"Drink the wine divineAs long as you can stand it.Hand the bowl aroundAs long as you can hand it.Drink your glass,Drink your glass,Dri-i-i-i-ink—he's drunk it down."
"Drink the wine divineAs long as you can stand it.Hand the bowl aroundAs long as you can hand it.Drink your glass,Drink your glass,Dri-i-i-i-ink—he's drunk it down."
"Drink the wine divineAs long as you can stand it.Hand the bowl aroundAs long as you can hand it.Drink your glass,Drink your glass,Dri-i-i-i-ink—he's drunk it down."
"Drink the wine divine
As long as you can stand it.
Hand the bowl around
As long as you can hand it.
Drink your glass,
Drink your glass,
Dri-i-i-i-ink—he's drunk it down."
"Oh, Jim Hunter, have we your eye?"
Each new arrival in turn, called to his feet, rose and drained his glass to a hilarious accompaniment, while Stover, to his surprise, noted that fully a third of the crowd were ordering soft drinks.
"Oh, Dink Stover, here's toyou!"
From across the table Tommy Bain, lifting his glass of ginger ale, smiled a gracious smile.
"Same to you, Tommy Bain."
The fellow who had addressed him was a leader among the Hotchkiss crowd, out for coxswain, already spoken of for one of the class managerships. He was a diminutive type, immaculately neat, black hair exactly parted and unflurried, well jacketed, turn-down collar embellished with a red-and-yellow four-in-hand, a rather large, bulbous nose, and thin eyes that were never quiet—shrewd, direct, inquisitive, always estimating. He was smiling again, raising his glass to some one else down the table, and the smile that passed easily over his lips had the quality of seeming to come from the heart.
McNab and Buck Waters, natural leaders of the revels, arms locked, were giving a muscular exhibition of joint conducting, while the room in chorus sang:
"Should fortune prove unkind,Should fortune prove unfair,A cure I have in mindTo drive away all care."
"Should fortune prove unkind,Should fortune prove unfair,A cure I have in mindTo drive away all care."
"Should fortune prove unkind,Should fortune prove unfair,A cure I have in mindTo drive away all care."
"Should fortune prove unkind,
Should fortune prove unfair,
A cure I have in mind
To drive away all care."
"By George!" said Hungerford, at his side, laughing, "it's good to be in the game at last, isn't it, Dink?"
"It certainly is."
"We've got a great crowd; it's going to be a great class."
"Who's Bain?" said Dink, under his breath.
"Bain—oh, he's a clever chap, probably be a class deacon. That's another good thing about this place: we can all get together and drink what we want."
"Chorus!" cried McNab and Waters, with a twin flourish of their arms.
"Chorus!" shouted Hungerford and Bain, raising their glasses in accompaniment.
"For to-night we will be merryAs the rosy wine we drink—The rosy wine we drink!"
"For to-night we will be merryAs the rosy wine we drink—The rosy wine we drink!"
"For to-night we will be merryAs the rosy wine we drink—The rosy wine we drink!"
"For to-night we will be merry
As the rosy wine we drink—
The rosy wine we drink!"
"Yea!"
"A little more close harmony!"
A great shout acclaimed the chorus and another song was started.
Hunter and Bain were opposite each other, surrounded as it were by adherents, each already aware of the other, measuring glances, serious, unrelaxing, never unbending, never departing a moment from the careful attitude of critical aloofness. In the midst of the rising hilarity and the rebellious joy of newly gained liberty, the two rival leaders sat singing, but not of the song, the same placid, maliciously superior smile floating over the perfectlycontrolled lips of Bain, while in the anointed gaze of Hunter was a ponderous seriousness which at that age is ascribed to a predestined Napoleonic melancholy.
"Solo from Buck Waters!"
"Solo!"
"On the chair!"
"Yea, Buck Waters!"
Yielding to the outcry Waters was thrust upward.
"The cowboy orchestra!"
"Give us the cowboy orchestra!"
"The cowboy orchestra, ladies and gentlemen."
With a wave of his hand he organized the room into drums, bugles, and trombones, announcing:
"The orchestra will tune up and play this little tune,
"'Ta-de-dee-ra-ta-ra-ta-rata,Ta-de-dee-ra-ta-ra-ta-rata-ta!'
"'Ta-de-dee-ra-ta-ra-ta-rata,Ta-de-dee-ra-ta-ra-ta-rata-ta!'
"'Ta-de-dee-ra-ta-ra-ta-rata,Ta-de-dee-ra-ta-ra-ta-rata-ta!'
"'Ta-de-dee-ra-ta-ra-ta-rata,
Ta-de-dee-ra-ta-ra-ta-rata-ta!'
"All ready? Lots of action there—a little more cyclonic from the trombones. Fine! Whenever I give the signal the orchestra will burst forth into that melodious refrain. I will now give an imitation of a professional announcer at Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show and Congress of Rough Riders. Orchestra:
"Ta-de-dee-rata-rata-rataTa-de-dee-rata-rata-rata-ta!"
"Ta-de-dee-rata-rata-rataTa-de-dee-rata-rata-rata-ta!"
"Ta-de-dee-rata-rata-rataTa-de-dee-rata-rata-rata-ta!"
"Ta-de-dee-rata-rata-rata
Ta-de-dee-rata-rata-rata-ta!"
While Waters, with his great comical face shining above the gleeful crowd like a harvest moon rising from the lake, continued endlessly drawling out his nasal imitations, the crowd, for the first time welded together, rocked and shouted out the farcical chorus. When he had ended, Buck Waters sat down, enthroned forever afterward master of song and revels.
Bain began to cast estimating glances, calculating on the moment to leave. At the other end Waters was fairly smothered under the rush of delighted comrades, patting him on the back, acclaiming his rise to fame. The tables settled down into a sentimental refrain led by Stone's clear tenor.
Dink's glance, traveling down the table, was suddenly attracted by the figure of a young fellow with a certain defiant yet shy individuality in its pose.
"Who's the rather dark chap just beyond Dopey?" he asked Hungerford.
"Don't know; ask Schley."
"Brockhurst—Sidney Brockhurst," said Schley, not lowering his voice, "from Hill School. Trying for theLit. Clever chap, they say, but a little long-haired."
Stover studied him, his curiosity awakened. Brockhurst, of all present, seemed the most solitary and the most self-conscious. He had a long head, high, thin cheeks, and a nervous little habit, when intent or conscious of being watched, of drawing his fingers over his lips. His head was thrown back a little proudly, but the eyes contradicted this attitude, with the acute shyness in them that clouded a certain keen imaginative scrutiny.
At this moment his eyes met Stover's. Dink, yielding to an instinct, raised his glass and smiled. Brockhurst hastily seized his mug in response, spilling a little of it and dropping his glance quickly. Once or twice, as if unpleasantly conscious of the examination, he turned uneasily.
"He looks rather interesting," said Stover thoughtfully.
"Think so?" said Schley. "Rather freaky to me."
Suddenly a shout went up:
"Come in!"
"Yea, Sheff!"
"Yea, Tom Kelly!"
The narrow doorway was suddenly alive with a boisterous, rollicking crowd of Sheff freshmen, led by Tom Kelly, a short, roly-poly, alert little fellow with a sharp pointing nose and a great half-moon of a mouth.
"Come in, Kelly!"
"Crowd in, fellows!"
"Oh, Tom, join us!"
"I willnotcome in," said Kelly, with a certain painful beery assumption of dignity. He balanced himself a moment, steadied by his neighbors; and then, to the delight of the room, began, with the utmost gravity, one of his inimitable imitations of the lords that sit enthroned in the faculty.
"I come, not to stultify myself in the fumes of liquor, but to do you good. Beer is brutalizing. With your kind permission, I will whistle you a few verses of a noble poem on same subject."
I COME NOT TO STULTIFY MYSELF IN THE FUMES OF LIQUOR, BUT TO DO YOU GOOD
"'I COME NOT TO STULTIFY MYSELF IN THE FUMES OF LIQUOR, BUT TO DO YOU GOOD'"—Page 89.
"Whistle, Tom?"
"The word was whistle," said Kelly sternly. Extending his arm for silence, he proceeded, with great intensity and concentrated facial expression, to whistle a sort of improvisation. Then, suddenly ceasing, he continued:
"And what does this beautiful, ennobling little thing teach us, written by a great mind, one of the greatest, greatest minds—what does it teach us?"
"Well, what does it teach?" said one or two voices, after Kelly had preserved a statuesque pose beyond the limits of their curiosity.
"Ask me," said Kelly, with dignity.
"Mr. Kelly," said McNab rising seriously, "what does this little gem of intellectuality, this as it werepsycho-therapeutical cirrhosis of a paleontological state,—you get my meaning, of course,—that is, from the point of view of modern introspective excavations, with due regard to whatever the sixth dimension, considered as such, may have of influence, and allowing that a certain amount of error is inherent in Spanish cooking if eggs are boiled in a chafing-dish—admitting all this, I ask you a simple question. Do you understand me?"
"Perfectly," said Kelly, who had followed this serious harangue with strained attention. "And, moreover, I agree with you."
"You agree?" said McNab, feigning surprise.
"I do."
"Sir, you are a congenial soul. Shake hands."
But, in the act of stealing this sudden friendship, Kelly brought forth his hand, when it was perceived that he was tightly clutching a pool-ball, and, moreover, that his pockets were bulging like a sort of universal mumps with a dozen inexplicable companions. A shout went up:
"Why, he's swallowed a frame of pool-balls!"
"He certainly has."
"He's swiped them."
"He's wrecked a pool-room."
"How the deuce did he do it?"
"Why, Tom, where did you get 'em?"
"Testimonial—testimonial of affection," replied Kelly, "literally showered on me."
"Tom, you stole them."
"I did not steal them!"
"Tom, you stole them!"
"Tom, O Tom!"
Kelly, who had proceeded to empty his pockets for an exhibition, becoming abruptly offended at the universalshouted accusation, repocketed the pool-balls and departed, despite a storm of protest and entreaties, carrying with him McNab.
A number of the crowd were passing beyond control; others, inflexible, smiling, continued in their attitude of spectators, Brockhurst because he could not forget himself, Hunter and Bain because they would not.
"Time for us to be cutting out," said Hunter, with a glance at his watch. "What about it, Stover?"
Dink was annoyed that he had not made the move himself. McCarthy, Hungerford, and one or two of the freshman candidates arose. A shout went up from the noisy end of the table.
"Here! no quitting!"
"Cowards!"
"Come back!"
"Shut up; it's the football crowd!"
"Oh, football, eh?"
"Right."
"Splendid!"
Stover with a serious face, shook hands with Troutman, a red-haired fellow with sharp advancing features who said impressively:
"Mr. Stover, I wish to express for my friends the gratification, the extreme gratification, the extreme moral gratification we feel at seeing a football—a football candidate showing such moral courage—moral—it's wonderful—it moves me. Mr. Stover, I'd like to shake your hand."
Dink laughed and escaped, seeing, in a last glance at the vaporous fitful room, Troutman solemnly giving his hand to Waters, whom he was congratulating on his extreme moral courage in remaining.
Tommy Bain, in the confusion, slipped out unnoticedand joined them. The last swollen burst of the song was shut from them. They went back toward the campus in twos and threes, over the quiet, moist pavement, past the noisy windows of Mory's—where no freshmen need apply—to the Common, where suddenly, in the moonlit shadow of a great elm, they found a vociferous group with Tom Kelly and McNab in the midst.
At this moment something fell from the skies within perilous distance.
"What the deuce is that?" said Hungerford, jumping back.
"Why, it's a pool-ball," said Stone, stooping down.
Another fell, just missing Hunter's shoulders.
"It's Kelly," said Bain, "and he's firing at us."
With a rush they joined the group, to find Kelly, determined and enthusiastic, solemnly discharging his ammunition at the great bulbous moon that was set lumberingly above them. They joined the group that surrounded him, expostulating, sober or fuddled:
"Don't be an ass, Tom."
"The cops are coming."
"I say, come on home."
"How many more has he got?"
"Get him home, you fellows."
"Stop him."
Meanwhile, abetted by the admiring, delighted McNab, Tom Kelly, taking the most solicitous aim, was continuing his serious efforts to hit the moon with the pool-balls which he had procured no one knew how.
"I say, McNab," said Stover, drawing him aside, "better get him to stop now. Too many cops around. Use your influence—he'll listen to you."
McNab's sense of responsibility having thus becomeviolently agitated, he wabbled up to the laboring Kelly, and the following historic dialogue took place:
"I say, Tom, old fellow, you know me, don't you? You know I'm a good sort, don't you—one of the finest?"
"I know you, Dopey McNab; I'm proud to know you."
"I want to speak a word with you seriously."
"What?"
"Seriously."
"Say on."
"Now, seriously, Tom, do you think you can hit it?"
"Don't know; going to try's much as in me. Biff!"
"Hold up," said McNab, staying his hand. "Tom, I'm going to appeal to you as man to man."
"Appeal."
"You understand—as man to man."
"Sure."
"You're a man; I'm a man."
"The finest."
"Now as man to man, I'm going to tell you the truth."
"The whole truth?"
"Solemn truth."
"Tell on."
"You can't hit it."
"Why not?"
"Tom, it's too—too far away!"
The two shook hands solemnly and impressively.
"Can't hit it—too far away," said Kelly, with the pool-ball clutched tight. "Too far away, eh?"
"My dear Tom," said McNab, tearfully breaking the news, "it's too far—entirely too far away. You can't reach it, Tom; believe me, as man to man—you can't, you can never, never hit it."
"I know I can't, Dopey," said Kelly, in an equally mournful tone, "I know all that. All that you say is true. But, Dopey, suppose Ishouldhit it, suppose Ishould, just think—think—how my name would go reeling and rocking down to fushure generations! Biff!"
They left McNab overcome by the impressiveness of this argument, busily gathering up the pool-balls, resolved that every opportunity should be given Kelly to rank among the immortals.
Stover would have liked to stay. For the moment, almost a rebellion swept over him at the drudgery to which he had condemned himself in his ambition. He saw again the low table, through the smoke, and Buck Waters's jovial pagan face leading the crowd in lazy, care-free abandon. He felt that liberty, that zest of life, that wild spirit of youth for which he yearned and of which he had been defrauded by Le Baron's hand, that hand which had ruthlessly torn away the veil. Something leaped up within him—a longing to break the harness, to jump the gate and go heels in the air, cavorting across unfenced meadows. He rebelled against the way that had been marked out for him. He rebelled against the self-imposed discipline, and, most of all, he rebelled against the hundred eyes under whose inspection he must now inevitably walk.
Ahead of them to the left, across by Osborne, came the gay, defiant singing of a group of upper classmen returning to the campus:
"For it's always fair weatherWhen good fellows stand together,With a stein on the tableAnd a good song ringing clear."
"For it's always fair weatherWhen good fellows stand together,With a stein on the tableAnd a good song ringing clear."
"For it's always fair weatherWhen good fellows stand together,With a stein on the tableAnd a good song ringing clear."
"For it's always fair weather
When good fellows stand together,
With a stein on the table
And a good song ringing clear."
The echo came to him with a certain grim mockery. There would be very little of that for him. It was to be four years, not of pleasure and inclination, but of seriousness and restraint, if he continued in his decision. For a moment the pagan in him prevailed, and he doubted. Then they passed across High Street, and at their sides the dead shadow of the society tomb suddenly intruded upon them. Which of the group at the end of the long three years would be of the chosen? Which would lead?
"Well, fellows, we go this way," said Bain's methodical voice. "Drop around at the rooms soon. Good night."
Stover, Hunter, and Bain for the moment found themselves together, each striving for the same social honor, each conscious that, whatever an established system might bring to them, with its enforced comradeship, among them would always be the underlying contending spirit of variant ambitions.
Stover felt it keenly, almost with a sharp antagonism that drove from him finally the slumbering rebellion he had felt all that night—the tugging at the bridle of consciousness which had been imposed upon him. This was a bigger thing, a thing that wakened in him the great instincts of combat. He would be a leader among leaders. He would succeed as success was reckoned.
He gave a little laugh and held out his hand to Hunter.
"Good night, Jim," he said.
"Why—good night," said Hunter, surprised at the laugh and the unnecessary handshake.
But the hand had been offered in challenge, and the laugh marked the final deliberate acceptance of all that Le Baron had logically exposed to him.
"I'll play the game, and I'll play it better than they will," he said, setting his lips. "I've got my eyes open, and I'm not going to throw away a single chance. We'll see who'll lead!"
The intensity and seriousness of the football season abetted Stover in his new attitude of Napoleonic seclusion by leaving him little time for the lighter side of college pleasures. Every hour was taken up with the effort of mastering his lessons, which he then regarded, in common with the majority of his class, as a laborious task, a sort of necessary evil, the price to be paid for the privilege of passing four years in pleasant places with congenial companions.
After supper he returned immediately to his rooms, where presently a succession of visiting sophomores, members of the society campaign committees, took up the first hours. These inquisitorial delegations, formal, stiff, and conducted on a basis of superior investigation, embarrassed him at first. But this feeling soon wore off with the consciousness that he was a subject of dispute; and, secure in the opportunity that would come to him with the opening of the winter-term period of elections, his interest was directed only to the probable selection among his classmates.
By the middle of October the situation at Yale field had become critical. The earlier games had demonstrated what had been foreseen—the weakness and inexperience of the raw material in hand. Serious errors in policy were committed by Captain Dana, who, in the effort to find some combination which would bolster up the weak backfield, began a constant shifting of the positions in order to experiment with heavier men behindthe line. A succession of minor injuries arrived to further the disorganization. The nervousness of the captain communicated itself to the team, harassed and driven in the effort for accomplishment. That there was serious opposition among the coaches to these new groping policies every man saw plainly; yet, to Stover's amazement, the knowledge remained within the team, impregnated with the spirit of loyalty and discipline.
After three weeks of brilliancy at his natural position of end, buoyed up by the zest of confidence and success, he was abruptly called to one side.
"Stover, you've played behind the line, haven't you?" said Dana.
"A couple of games at school, sir," he answered hastily, "just as a makeshift."
"I'm going to try you at fullback."
"At fullback?"
"Get into it and see if you can make good."
"Yes, sir."
He went without spirit, sure of the impossibility of the thing, feeling only the humiliation and failure that all at once flung itself like a storm-cloud across his ambition. A coach took charge of him, running over with him the elementary principles of blocking and plunging.
When he lined up, it was with half of the coaching force at his back.
"Come on, Stover; get into it!"
"Wake up!"
"Get your head down!"
"Keep a-going!"
"Ram into it!"
"Knock that man over!"
"Knock himover!"
He went into the line blindly, frantically, feeling forthe first time that last exhausting, lunging expenditure of strength that is called forth with the effort to fall forward when tackled. Nothing he did satisfied. It was a constant storm of criticism, behind his back, in his ears, shrieked to his face:
"Keep your feet—oh, keep your feet!"
"Smash open that line!"
"Rip open that line!"
"Hit it—hit it!"
"Hard—harder!"
"Go on—don't stop!"
A dozen times he flung his meager weight against the ponderous bodies of the center men, crushed by the impact in front, smothered by the surging support of his own line behind, helpless in the grinding contention, turned and twisted, going down in a heap amid the shock of bodies, thinking always:
"Well, the darn fools will find out just about how much use I am here!"
When the practise ended, at last, Dana called on Tompkins.
"Joe, take Stover and give him a line on the punting, will you?"
"I say, he's been worked pretty hard," said the coach with a glance.
"How about it?" said Dana quickly.
"All right," said Stover, lying gloriously. At that moment, aching in every joint, he would have given everything to have spoken his mind. Instead he brought forth a smile distinguished for its eagerness, and said, "I'd like to get right at it, sir."
"Fullback's the big problem," said Tompkins, as they started across the field. "Bangs can fill in at end, but we've got to get a fullback that can catch punts, and withnerve enough to get off his kicks in the face of that Princeton line."
"I'll do my best, sir," said Stover, with a sinking feeling.
For twenty minutes, against the rebellion of his body, he went through a rigorous lesson, improving a little in the length of his punts, and succeeding fairly well in holding the ball, which came spinning end over end to him from the region of the clouds.
"That'll do," said Tompkins, at last.
"That's all?" said Stover stoically, picking up his sweater.
"That's all." Tompkins, watching him for a moment, said suddenly: "Stover, I don't know whether Dana'll keep you at full or not, but I guess you'll have to get ready to fill in. Come over to the gym lot every morning for about half an hour, and we'll see if we can't work up those punts."
"Yes, sir."
They walked out together.
"Stover, look here," said Tompkins abruptly, "I'm going to speak straight to you, because I think you'll keep your mouth shut. We're in a desperate condition here, and you know it. There's only one man in charge at Yale, now and always, and that's the captain. That's our system, and we stand or fall by it; and in order that we can follow him four times out of five to victory, we've got sometimes to shut our eyes and follow him down to defeat. Do you get me?"
"I think I do."
"No matter what happens, no criticism of the captain—no talking outside. You may think he's wrong, you may know he's wrong, but you've got to grin and bear it. That's all. Remember it—a close mouth!"
But it required all Stover's newly learned stoicism to maintain this attitude in the weeks that arrived. After a week he was suddenly returned to his old position, and as suddenly redrafted to fullback when another game had displayed the inadequacy of the regular. From a position where he was familiar with all the craft of the game, Stover suddenly found himself a novice whom a handful of coaches sought desperately to develop by dint of hammering and driving. His name no longer figured in the newspaper accounts as the find of the season, but as Stover the weak spot on the eleven. It was a rude discipline, and more than once he was on the point of crying out at what seemed to him the useless sacrifice. But he held his tongue as he saw others, seniors, put to the same test and giving obedience without a word of criticism for the captain, who, as every one realized, face to face with a hopeless outcome, was gradually going to pieces.
Meanwhile Dopey McNab was just as zealously concerned in the pursuit of his classic ideal, which, however, was imagined more along the lines of such historic scholars as Verdant Green, Harry Foker, and certain heroes of his favorite author, Charles Lever.
The annoyance of recitations by an economical imagination he converted into periods of repose and refreshing slumber behind the broad back of McMasters, who, for a certain fixed portion of tobacco a week, agreed to act as a wall in moments of calm and to awake him with a kick on the shins when the summons to refuse to recite arrived.
Having discovered Buck Waters as a companionable soul, congenially inclined to the pagan view of life, it was not long before the two discovered the third completing genius in the person of Tom Kelly, who, though amember of the Sheff freshman class, immediately agreed not to let either time, place, or conflicting recitations stand in the way of that superior mental education which must result from the friction of three such active imaginations.
The triumvirate was established on a firm foundation on the day after Kelly's ambitious but unsuccessful attempt to hit the moon with a pool-ball, and immediately began a series of practical jokes and larks which threatened to terminate abruptly the partnership or remove it bodily to an unimaginative outer world.
McNab, like most gentlemen of determined leisure, worked indefatigably every minute of the day. Having slept through chapel and first recitation, with an occasional interruption to rise and say with great dignity "Not prepared," he would suddenly, about ten o'clock in the morning, awake with a start, and drifting into Stover's room plaster his nose to the window and restlessly ask himself what mischief he could invent for the day.
After a moment of dissatisfied introspection, he would say fretfully:
"I say, Dink?"
"Hello!"
"Studying?"
"Yes."
"Almost finished?"
"No."
"What are you doing, McCarthy?"
"Boning out an infernal problem in spherical geometry."
"I gave that up."
"Oh, you did!"
"Sure, it's too hard—what's the use of wasting time over it, then? What do you say to a game of pool?"
"Get out!"
"Let's go for a row up on Lake Whitney."
"Shut up!"
"Come over to Sheffield and get up a game of poker with Tom Kelly."
At this juncture, Stover and McCarthy rising in wrath, McNab would beat a hurried retreat, dodging whatever came sailing after him. Much aggrieved, he would go down the hall, trying the different doors, which had been locked against his approach.
About this time Buck Waters, moved by similar impulses, would appear and the two would camp down on the top step and practise duets, until a furious uprising in the house would drive them ignominiously on to the street.
Left to their own resources, they would wander aimlessly about the city, inventing a hundred methods to accomplish the most difficult of all feats, killing time.
On one particular morning in early November, McNab and Buck Waters, being refused admission to three houses on York Street, and the affront being aggravated by jeers and epithets of the coarsest kind, went arm in arm on mischief bent.
"I say, what let's do?" said McNab disconsolately.
"We must do something new," said Buck Waters.
"We certainly must."
"Well, let's try the old clothes gag," said McNab; "that always amuses a little."
Reaching the thoroughfare of Chapel Street, McNab stationed himself at the corner while Waters proceeded to a point about half-way down the block.
Assuming a lounging position against a lamp-post, McNab waited until chance delivered up to him a superhumanly dignified citizen in top hat and boutonnière, moving through the crowd with an air of solid importance.
Darting out, he approached with the sweep of an eagle, saying in a hoarse whisper:
"Old clothes, any old clothes, sir?"
His victim, frowning, accelerated his pace.
"Buy your old clothes, sir, buy 'em now."
Several onlookers stopped and looked. The gentleman, who had not turned to see who was addressing him, said hurriedly in an undertone:
"No, no, nothing to-day."
"Buy 'em to-morrow—pay good price," said McNab peevishly.
"No, no, nothing to sell."
"Call around at the house—give good prices."
"Nothing to sell, nothing, I tell you!"
"Buy what you got on," said McNab at the psychological moment, "give you five dollars or toss you ten or nothinks!"
"Be off!" said the now thoroughly infuriated victim, turning and brandishing his cane. "I'll have you arrested."
McNab, having accomplished his preliminary rôle, retreated to a safe distance, exclaiming:
"Toss you ten dollars or nothinks!"
The now supremely self-conscious and furious gentleman, having rid himself of McNab, immediately found himself in the hands of Buck Waters, who pursued him for the remainder of the block, with a mild obsequious persistency that would not be shaken off. By this time the occupants of the shop windows and the loiterers,perceiving the game, were in roars of laughter, which made the passage of the second and third victims a procession of hilarious triumph for McNab and Waters.
Tiring of this, they locked arms again and, taking by hazard a side street, continued their quest for adventure.
"Mornings are a dreadful bore," said McNab, pulling down his hat.
"They certainly are."
"Who was the old duck we tackled first?"
"Don't know—familiar whiskers."
"Seemed to me I've seen him somewhere."
"Say, look at the ki-yi."
"It's a Shetland poodle."
"It's a pen-wiper."
Directly in front of them a shaggy French poodle, bearing indeed a certain resemblance to both a Shetland pony and a discarded pen-wiper, was gleefully engaged in the process of shaking to pieces a rubber which it had stolen.
"If it sees itself in a mirror it will die of mortification," said Buck Waters.
"And yet, Buck, he's happier than we are," said McNab, who had been unjustifiably forced to flunk twice in one morning's recitation.
"I say, Dopey," said Waters in alarm, "quit that!"
"I will."
"Look at the fireworks," said Waters, stopping suddenly at a window, "pin-wheels, rockets, Roman candles."
"What are they doing there this time of the year?" said McNab angrily.
"Election parade, perhaps."
"That's an idea to work on, Buck."
"It certainly is."
"We must tell Tom Kelly about that."
"We will."
"Why, there's that ridiculous ki-yi again!"
"He seems to like us."
"I'm not complimented."
At this moment, with the poodle sporting the rubber about fifteen feet ahead of them, they beheld an Italian barber lolling in the doorway of his shop, as profoundly bored by himself as they affected to be in conjunction.
"Fine dog," said the barber with a critical glance.
"Sure," said McNab, halting at once.
The poodle, for whatever reason, likewise halted and looked around.
"Looka better, cutta da hair."
"You're right there, Columbus," assented Buck Waters. "His fur coat looks as though it came from a fire sale."
"He ought to be trim up nice, good style."
"Right, very, very right!"
"Give him nice collar, nice tuft on da tail, nice tuft on da feet."
"Right the second time!"
"I clip him up, eh?" said the barber hopefully.
"Why not?" said McNab, looking into the depth of Buck Waters's eyes.
"Why not, Beecher?" said Waters, giving him the name of the President of the College Y. M. C. A.
"I think it an excellent suggestion, Jonathan Edwards," said McNab instantly.
With considerable strategic coaxing, the dog was enticed into the shop, where to their surprise he became immediately docile.
"You see he lika da clip," said the barber enthusiastically, preparing a table.
"He's a very intelligent dog," said McNab.
"You've done much of this, Columbus?" said Waters with a business-like air.
"Sure. Ten, twenta dog a day, down in da city."
"Edwards, we shall learn something."
The dog was induced to come on the table, and Waters delegated to hold him in position.
"Something pretty slick now, Christopher," said McNab, taking the attitude a connoisseur should take. "Explain the fine points to us, as you go along."
"Sure."
"I like the way he handles the scissors, Beecher—strong, powerful stroke."
"He's got a good batting eye, too, Edwards."
"My, what a nice clean boulevard!"
"Just see the hair fly."
"It'll certainly improve the tail."
"Clip a little anchor in the middle of the back."
"Did you see that?"
"I did."
"He's a wonder."
"He is."
"Columbus, a little more off here—oh, just a trifle!"
"First rate; shave up the nose and part the whiskers!"
"Look at the legs, with the dinky pantalets—aren't they dreams?"
"I love the tail best."
"Why, Columbus is an artist. Never saw any one like him."
"Would you know the dog?"
"Why, mother wouldn't know him," said McNab solemnly.
"All in forty-three minutes, too."
"It's beautifully done, beautifully."
"Exquisite!"
The barber, perspiring with his ambitious efforts, withdrew for a final inspection, clipped a little on the top and to the side, and signified by a nod that art could go no further.
"Pretta fine, eh?"
"Mr. Columbus, permit me," said Waters, shaking hands.
McNab gravely followed suit. The dog, released, gave a howl and began circling madly about the room.
"Open the door," shouted McNab. "See how happy he is!"
The three stationed themselves thoughtfully on the doorstep, watching the liberated poodle disappear down the street in frantic spirals, loops and figure-eights.
"He lika da feel," said the barber, pleased.
"Oh, he's much improved," said Waters, edging a little away.
"He fine lookin' a dog!"
"He'll certainly surprise the girls and mother," said McNab, shifting his feet. "Well, Garibaldi, ta-ta!"
"Hold up," said the barber, "one plunk."
"One dollar, Raphael?" said Buck Waters in innocent surprise. "What for, oh, what for?"
"One plunk, clippa da dog."
"Yes, but Garibaldi," said McNab gently, "that wasn't our dog."
"Shall we run for it?" said Waters, as they went hurriedly up the block.
"Wait until Garibaldi gives chase—we must be dignified," said McNab, with an eye to the rear.
"Dagos have no sense of humor. Here he comes with a razor—scud for it!"
They dashed madly for the corner, doubled a coupleof times, joined by the rejuvenated friendly poodle, and suddenly, wheeling around a corner, ran straight into the dean, who as fate would have it, was accompanied by the very dignified citizen who had been the first victim of their old clothes act and upon whom the frantic poodle, with canine expressions of relief and delight, immediately cast himself.
"Buck," said McNab, half an hour later, as they went limply back, "Napoleon would have whipped the British to an omelet at Waterloo if he'd known about that sunken road."
"We are but mortals."
"How the deuce were we to know the pup belonged to Professor Borgle, the eminent rootitologist?"
"Well, we paid the dago, didn't we?"
"That was outrageous."
"I say, Dopey, what'll you do if they fire us?"
"Don't joke on such subjects."
"Dopey," said Waters solemnly, "while the dean has the case under consideration, just to aid his deliberations, I think we had better—well, study a little."
"I suppose we must flirt with the text-books," said McNab, "but let's do it together, so no one'll suspect."
The last week of the football season broke over them before Stover could realize that the final test was almost at hand. The full weight of the responsibility that was on him oppressed him day and night. He forgot what he had been at end; he remembered only his present inadequacy. It had been definitely decided to keep him at fullback, for three things were imperative in the weak backfield: some one who could catch punts, with nerve enough to get off his kicks quickly in the face of a stronger line, and above all some one on the last defense who would never miss the tackle that meant a touchdown.
In the last week a great change took place in the sentiment of the university—the hoping against hope that often arrives with the intensity of combat. At this time Harvard and Yale were still reluctantly estranged, due to a purely hypothetical question as to which side had begun a certain historic slaughter, and the big game of the season was with Princeton, which, under the leadership of Garry Cockerell, Dink's first captain at Lawrenceville, had established a record of unusual power and brilliancy.
Up to Monday of the last week, the opinion around the campus was unanimous that the day of defeat had arrived; but, with the opening of the week and the flocking in of the old players, a new spirit was noticeable, and (among the freshmen) a tentative loosening of the purse-strings on news of extra-insulting challenges from the South.
At the practise, the season's marked division among the coaches was forgotten, and the field was alive with frantic assistants. The scrimmage between the varsity and the scrub took on a savageness that was sometimes difficult to control. The team, facing the impossible, with eagerness to respond, had clearly overworked itself. Stover himself weighed a bare one hundred and forty, an unspeakable depravity which he carefully concealed.
Still, the team began to feel a new impulse and a new unity, inspired by the confidence of the returned heroes. The grim silence of the past began to be broken by hopeful comments.
"By George, I believe there's something in those boys."
"We've come up smiling before."
"We may do it again."
"Shouldn't be surprised if they gave those Princeton Tigers the fight of their lives."
"Oh, they'll fight it out all right."
One or two trick plays were perpetrated behind closed gates, and a thorough drill in a new method of breaking up the Princeton formation for a kick, under the instruction of returning scouts. The team itself began to question and wonder.
"That fellow Rivers certainly has stiffened us up in the center of the line," said Regan, between plays, in one of his rare moments of loquacity. "I've learned more in three days than in the whole darn season."
"You've got to hold for my kicks," said Stover, submitting to the sponge which Clancy, the trainer, was daubing over his face.
"We'll hold."
"What do you really think, Tom?" said Stover as theystood a little apart, waiting for the scrimmage to be resumed. "Do you think there's a chance?"
"I'm not thinking," said Regan, in his direct way. "Haven't any business to think. But we're getting together, there's no doubt of that. If we can't win, why, we'll lose as we ought to, and that's something."
Others were not so unruffled as Regan. The last days brought out all the divergent ways in which fierce, combative natures approach a crisis. Dana, the captain, was plainly on the edge of his self-control, his forehead drawn in a constant frown, his glance shooting nervously back and forth, speaking to no one except in the routine of the day. Dudley, at the other half, had adopted the same attitude. De Soto at quarter, on the contrary, radiated a fierce joy, joking and laughing, his nervous little voice piping out:
"A little more murder, fellows! Send them back on stretchers. That's the stuff. What the deuce is the matter, Bill, do you want to live forever? Use your hands, use your feet, use your teeth, anything! Whoop her up!"
Others in the line were more stolid, yet each in his way contributing to the nervous electricity that sent the team tirelessly, frantically, like mad dervishes, into the breach, while behind them, at their sides, everywhere, the coaches goaded them on.
"Oh, get together!"
"Shove the man in front of you!"
"Get your shoulder into it!"
"Fight for that last inch there!"
"Knock him off his feet!"
"Put your man out o' the play!"
"Break him up!"
No one paid any attention to the scrubs, fightingdesperately with the same loyalty against the odds of weight and organization, without hope of distinction, giving every last ounce of their strength in futile, frantic effort, rejoicing when flung aside and crushed under the victorious rush of the varsity, who alone counted.
Against the scrubs Stover felt a sort of rage. Time after time he went crashing into the line, seeing the blurred faces of his own comrades with an instinctive hatred, striking them with his shoulder, hurling them from the path of attack with a wild, uncontrollable fury at their resistance, almost unable to keep his temper in leash. The first feeling of sympathy he had felt so acutely for those who bore all the brunt of the punishment, unrewarded, was gone. He no longer felt any pity, but a brutal joy at the incessant smarting, grinding shock of the attack of which he was part and the touch of prostrate bodies under his rushing feet.
Thursday and Friday the practise was lightened for all except for the backs. For an hour he was kept at his punting in the open and behind the lines, while the scrubs, reënforced by every available veteran, swarmed through the line, seeking to block his kicks.
To one side a little knot of coaches watched the result with critical anxiety, following the length of the punts in grim silence.
Tompkins, behind him, from time to time, spoke quietly, knowing that his was a nature to be restrained rather than goaded on.
"Watch your opposing backs, Stover. Keep your punts low and away from them so as to gain as much on the ground as you can. That's it! Here, you center men, you've got to hold longer than that! You're hurrying the kick too much. Get it off clean, Stover. Not so good. Remember what I say about placing yourpunt. You're going to be out-kicked fifteen yards; make up for it in brain work. All right, Dana?"
"That'll do," said Dana, after a moment's hesitation.
"All over?" said Dink, dazed.
"All over!"
The scrubs, with a yell, broke up, cheering the varsity, and being cheered in turn. Stover, with a sinking, realized that the week of preparation had gone and that as he was he must come up to the final test—the final test before the thousands that would blacken the arena on the morrow.
The squad went rather silently, each oppressed by the same thought.
"We'll go out to the country club for the night," said Tompkins's shrill voice. "Get your valises ready. And now stop talking football until we tell you. Go out on the trot now!"
From the gymnasium he went back to the house. As he came up the hall he heard a hum of voices from his room.
"Dink's got the nerve, but what the deuce can he do against that Princeton line? Do you know how much he weighs? One hundred and fifty."
Stover listened, smiled grimly. If they only knew his real weight!
"Do you think he'll last it through?"
"What, Dink?" said McCarthy's loyal voice. "You bet he'll last!"
"Blamed shame he isn't at end!"
"By ginger! he'd make the All-American if he was."
"Yes, and now every one will jump on him for being a rotten fullback."
"Dana be hanged!"
Stover went back to the stairs and returned noisilyAt his entrance the crowd sprang up instinctively. He felt the sudden focus of anxious, critical glances.
"Hello, fellows," he said gruffly. "Tough, help me to stow a few duds in my valise."
"Sure I will!"
Two or three hurried to help McCarthy, in grotesque, unconsciously humorous eagerness; others patted him on the back with exaggerated good spirits.
"Dink, you look fine!"
"All to the good."
"Right on edge."
"Dink, we're all rooting for you."
"Every one of us."
"You'll tear 'em up."
"We're betting on you, old gazebo!"
"Thanks!"
He took the bag which McCarthy thrust upon him. Each solemnly shook his hand, thrilling at the touch, and Hungerford said:
"Whatever happens, old boy, we're going to be proud of you."
Stover stopped a moment, curiously moved, and obeying an instinct, said brusquely:
"Yes, I'll take care of that."
Then he went hurriedly out.
That night, after supper—a meal full of nervous laughter and assumed spirits—two or three of the older coaches came in, and their spirit of hopefulness somehow communicated itself to the team. Other Yale elevens had risen at the last moment and snatched a victory—why not theirs? It lay with them, and during the week they certainly had forged ahead. Dink felt the infection and became almost convinced. Then Tompkins, moving around as the spirit of confidence, signaled him.
"Come out here; I want a little pow-wow with you."
They left the others and went out on the dim lawns with the lighted club-house at their backs, and Tompkins, drawing his arm through Stover's, began to speak:
"Dink, we're in for a licking."
"Oh, I say!" said Stover, overwhelmed. "But we have come on; we've come fast."
"Stover, that's a great Princeton team," said Tompkins quietly, "and we're a weak Yale one. We're going to get well licked. Now, boy, I'm telling you this because I think you're the stuff to stand it; because you'll play better for knowing what's up to you."
"I see."
"It's going to depend a whole lot on you—how you hold up your end—how badly we're licked."
"I know I'm the weak spot," said Stover, biting his lips.
"You're a darn good player," said Tompkins, "and you're going to leave a great name for yourself; but this year you've had to be sacrificed. You've been put where you are because you've got nerve and a head. Now this is what I want from you. Know what you're up against and make your brain control that nerve—understand?"
"Yes, I do."
"You've got to do the kicking in the second half as well as in the first. You've got to keep your strength and not break it against a wall. You won't be called on for much rushing in the first half; you'll get a chance later. The line may go to pieces, the secondary defense may go to pieces; but, boy, ifyougo to pieces, we'll be beaten thirty to nothing."
"As bad as that!"
"Every bit."
"That's awful—a Yale team." He drew a long breath and then said: "What do you want me to do?"
"I want you to get off every punt without having it blocked; and that's a good deal, with what you're up against."
"Yes, sir."
"And hold on to every punt that comes to you—no fumbling."
"No fumbling—yes, sir."
"And kick as you've never kicked before—every kick better as you go on. Put your whole soul into it."
"I will."
"You won't miss a tackle—I know that; but you'll have some pretty rum ones to make, and when you tackle, make them remember it."
"Yes, sir."
"But, Stover, above all, hold steadfast. Keep cool and remember the game's a long one. Boy, you don't know what it'll mean for some of us old fellows to see Yale go down, but out of it all we want to remember something that'll make us proud of you." He stopped, controlled the emotion that was in his voice, and said a little anxiously: "I tell you this because a first game is a terrible thing, and I didn't want you to be caught in a panic when you found what you were up against. And I tell you, Stover, because you're the sort of fighting stuff that'll fight harder when you know all there is to it is the fighting. Am I right?"
"I hope so, sir."
"And now, do a more difficult thing. Get right hold of yourself. Put everything out of your mind; go to bed and sleep."
This last injunction, though he tried his best to obey it, was beyond Stover's power. He passed the night in fitfulflashes of sleep. At times he awoke, full of a fever of eagerness from a dream of success. Then he would lie staring, it seemed for hours, at the thin path across the ceiling made by a street lamp, feeling all at once a weakness in the pit of his stomach, a physical horror of what the day would bring forth. The words of the coach framed themselves in a sort of rhythmic chant which went endlessly knocking through his brain:
"Catch every punt—get off every kick—make every tackle."
In the morning it was the same refrain, which never left him. He rose tired, with a limpness in every muscle, his head heavy as if bound across with biting bonds. He stood stupidly holding his wash-pitcher, looking out of the window, saying:
"Good heavens! it's only a few hours off now."
Then he began feebly to wash, repeating:
"Get off every kick—every kick."
Breakfast passed like a nightmare. He put something tasteless into his mouth, his jaws moved, but that was all. The brisk walk to chapel restored him somewhat, and the consciousness of holding himself before the gaze of the crowd. After first recitation, Regan joined him, and together they went across the campus, no longer the campus of the University, but beginning to swarm with strangers, and strange colors amid the blue.
"How are you feeling?" said Regan in a fatherly sort of way, as they went through Phelps and out on to the Common.
"Tom, my shoes stick to the ground, my knees are made of paper, and I'm hollow from one end to the other."
"Fine!"
"Oh,isit?"
"You'll be a bundle of fire on the field."
"Let's not walk too far. We want to keep fresh," said Stover, feeling indeed as though every step was draining his energy.
"Rats! let's saunter down Chapel Street and see the crowds come in."
"You old rhinoceros, have you any nerves?"
"Lots, but they're a different sort. By George, isn't it a wonderful sight?"
Side by side with Regan, a certain shame steadied Stover. They went silently through the surging, arriving multitude, all intoxicated with the joy and zest of the great game. In and out, newsboys howling papers with headlines and pictures of the team thrust their wares before their eyes, while a pestiferous swarm of strange pedlers shrieked:
"Get your colors here!"
"Get your winnin' color."
Suddenly Stover saw a headline—his name and the caption:
STOVER THE WEAK SPOT
"Let's get a paper," he said, nervously drawn to it.
"No you don't," said Regan, who had seen it. "Come on, now, get out of here, some one might walk on your foot or stick a hatpin in your eye."
"What time is it?"
"Time to be getting back."
"Tom, do you know how much I weigh?" said Stover irrelevantly.
"What the deuce?"
"I weigh one hundred and forty-one pounds," said Stover solemnly, as though imparting a State secret.
"Go on, be loony if you want," said Regan. "I've seenbruisers before a fight act like high school girls. If you've got something on your mind, why talk it out, it'll do you good."
"It's awful—it's awful," said Stover, shaking his head.
"What's awful?"
"It's awful to think I'm the weak spot, that if they only had a decent fullback there would be a chance. I've no right there—every one knows it, and every one's groaning about it."
"Go on."
"That's all," said Stover, a little angry.
"Well, then come on, I'm getting hungry."
"Hungry! Tom, I'd like to knock the spots out of you," said Dink, laughing despite himself.
"Dink, old bantam," said Regan, resting his huge paw on Stover's shoulder in rough affection, "you're all right. I say so and I know it. Now shut up and come on."