particular reason for wanting to win it. This he failed to do.
Before he was quite aware of what was taking place the clerk had already made the announcement and the crowd were wildly cheering, cheering that other fellow as if they had never heard of Dougal Davis. He felt like a man that steps off a bridge in the dark; he heard the splash and felt a shock, but he did not know just what had happened. He had never been beaten in anything before. It came very hard. But that was not what made it hurt so much. It was because Linton had won it.