“Referee! referee! they’re playing thirteen men!”Page 44.
“Referee! referee! they’re playing thirteen men!”Page 44.
Groans and taunts greeted this discovery.The senior team was reduced to the normal number, elbow room was won by the use of elbows, and the play went on. Two tackles developed such a mutual interest that they disregarded the game altogether and devoted their energies during every scrimmage exclusively to each other. Each was goaded on by a troop of ardent backers. The ring of spectators narrowed and thickened and heaved and sputtered. Ambitious volunteers sprang in behind and lent a hand in pushing or in staying the enemy’s charge. In the increasing confusion, a loud voice shouted “Game’s over!” In a twinkling began a stampede for the possession of the ball, a confused running and pushing and swarming. The football bladder burst in the mêlée; all that the outnumbering upper middlers carried away was the collapsed cover of the much-tormented ball.
In spite of the assertion of spectators of all classes that the senior-upper middler game had been the most enjoyable event of the school year, Sam was not wholly content to have his serious efforts turned into a joke. Duncan,who was manager of the senior team, likewise strongly disapproved of the course of things, and vowed that he should protest the game. Together they talked it over in the second spontaneous conversation of the year, in which Peck took great pains to deny that there had been any intention of putting twelve men into the field against eleven.
The next morning the whole school were treated to a chapel lecture on the extreme impropriety of their conduct on the field the day before, and to an exposition of the irreparable injury caused thereby to the dignity and fair fame of the institution. At the same time the game was declared null and void, and command was issued that it be replayed. The ruling as to the game the boys accepted as reasonable; the invective against their rowdyism served but to sweeten the recollection of an hour when they had actually enjoyed sport for sport’s sake.
The game was played again under prescribed conditions, and the upper middlers won once more, this time in consequence of practice gained in playing together, by good use of the forward pass, and through Kendrick’s splendid plunges and fast runs. In fact, Kendrick was easily the hero of the game. Late in the season as it was, the coach took him immediately on to the school eleven as a substitute back, and as luck would have it, he got his S by slipping into the unfortunate Hillbury game at the very end. Of this we shall speak later or not at all. Sam Archer too, in much less conspicuous fashion, won credit in the class match, though the senior centre got under him several times and carried him off on his back. Big Ames of baseball fame played with his usual ungainly determination,and a fellow named Mulcahy was much in evidence during the game.
It was on the subject of this Mulcahy that Archer and Peck came to their first open disagreement. They naturally talked the game over that evening—Sam with frank elation, Peck in a spirit of good-natured forgiveness. When Mulcahy’s name was mentioned, Peck’s attitude changed instantly.
“He’s a mucker!” he said, with contemptuous curtness.
“Why?” demanded Archer.
“Because he is,” answered Peck. “Anybody with half an eye can see it. He held Wildes twice to-day.”
Sam smiled wisely. “If everybody is a mucker who held in to-day’s game, Mulcahy isn’t the only fellow in the class. Putnam tripped Ames deliberately. I saw it myself.”
“It was probably a knee tackle that slipped down.”
“No, he stuck out his foot and Ames fell over it.”
“Well, that’s just because he doesn’t knowthe game. No one who is acquainted with Harry Putnam would charge him with dirty play. If he did that, it was because he didn’t know any better, or forgot himself.”
“But if Mulcahy did the same thing, it proves he’s a mucker!”
Sam was quite satisfied with this rejoinder. If Duncan Peck had any sense at all, he must recognize the absurdity of his prejudice. Sam, at the age of seventeen, with several generations of locally honored ancestors behind him, had become, since his arrival at Seaton, an ardent democrat. He believed firmly that a boy was as good as his mind and character made him, without regard to the clothes on his back or the money in his pocket or the social position of his nearest relatives. Rebelling instinctively at the pretensions of certain fellows whose fathers had “struck it rich,” and whose money gave them a kind of importance, he was disposed to see in the poorer fellows who were carrying the burden of their future on their own unaided shoulders, examples of a sturdy, manly independence wholly admirable.
“Whether he did the same thing or not,” replied Peck, coolly, “Mulcahy is a mucker.”
“The real difference is that Mulcahy works his way and Putnam doesn’t,” asserted Sam, warmly.
Duncan smiled scornfully. “The real difference is that Mulcahy works other people and Putnam doesn’t!”
“Putnam doesn’t have to,” retorted Sam.
“Neither does Mulcahy.”
“Why, he has to earn every cent he spends,” returned Sam, eagerly. “It takes a lot more stuff in you to do that than to wear good clothes and keep your hands white on the money your father gives you. It’s these fellows who earn their way who do things when they get into real work. They’re used to hard knocks, and they go straight ahead when fellows like Putnam flat out. That’s proved by the whole history of the Academy.”
“What’s proved by the whole history of the Academy?” asked Peck, with irritating calmness.
“Why, that fellows that earn their way make the most successful men.”
“I haven’t said a word against fellows who earn their own way,” retorted Peck, sharply. “They may make the most successful men and they may not. I don’t care anything about that. But if you think that the history of the Academy proves that every scholarship fellow becomes a great and good man, you’re sadly off. The scholarship fellows are of all kinds—good, bad, and indifferent. Some are nice fellows; some are dead beats, getting their board and clothes off the Academy because it’s less work and more fun than it would be to milk cows or work in the shoe-shop; some seem to be training for crooks or anarchists. They work their way because they have to, that’s all. You don’t suppose they prefer it, do you?”
“Mulcahy plays football, and is on the ‘Seatonian,’ and does well in his studies, and he is a good speaker in the Laurel Leaf,” remarked Archer, feeling suddenly his inexperience, and returning to the personal example when general assertion proved unsafe. “He amounts to more than Kendrick, and yet you don’t make any objection to Kendrick.”
“Kendrick is a good fellow,” said Duncan, enigmatically.
“But Mulcahy isn’t!” completed Archer, with a sarcastic grin.
“No, Mulcahy isn’t.” Duncan’s assertion was made in the nonchalant fashion which we use in stating generally accepted facts. A slight pause ensued, which he broke with a sudden accession of vehemence. “It’s no use to argue about such fellows. Either you like ’em or you don’t. It’s a matter of taste, and the way you have of looking at fellows. We shan’t agree, because we don’t think alike. You have your kind and I have mine. You’ve a right to admire Mulcahy and his gang if you want to. I suppose you’ve got a right to bring him in here, too—as half the room is yours.”
“I shall if I want to,” answered Sam, with head high. “He’s just as good as—as we are.”
“That depends on the value you set on yourself,” returned Duncan, coolly, taking his books into his bedroom with the air of one who wished to be alone.
Sam sat down at his desk, declaring scornfulindifference to Duncan Peck and his snobbish notions, but his thought ran rather on the discussion just held than on the lesson before him. Notwithstanding his assertion to the contrary, he soon decided that he should not bring Mulcahy round. It wasn’t the fair thing to impose an unwelcome guest upon his room-mate. At the same time he was clearly convinced that Peck’s attitude was unworthy and contrary to the spirit and ideals of the school. If he must choose between Peck’s favor and the friendship of deserving boys who were struggling to overcome the handicap of poverty and make something of themselves, he should not hesitate as to a choice. The steady fellows toiling along the path trodden by Webster and Lincoln were more honorable companions than the sleek, empty-headed brats of the newly rich!
This resolution to keep Mulcahy away from 7 Hale out of consideration for Peck, Sam broke that very day—broke because he couldn’t help himself. Mulcahy would come. To be sure, he had a reason for coming,—to discuss the election of the Laurel Leaf, of which literarysociety Archer had become a member; but he stayed longer than was necessary for this purpose and talked mainly about himself. Mulcahy was a striking figure in the school. Of good size, with well-poised head and bold, regular features lighted up by brilliant dark eyes, ready of speech and confident in manner, he gave the impression of one who had a distinguished future before him. He had not only the plausibility of a natural politician, but a certain insinuating way of taking another fellow into his confidence as if he alone appreciated the other’s true value. Sam had been captivated by Mulcahy’s winning attentions early in his school career; he believed in him and admired him.
Mulcahy was frankly ambitious. He was bound to lift himself. When he had finished school—he explained to Sam—he meant to study law and get into politics in some large city; he might go to college first if the way opened. He expected to have to work hard to accomplish these ambitions, especially as he believed in going in for the outside things as far as possible—the “Seatonian” and athletics and the literary societies.He tried to keep safely above the scholarship line, and he did well with the influential profs. He belonged to the Christian Fraternity, too; it helped you with the profs to belong to that.
“When you have to fight your own way in the world, you must take advantage of everything that comes along,” he declared.
“It’s a great thing to do that, to educate yourself,” said Sam, enthusiastically. “It develops an ability that puts you ahead when you come to real work in the world.”
Mulcahy looked at him sharply. “Yes, it sounds well, but it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. If you tried it a month, you’d find out. Lots of fellows in this school look down on us scholarship fellows.”
“Not those whose opinion is worth anything,” answered Sam, promptly. “Not the best fellows, or the profs.”
“The profs don’t count,” said Mulcahy, “and it’s hard to tell who are the best fellows. There’s your room-mate, Peck, for instance. He speaks to me on the street in a kind of condescending way, and he wouldn’t be above taking a crib fromme in recitation, but you don’t suppose he’d invite me up here, do you?”
Sam blushed and twisted in his chair; he felt thoroughly ashamed of his room-mate, sufficiently ashamed to report with open indignation the discussion which had recently been held on this very subject. But an instinctive regard for honorable dealing, an instinct which Sam felt even when his faulty reason would have misled him, closed his lips. “I’ve heard him speak highly of Kendrick,” he said, at length finding a clue. “He’s a scholarship man.”
“Kendrick!” ejaculated Mulcahy. “What’s there to him? A common grind who’s had the luck to be taken on the football squad!”
“Why, I thought he was a nice fellow,” remarked Archer, puzzled at Mulcahy’s vehemence. “What’s the matter with him?”
“Oh, he’s good enough as fellows go,” replied Mulcahy, “but it’s always seemed to me a green kind of goodness. He doesn’t know any better.”
“Know any better!” echoed Sam, still puzzled.
“I mean he isn’t very keen,” Mulcahy explained. “His wits are dull. You could takehim in as easy as looking. He’s an honest fool, and good-natured.”
Sam did not answer. He was wondering why two fellows with the same hard problems of life to solve shouldn’t sympathize with each other. Mulcahy rose to go.
“I’ll count on you, then, in the election. Of course, I don’t want the office, but we can’t have those fellows running things to suit themselves all the time. It’s contrary to the whole spirit of the place. I wish you’d see Lord and Kendrick and get them with us. They’d bring others.”
“I’ll do all I can,” said Sam, cordially.
The blow fell; Hillbury routed the Seaton eleven with ease. Sam had his mother and twelve-year-old sister down for the occasion. They came gay-trimmed and expectant, surveyed the room with critical but forgiving eyes, took luncheon at the Sedgwicks’, saw the game, and departed by an evening train, witnessing with unsympathetic curiosity the noisy antics of the victors as they trooped to their special. Duncan happened in at 7 Hale while the visitors were there. He had the courtesy to hide any indifference which he may have felt to the Archer family. As a result, Mrs. Archer found him most agreeable, and she gave cordial expression to her opinion that Sam had been fortunate in his room-mate. Peck listened politely and made an acceptable response, but Sam, with a haste which surprised his dear mother, switched the conversation to another track.
After his guests had departed Sam returned to his room and fell to brooding on the disappointments of life. Being new to the school and loyal, he was sensitive to the humiliation of the defeat by Hillbury; he likewise felt his loneliness in the big school in which he knew so many slightly and cared especially for no one who cared for him. His relations with Duncan kept him at a distance from Duncan’s friends. In spite of his championship of Mulcahy he did not find that young man wholly satisfying as a companion. The temptation to find relief in wrong ways came up before him in a vaguely attractive form, not strong enough to upset his moral balance, but effectively adding to his sense of isolation. John Fish in the room below had planned to celebrate the victory. The victory failing, John had resigned himself to celebrating defeat. He did this by stealing out of town to a neighboring city, whence he would steal back in the early morning with gross boasts of his achievements ready for trustworthy ears. John Fish was one of those who never refuse themselves what they crave if gratification is possible. He was toocoarse and too vulgar to exert a winning influence on Archer, but the thought of him to-night gave a pessimistic trend to our young man’s philosophy. He looked abroad through blue spectacles upon a world of injustice in which the wicked triumphed. There was Birdie Fowle, who never did anything worse than make a noise or throw water out of a window, and yet was deep in Mr. Alsop’s bad books; the wise ones declared that Birdie wouldn’t last long in school. John Fish, meanwhile, went his quiet way unsuspected. Mr. Alsop always had a good word for him as an orderly and serious-minded youth; yet his sins compared to Fowle’s were as boiler plate to blotting-paper.
Sam took up his French books to get ready for Monday’s examination. Mr. Alsop was young and strenuous, a good teacher, but saturated with the conviction of his own importance, and ambitious for distinction as a driver. He boasted that he tolerated no sluggards in his courses; he prided himself on his keenness in detecting the goats before their whiskers had begun to appear. The result was that many slow-minded sheep got the credit of being goats, and many awily old goat palmed himself off as an innocent lamb. Mr. Alsop meant well, but went wrong; and being wholly satisfied with the rectitude of his intentions, he was the last to discover the crookedness of his course. More than one unscrupulous idler, by pretending that he was struggling hard against natural inability, secured better marks than he deserved. Others—among them Sam—who said less and actually struggled more were predestined from the beginning to D’s and E’s. Sam felt that nothing short of a series of phenomenal examination books could propitiate fate. Convinced that the scales were weighted against him, he worked half-heartedly. It was with a sense of relief, after a quarter of an hour of unprofitable study on his French, that he hailed the interruption of Mulcahy.
“Plugging to-night?” asked the caller, in a tone of surprise, as he dropped indolently into a comfortable chair and hoisted his feet to the top of a table.
“It’s got to be done,” replied Sam; “why not to-night?”
“Because on the night of a Hillbury gamenobody expects to do anything. If we had won, you’d have been out all the evening celebrating.”
“It was terrible, wasn’t it!” mourned Sam, reminded anew of the school’s affliction.
“They got it right in the neck,” returned Mulcahy, cheerfully. “Defence, attack, kicking, running, forward passes, Hillbury put it all over ’em. They won’t hold up their heads for a week. It’s a very different thing being on an eleven that’s had the stuffing beaten out of it, from playing a winner.”
“You talk as if you were glad we got beaten,” said Sam, gloomily.
“Oh, no, I’m just making the best of the case. There’s no use in crying about it. You and I didn’t lose the game, anyway. Those that lost will have to take the kicks now.”
“I don’t think they deserve kicks. They played as well as they knew how. Kendrick was a regular star. The way he stopped the rushes of that big red-headed Hillbury half-back was wonderful!”
“Yes, he did pretty well considering the short time he’s been out,” Mulcahy conceded. “Butwhat good was it? They got licked to their knees, that’s the essential fact.”
“Who wrote that editorial in the ‘Seatonian’ special about the game?”
“I did,” replied Mulcahy, complacently. “Wasn’t it smooth?”
“Well, your statements don’t hang together then. In that you said that while the result of the game was disappointing to Seaton, the main thing, after all, was that it was well played and fairly won; it was no disgrace to a team to be beaten in such a contest.”
Mulcahy laughed heartily. “The ‘Seatonian’ was speaking then. The paper says what will sound well and suit the profs. The editors think what they please.”
“Do you write all the good advice the ‘Seatonian’ gives us, about studying, and maintaining the reputation of the school, and acting up to the Seaton spirit?”
“We all take a turn at it. It’s part of the business.”
“Don’t you believe in it?”
“Oh, sometimes; sometimes not. We don’thave to.” Mulcahy was growing tired of the subject. “What’re you working on, French?”
“Yes, I’ve got an exam with Alsop Monday.”
“It’s an easy subject.”
“Not for me, and not with Alsop.”
“Oh, he isn’t bad if you don’t get him down on you. You want to go to see him and ask his opinion about things. Pretend to think a great deal of him, and let him give you information—he likes to do that—and confide in him some trouble or other—not a real one, you know, but something you’ve thought up. Get him going on the comparative merits of ancient and modern languages, if you can, and be convinced. He’s ’most as easy that way as Rounder. You’ll have to do some plugging too, of course.”
“I’m willing to plug,” said Archer, dubiously, “but I hate to talk with him.”
“Too bad you don’t have Rounder; he’s the easiest thing there is,” went on Mulcahy. “Last year Stevens and McCarthy were way down in his class; they hadn’t either of ’em been doing a thing above E. Both of ’em went to Doc Rounder two weeks before the end of the term. Stevenssaid: ‘Don’t you think I’ve been improving lately, Doctor? I’ve been working terribly. It seems to me I ought to have a D anyway.’ Doc Rounder looks at his book and says: ‘Well, I don’t know—have you been studyingveryhard?’ ‘Two hours every lesson,’ says Stevens. ‘Perhaps I can. We’ll see,’ says Doc. McCarthy was nervier. He said: ‘Dr. Rounder, I think I ought to have a B this time. I’ve made a great improvement over last term.’ Rounder looked in his book again and kind of hesitated; ‘I’m afraid I can’t do it, McCarthy, your marks are too low.’ ‘I ought to have B with the work I’ve put in it,—C at least,’ McCarthy said, trying to look indignant. Rounder said he’d think it over. Stevens got D for a term mark, and McCarthy C—and neither of ’em deserved a thing above E.”
“Had they been doing all that work?” asked Sam, innocently.
“Naw, they hadn’t studied ten minutes a week.”
“Then they lied.”
Mulcahy laughed aloud. “Of course they lied. Who wouldn’t to Rounder? Why, lying is the one thing you learn in his course.”
Archer pondered this statement in silence. Presently Mulcahy offered to help him with his French, and they employed themselves for a half-hour in looking up points on which Mr. Alsop was considered likely to test his class in the examination. After a time Mulcahy’s zeal slackened. He tilted back in his chair, smoked a couple of cigarettes, and talked of the coming election in the Laurel Leaf.
“Scholarship men do smoke, then?” asked Sam, as the conversation lagged. He knew well that it was a strict rule that holders of scholarships should not smoke.
“We’re not supposed to,” answered Mulcahy, easily, “but you can’t always do what you’re supposed to.”
“I should think they would smell it on your clothes.”
“I’m pretty careful. Besides, you can always lay it off on to some one you’ve been with. My reputation would save me from suspicion anyway. I could bluff my way out of it.”
“It doesn’t seem quite square—”
“Oh, rot! What’s a few cigarettes? It’sjust a question of getting ahead of the profs. The faculty is on one side and we’re on the other. They try to make us do what they want, and we try to do what we please. They’ll soak us if they can, and we beat ’em when we can. This isn’t a Sunday-school; it’s a little piece cut out of the world. If you’re going to get on here, you’ve got to shake your kindergarten ideas, and play the game.”
Mulcahy soon took himself away, and Sam went early to bed to sleep off his low spirits. On the next day he made an afternoon call at the Sedgwicks’ and yielded readily to an invitation to supper. Miss Margaret was a mighty sorceress in dispelling the grumps. In the evening he attended the Christian Fraternity meeting, addressed by a distinguished professor of Yale. Mulcahy sat in a front row, and listened devoutly.
Regular exercise in the gymnasium began immediately after the Hillbury game. In Sam’s squad was a fellow from South Boston named Dennis Runyon. Runyon possessed a head ornamented with stiff, bristly hair on top, a stubby nose and pimply cheeks in front, and flaring clam-shell ears at the side. In the vacant spaces of his brain lurked, with other delusions of a large and general ignorance, a fixed idea that every man who was not positively effeminate admired a pugilist. Runyon’s notions as to the meaning of education were hazy; he had come to Seaton with the somewhat vague hope of bettering his prospects in life, bearing a letter of introduction from a cousin who had worked his way through the school and was appreciative of the help which it had given him. This letter from a faithful alumnus procured Runyon’s admittance. Entering a lower class inwhich the work was, for him, largely review, he gained rank high enough to receive a provisional scholarship.
But Dennis Runyon’s ambitions were not limited to gaining a foothold on the toilsome, uphill road which the self-made man must travel; he thirsted for distinction, especially distinction in athletics. The school football team did not desire his services; his class captain gave him a trial, and quickly dropped him for a smaller man who used his head more and his fists less. The football season passed, the uneventful winter months were at hand, his lesson marks were tending steadily downward. The name of Runyon was still obscure in Seaton.
Dennis went home for Thanksgiving, and offered what excuses he could for his failure to make the expected reputation.
“Don’t you know any fellows at all?” demanded Pete Runyon, an older brother, who had brought some glory upon the family by winning public matches at various boxing clubs.
“Not many,” replied Dennis, candidly. “They don’t take much notice of a new fellow.”
“Why don’t ye get up a fight, then? That’ll show ’em what kind of a man ye are.”
“I haven’t got any reason for fighting.”
“Find one, make one! Pick out one of these fellows who’s stuck on himself and give him a little jaw. He’ll fight when he gets mad enough. Then give him a good upper cut and finish him off easy. They’ll have some respect for you then. Ain’t ye man enough for that?”
“I dunno.”
“Ye ought to be, then. What’ve I learned ye to use yer paddies for? See what it’s done fer me! When I go down the street, the’ ain’t a man in the ward that don’t jump to give me the glad hand. It’s so everywhere. Everybody likes a man that can fight. The boys’ll talk about ye all over the school. Ye’ll be somebody then!”
Dennis returned to school with his brother’s counsel ringing in his ears. He experimented at first with boasts, and anecdotes of hard bouts. The bystanders listened with grins and suggested that he try his skill on Legge. Legge was a heavy-weight football player, old and hard, with the torso of a Roman Hercules, and arms ridged withiron sinews. As Runyon was a light middle-weight, this suggestion could only spring from gross ignorance of the rules of the ring, or be prompted by a spirit of ridicule. When flippant small boys of his class, whose weakness was their protection, fell to asking him, with mock solemnity, for details of these encounters, he became gradually aware that he was being chaffed. Something must be done to impress the contemptuous with his worth.
Exactly why he chose Sam Archer as the person on whom to try the value of his brother’s advice is not easy to determine. Jealousy doubtless entered into the case, a little personal spite, and much of the cunning of the professional sport. Sam’s democratic principles were not quite broad enough to include a friendship with Runyon. Sam had made a class football team when Runyon had not. Sam was tall and therefore looked big, yet being thin was presumably weak—a combination much to be desired in the person to be used by Runyon for demonstration of his prowess. He was, moreover, an independent. Not being a member of any close organization, he was not always surrounded by friends who felt themselvesprivileged to interfere in his affairs; and though not a fraternity man or a great athlete, he was not so obscure that a victory over him would be inglorious.
Having selected his victim, Runyon’s only problem was to make him fight. It happened soon that chance threw a pretext directly in his way, though he was not quick enough to recognize it. Archer, in the hurried crowding to put away dumbbells after the exercise, stepped on Runyon’s heel and pulled his gymnasium slipper loose. Runyon turned with a scowl, but before his mind awoke to the opportunity Archer had begged his pardon and passed on. The next day Runyon deliberately trod on Archer’s heel, and did not apologize. The result, however, was disappointing; Sam adjusted his shoe and went his way without bestowing a look on the offender.
The boxer now had recourse to more aggressive measures. He pushed young Hartley into Archer on the gymnasium floor, but it was Hartley who turned on him with abuse—and Hartley was too small to notice. He commented with audible contempt on Sam’s performance on the vaultinghorse. As he passed Taylor and Archer talking together at the head of the gymnasium stairs, he mocked the phrase which had just fallen from Sam’s lips, and lingered near by to see if his challenge would be taken up.
“What’s that fellow driving at?” demanded Taylor. “Is he trying to get up a scrap with you?”
“It looks like it,” replied Sam. “Perhaps it’s just his way of being funny.”
“He’s getting too fresh. He ought to be squelched!”
“I don’t want to be the one to do it. You don’t gain anything by scrapping with fellows like him.”
Sam’s evident unwillingness to be drawn was just the incentive needed to urge his assailant on. Runyon was one who could be bluffed or cowed, but not placated. Sam was by nature good-humored and patient, capable of holding out on a fixed course to the last gasp, but neither resentful nor pugnacious. When Collins informed Bruce that Archer was good material, but must get speed and fight into him before he could accomplishanything, the coach showed himself a shrewd judge of character, as well as an expert in the psychology of successful racers. As Archer sought to avoid him, Runyon’s conduct grew more offensive. Both were criticised severely by spectators of the performance, the one for not standing up for his rights, the other for acting like a hoodlum.
The crisis came one day early in December, when Runyon, having flung out an unsuccessful gibe in the dressing room, overtook Archer on the stairs and jostled roughly against him. Sam, at last exasperated, gave the bully a push with his shoulder that sent the intrepid challenger hard against the side wall. Runyon rebounded, and striking Archer a blow in the upper arm, squared himself for battle.
“Come on, if you want to fight!” he called derisively. “I didn’t believe you had sand enough.”
“I won’t fight here,” answered Archer.
“Ye won’t fight anywhere, I guess. You’re too much of a coward!”
By this time boys were gathering above andbelow, and staring at the brawlers with eager, grinning faces.
“Don’t stand his lip, Sam,” said Kendrick, pushing his way up the steps. “Knock the face off him!”
Runyon turned sharply toward the intruder. Whatever his intention, he suppressed it as soon as he recognized the stalwart football player. “He’ll knock the face off me, nit!” said the pugilist. “He won’t even give me a chance to get at him. Shorty Hartley’s about his class.”
The gong for the beginning of exercise sounded.
“I’ll give you a chance this afternoon,” said Sam, hastily.
“Yes, you will!” sneered Runyon, “probably when you have a crowd of friends to butt in.”
“When we can have it out alone,” declared Sam, with a hard look in his eyes and an air of extreme dignity. “I’ll send a second to you this noon.”
The more Archer considered the matter, the more disgusted he became. It was totally unreasonable and absurd. Runyon had apparently set his heart on forcing a fight—why, Runyon alone knew. Sam felt himself the victim of an inexplicable persecution. He couldn’t hand the persecutor over to friends to chastise, he couldn’t complain to the faculty, he couldn’t put up forever with insults and humiliations. He simply must fight—unless Mulcahy’s sharp wits could devise a way of silencing the rowdy.
Sam found Mulcahy before luncheon, and appealed for help.
“What did you get into such a scrape for?” demanded Mulcahy, with small show of sympathy.
“It wasn’t my fault; he forced me into it.”
“You must have done something to him. He wouldn’t pick on you without some kind of reason.”
“Not a thing. I don’t think I’d ever spokento him. He’s making a fool of himself and me too. Can’t you go to him and show him how idiotic it is, and get him to shut up? If you don’t succeed in that, tell him I’m ready to fight.”
Mulcahy drew away. “I couldn’t do that, really. It wouldn’t do for me to interfere. I’d like to help you, of course, but I couldn’t get mixed up in a thing of that kind.”
“Why not?” asked Archer, perplexed at his friend’s coldness.
“Well, it would be talked about; some of the faculty would hear of it, and they might not understand my position in it. I couldn’t have them think I was acting as second in a school prize-fight. Then my position on the ‘Seatonian’ has to be considered.”
“I don’t see what that has to do with it,” said Archer, gloomily. “I’ve got into trouble with a cheap mutt, from no fault of mine. I’ve got to have some one to help me.”
“I’ll help you by giving you the best advice I know. Go to Runyon quietly and fix it up.”
“Fix it up!” echoed Archer. “How can I fix it up?”
“Why, tell him you acted thoughtlessly, and are sorry you pushed him. Beg his pardon, and when the thing is over and settled, avoid him. If you don’t patch it up, you’ll be walloped by a good fighter, and very likely get kicked out of school into the bargain.”
Sam stared—glared—at his counsellor. “Go down on my knees to that fellow!” he said, with vibrant voice and flashing eyes. “Swallow all the insults he’s given me and ask for more, beg his pardon for not taking his dirty kicks with gratitude! I wouldn’t do that for a dozen ‘Seatonians’ and a hundred faculties. I wouldn’t do that for any one, not if I knew I was going to be fired the next minute!”
“Don’t blame me, then, if things don’t go right,” returned Mulcahy, seating himself at his desk as if the interview were over. “You’ll just get into the scrape deeper. I’ve given you the best advice I know. My conscience is clear.”
Sam flung out of Mulcahy’s room without a backward glance or a word. Furious with Mulcahy and with the whole ridiculous business, he strode along vowing he would fight without asecond, anywhere, at any time. At the corner of Sibley he ran into Kendrick.
“Look out there!” sang out Kendrick’s cheerful voice. “What’re you rushing me for? I’m not Runyon.”
Sam’s face brightened. “Say, Ken, will you be my second if I have to fight that fellow?”
“Sure, I will,” responded the ready Kendrick. “But why do you say ‘if’? You’vegotto fight him.”
“Don’t you think you might go to him and show him what a fool he’s making—”
“It wouldn’t do a bit of good,” interrupted Kendrick. “Nothing’ll cure his disease but some good hard punches in the head. I’d just as lief go and tell him what a fool he is as not. Maybe I’d get a chance to hand him a few myself. Only it wouldn’t do any good.”
“You won’t get into any trouble with the profs by backing me, will you?” questioned Sam, mindful of Mulcahy’s fears.
“Trouble? Supposing I do? The job’s got to be done, hasn’t it?”
“Then go and tell him to come to my roomafter the four o’clock bell rings. Alsop is at recitation then. He can bring some one with him.”
“All right,” replied Kendrick, cordially. “Trust the thing to me. I’ll arrange everything in proper style, giving him a little of my opinion at the same time. Four o’clock this afternoon at 7 Hale!”
Mr. Alsop took his books and his dignity over to recitation that afternoon, little suspecting the plot against the boasted quiet of his entry. Kendrick had cleared the centre of the room of movables, and now sat on the sofa, nursing his knee and giving final words of counsel. Sam had put on tennis shoes, an old pair of trousers and a jersey, and over this had thrown his coat.
“Don’t accept any rules at all,” advised Kendrick. “Just wade in and hit him any old way. You aren’t fighting for a diamond belt, you’re just defending yourself against bullying; close in on him or throw him; then pummel him. If you stand off, he’ll whack you. You want to rush him.”
“It’s the craziest fool thing I ever got into,” groaned Sam. “There’s no sense in it at all. I never did anything to the mucker.”
“What’s the good of going over that again! When a rowdy sets on you in the street, you’ve got either to fight or to run. It’s no use to tell him he isn’t acting like a gentleman. If Runyon insists on fighting, you’ve got to fight him, or get some one else to do it for you, or appeal to the faculty for protection.”
“I know it!” growled Sam, whose temper was growing vicious. “I’m going to fight.”
“You’re going to win, too,” observed Kendrick, with a sage nod, falling in naturally with the orthodox practice of encouragement pursued by seconds since the days of Homer. “He’s nothing.”
A bold knock at the door announced the coming of the enemy. Runyon walked in, followed by Brantwein, his supporter. Brantwein was a radical, avowing and defending extreme socialist ideas. He was beating his way through the school. He sold peanuts to the fellows on the bleachers at the ball games, devised various means, effective and ineffective, of getting marks without excessive work, put the shot with considerable success, and protested generally that his name didnot mean “brandy,” because it was not spelled with a doublen. None the less he was dubbed “Brandy” from the day of his advent. He was generally against the government, and he liked a scrap.
Runyon took off his coat immediately. “We’ll follow the Marquis of Queensberry rules,” he proclaimed. “No hitting below the belt and no clinching.”
“Rules nothing!” answered Kendrick, curtly.
“What’s all this for, anyway?” said Archer. “I’ve nothing against you to fight over.”
“I’ve got something against you,” returned Runyon, “and you ain’t goin’ to crawl out of it now!”
At this taunt a white spot appeared on each of Sam’s cheekbones, and an ominous light flashed into his eyes. He drew off his coat—slowly, because he wanted time to consider his opening. Runyon caught the change of color in his opponent’s face, and misinterpreted its meaning. Fearing that the long-suffering Archer might be still reluctant to use his fists, and that the éclat which he had striven for might at the last momentescape him, he stepped forward and swung the flat of his hand in a stinging slap against Sam’s cheek.
The effect far exceeded Runyon’s expectations. Sam’s long-suppressed anger at being forced into a ridiculous position flared into scorching fury. With every nerve alert and every muscle quivering, he flung the coat aside and leaped forward. He came too quick and too hard for his enemy’s artistic defence. The blow that should have felled him to the floor, wildly and feebly aimed, glanced harmless from his lowered, plunging head. The next instant, Sam’s arms were encircling Runyon’s waist, his head was planted safely against his opponent’s chest; the on-rush of his dive swept the boxer, drumming vainly on the muscle-armored shoulders, back against the wall. They struck the doorpost with a force that slammed Runyon’s head against the wood. Before he could recover, Archer caught his footing, and whirling his confused assailant about, threw him to the floor and fell heavily upon him.
What followed was totally contrary to the conduct expected of a well-mannered hero of a boy’sbook. Never was mighty fighter so soon despoiled of his martial ardor, or so quickly brought to piteous appeal for mercy. The seconds together dragged the infuriated tiger from his prey. And while Kendrick in the corner of the study was bringing Archer back to his normal state of charity and patience, Brantwein was swabbing Runyon’s swelling, red-smeared face in the bedroom, and muttering a combination of consolations and invectives.
“He didn’t fight fair!” sputtered Runyon, when his breath returned and his throat was clear.
“Oh, shut up!” retorted the socialist. “You got what was coming to you.”
“Didn’t I tell you the way to fix him!” boasted Kendrick, when the door closed behind the battered, cowed Runyon and his disappointed second. “If you had fought according to ring rules, he’d have knocked you all over the place.”
“Supposing he had done it, what then?” asked Sam, looking ruefully at his knuckles.
“Then I should have insulted him,” answered Kendrick, promptly, “and if he did for me, someone else would have come up. He’d never have got through the year without a good whaling.”
Runyon went home the next day for comfort and repairs. And when he was repaired and comforted, not daring or not caring to face the jeers of his schoolmates, he decided not to return to the scene of his defeat, but to work in a department store instead. Some time after his disappearance, some innocent asked a friendly instructor whether Runyon was expelled on account of his fight with Archer, and thus put the keen noses of the faculty on the scent. So, long after the school had ceased to talk of it, the history of the Battle of 7 Hale was revealed to the authorities.
Despite his fears, Sam never heard from the faculty with reference to his duel. He had, on the whole, proved to his teachers his right to be considered a law-abiding citizen, if not a distinguished scholar; and the accepted student version of the affair showed him anything but an aggressor. Mr. Alsop, while consenting to the verdict of acquittal, adhered in silence to his own opinion, which held Sam accountable for the desecration of the well by a low fight.
This, however, was a month after the event. Mulcahy had come over on the very evening to offer congratulations.
“You were lucky to get out of it so easily,” he said. “The fact is that I thought Runyon would be too much for you, so the best thing was to switch him off. I didn’t like the idea of yourbeing mauled about by a rough bully like him. That’s why I tried to keep you back.”
“But I simply couldn’t put up any longer with the treatment he was giving me,” protested Sam. “That was worse than fighting and getting licked. I hadn’t any self-respect left.”
“I hoped you would be able to patch it up. I see now that I was wrong, but I was terribly afraid he’d do you some injury.”
Sam uttered a low laugh—quite the good-natured victor. “Well, he didn’t. My knuckles are the only sore spot on me.”
“It’s a good thing you got Kendrick into it with you. He’ll be more likely to come over to our side on the Laurel Leaf matter. Have you talked with him yet?”
Sam shook his head.
“Be as careful with him as you can. Make him see that we want to get the offices out of the hands of the oligarchy, back into the school. It’s a shame that a democratic institution like the Academy should be bossed by the few fellows in the fraternities.”
“Isn’t it chiefly because the frats have got someof the best fellows in them?” asked Sam, innocently.
“No! They have some good fellows and a lot who wouldn’t be anything if they didn’t have money behind them. They put a frat man forward, and the rank and file just sit still and vote him in.”
“The rank and file don’t care much about it anyway.”
“They ought to, and they will when they’re aroused. It’s up to us to show them how to protect their rights.”
After Mulcahy went, Sam compared the statement which his guest had just made about the duel, with the reasons which he had given the day before when he refused to act as second. “He was really afraid to have anything to do with it,” he mused. “I don’t believe those fellows he’s so down on would have gone back on a friend in that way. Still, I ought not to blame him for that; he has his way to make; he can’t afford to get into trouble with the profs.” The contrasting conduct of Kendrick, who also had his way to make, occurred to him, and shookhis faith in his own argument. “But Ken is a natural scrapper,” he reassured himself. “Ken would do ’most anything to see a fight.”
One thing, however, Ken would not do—vote for Mulcahy for office. That Archer discovered as soon as he broached the subject.
“I wouldn’t vote for him for street sweeper!” he declared. “Mulcahy’s a pig, and a grafter. He’s all for Mulcahy, and for nobody and nothing else. If he wants a thing, on general principles I don’t want it. If he says a course is right, I’m sure it isn’t. He works everything and everybody he can get hold of. He’s got the faculty hypnotized into believing he’s an angel. I wouldn’t trust him around the corner.”
“He’s a mighty able fellow,” replied Archer, who charged Kendrick’s vehemence up against prejudice and envy; “a lot abler than Metcalf, or Dupont, or—”
“Or me—” put in Kendrick, fervid, but ungrammatical. “He’s all that—everything but straight.”
“I’ve never seen anything crooked about him,” Sam persisted. “He’s been a very good friendto me. I should think as you’re both in the same boat, you’d sympathize with him.”
“How are we both in the same boat?”
“Why, you both have to rely on yourselves for what you get. You are both scholarship men.”
Kendrick looked relieved. “Is that all you meant! I was afraid you thought we were in some way alike. If that was so, I was going to change right off so as to be different. Mulcahy’s a crook!”
“He’s a friend of mine, if you please,” said Sam, with dignity.
“What has he ever done for you, anything?”
“Yes, he’s helped me with lessons and given me advice.”
“Advice is cheap. You can get it by the hour down in Alsop’s room. If he’s given you free tutoring, that’s something.”
“It hasn’t been very much,” confessed Sam. “I didn’t need it.”
“He wasn’t much use to you in your row with Runyon, was he? If you’d followed his advice then, you’d have been to the bad altogether.”
“He meant well; he was afraid I’d get hurt,”announced Sam; and then, to cut short this discussion of Mulcahy’s virtues, he asked, “Then you won’t vote for him?”
“Vote for him? Never. I’d rather vote for myself! I’m more or less of a fool, but I have a little principle, and there are some things I’m too good or too proud to do. There’s nothing Mulcahy wouldn’t do, if he could make anything by it, and was sure nobody saw him. Don’t be surprised if you find me electioneering against him.”
Sam went back to his room disgusted. The causes of his disgust were so complex, that he couldn’t possibly disentangle them. He imagined the chief one to be his failure to accomplish his object with Kendrick, and the latter’s colossal prejudice against Mulcahy. In fact, he was beginning to feel the difficulty of defending his friend from insinuations against him, and to be annoyed that it was necessary to do so. He found Peck standing before the grate with hands clasped behind him, and a black frown on his face.
“I hear you’ve been turning this place into a prize ring,” began Duncan. “Hereafter whenyou have these little affairs with your friends I wish you’d hold ’em somewhere else.”
“I shan’t have any more. I didn’t want this one. I tried as hard as I could to keep out of it.”
“You didn’t have to hold it here, did you?”
“Perhaps not. I didn’t know where else to go. I thought you wouldn’t be here.”
“I wish I had been. I’d have stopped it mighty quick. Runyon and Brandy Brantwein and Mulcahy and you! That combination would ruin any room’s reputation!”
“Mulcahy wasn’t here!” said Sam, sullenly.
“Who was it, then?”
“Kendrick.”
Duncan stared. “I wonder how he got into it,” he said at length.
“He knew I was forced into the thing and he wanted to help me out,” answered Sam, quickly. “That’s more than some fellows I know would do,” he added with scornful emphasis.
Duncan’s stern look melted into a malicious grin. “More than Mulcahy would do, I’ll bet. He isn’t running any more risks than he can help.”
“There wasn’t any risk!” said Sam, bravely.
“There wasn’t? Why, you’ll every one of you be fired when the faculty gets on to it.”
“I guess not,” Sam remarked with a confidence which was not altogether sincere.
“That Mulcahy has the crust of a crocodile,” went on Peck. “I understand he’s trying to elect himself president of the Leaf.”
“Look here, Peck,” said Sam, holding his head high, “I wish you’d leave Mulcahy out of the conversation hereafter. He’s a friend of mine, and I don’t care to hear him abused all the time. If you don’t want to vote for him, you’re not obliged to. There’ll be other candidates. He has brains and ability, but perhaps they don’t count as much in your eyes as clothes and a big allowance and membership in a frat.”
“That isn’t so,” snapped Duncan. “I don’t care anything about money, but I hate a mucker whether he’s rich or poor.”
“Mulcahy isn’t a mucker. My opinion on that point is worth more than yours, for I know him better than you do. He’s going home with me over next Sunday. That shows what I think of him.”
Archer spoke with six feet of dignity and the gravity of a judge handing down a decision, but Peck was totally unimpressed. “I hope he won’t steal the silver,” he said with an exasperating twinkle,—“the old silver!”
Sam blushed, and cursed himself that he had ever been fool enough to tell Peck anything. And while he blushed and sought vainly for a crushing reply, Peck went whistling off to his bedroom, disposed to think rather better of his room-mate after all. If you believe in your friends, it’s your business to stand up for them—until you find them out.
There was no danger of lack of quorum at the election of the Laurel Leaf. Every faithful wheelhorse, every indifferent who had joined “to please the folks at home,” every intermittently interested member hastened to the society rooms with ballot in his hand and zeal in his heart. The tide set hard against the champion of democracy. Underwood was elected by a vote representing two-thirds of the society.
Greatly chagrined and deeply sympathizing with his defeated friend, Sam took Mulcahy home to 7 Hale to console him. Peck, who happened to be in, greeted them coldly, and withdrew in such marked haste that Sam, fearful lest Mulcahy should resent the intended slight, hastily pushed his best chair forward and invited his guest cordially to sit down. Mulcahy, however, showed himself in no wise sensitive. He settled into thecomfortable chair and composedly lit a cigarette, less like a young reformer who had suffered a great disappointment, than a shrewd old philosopher to whom a single defeat was but one of the little annoyances of life, to be smiled over and forgotten.
“When are you going to begin to smoke?” he asked, as Sam drew his chair to the fireplace beside him.
“Not for a long time,” answered Sam, “perhaps never.”
“Why not?”
“My family don’t want me to, for one thing. Then I want to keep myself in good condition.”
“Most fellows wouldn’t care much for either of those reasons,” said Mulcahy. “You’re expected to do what the rest do.”
Sam did not reply to this; he was thinking how hard it often was to resist doing the things which the rest did.
“People at home don’t know anything about what is necessary in a school like this,” continued Mulcahy. “If you want to get on, you mustn’t go against the crowd.”
“I don’t care anything about getting on,” said Sam. “I’m not ambitious.”
“You’d like to be popular, wouldn’t you?”
“No!” Sam answered decidedly. “I shouldn’t want to be disliked, but holding office and that kind of thing doesn’t interest me. There’s too much hard feeling and disappointment.”
Mulcahy laughed. “You don’t know anything about it. Now, I got beaten to-night. Do you suppose I’m discouraged? Not a bit. I’ll lie low for a while and work my game and wait. By and by things will come my way. If you just hang on to a thing long enough, don’t make mistakes and don’t get mad, you wear away the opposition after a time. There’s another election this year, and there’s another year after this. I’ll be president of the Laurel Leaf before I leave this place. See if I don’t.”
Again a silence. Sam believed in Mulcahy’s prophecy, but the tone of it grated on him.
It was not Mulcahy’s habit to take people into his confidence. But to-night, as he lolled in Archer’s comfortable easy-chair, flattered by the attentions and admiration of this boy of superiorstrain, he relaxed his caution and gave a glimpse of his real self.
“Do you know what I do summers?” he asked.
“Work, don’t you?”
“At what?”
Sam shook his head. “You’ve never told me.”
“I sell books. I can go into a factory—when they’ll let me in—and sell books right through from floor to floor, to men and women both. I’ve sold books bound in morocco for six dollars to women who didn’t earn that a week. I used to be so successful that when I came to deliver the books, they’d pretend I’d used unfair means to get their signatures. Yet it was all done by holding on and not taking offence, and flattering and agreeing with people.”
“I don’t think much of getting poor women to pay a week’s wages for a book when they need every cent they can earn for food and clothes,” said Sam, bluntly.
“Oh, perhaps they earned more than six dollars. It don’t matter. They’re bound to throw away about so much anyway.”
“How old are you?” asked Sam.
“I’ll be twenty-one next July.”
“You’re only three years older than I am, but I couldn’t do that kind of thing if I were fifty.” Sam did not say exactly what he meant, which was that he couldn’t do that kind of thing under any circumstances.
“I just mentioned it to show what hanging on will do. I don’t really care anything about this Laurel Leaf office except as a help to something else.”
“What is that?”
Mulcahy looked at his host doubtfully under the rising twists of smoke. “You won’t speak of it to any one?”
“Certainly not, if you don’t want me to.”
“You know what the Yale Cup is?” he asked.
“Never heard of it.”
“The Yale Club of Boston gives a cup every year in three or four big schools to the senior who ‘combines the greatest excellence in athletics with good standing in his studies.’ That’s the way it reads in the catalogue. It’s awarded at Commencement, with a whole batch of other prizes. In June of our senior year I want thatcup. The greatest difficulty is about the athletics. I’m going to try hard for the football team next fall, and I’ll do something with the pole vault this year. With the ‘Seatonian’ and the presidency of the Laurel Leaf, and good rank in studies, and the favor of several influential profs, which I’m working for, I ought to have a good show.”
“Do you apply for it?” asked simple Sam.
“No, foolish! The faculty picks out the man.”
Mulcahy threw the stub of his fourth cigarette into the fireplace and lighted another. “That’s a prize worth having,” he went on, “for it means that the winner is a superior, all-round man. I’m going in for the Merrill compositions too, and perhaps for the speaking. They’re cash prizes, you know; but as honors they aren’t in it with the Yale Cup.”
“Did Owen get it last year?”
“No, he wasn’t a good enough scholar. He did well enough in athletics, but he was only about a C man in his studies.”
“That would be a perfectly bully thing to take home with you, wouldn’t it?” broke forth Sam,in honest enthusiasm. “Your father and mother would be tickled to death with the scholarship part of it, and the honor of the athletics would make you feel like a prince. I’d rather get a thing like that than have an auto of my own.”
Mulcahy smiled complacently. “I really don’t care much about athletics. I only go in for them because it’s at present the thing to do.”
A light step was heard in the entry, followed immediately by a knock at the door. Mulcahy put his cigarette on the edge of the table, and shoved his chair away; Sam turned his half round. “Come in!” he cried.
The door opened to admit Mr. Alsop. “Good evening,” he began, as both students rose, and Mulcahy retreated still farther from the table. “I came to inquire the result of your election.”
“I was badly beaten,” said Mulcahy, with charming frankness. “They wouldn’t have me. Underwood was the honored man.”
“I’m glad to see that you take it so well,” said Mr. Alsop. “That’s the spirit I like in school politics.” He stopped short, suddenly aware of the thick atmosphere of smoke and the pungent,penetrating odor of cigarettes. “Why, Archer!” he exclaimed, turning sternly on Sam, “you told me the other day that you did not smoke at all!”
Sam flushed to the roots of his hair; his look glanced from the reproving countenance of the teacher to the calm face of Mulcahy. He did not answer.
“He doesn’t smoke much, I can assure you,” Mulcahy broke in quickly. “I think he was tempted to try a cigarette to-night to comfort himself over our defeat.”
Mr. Alsop sniffed the air. “There’s more than one cigarette in the atmosphere of this room.”
Sam raised his eyes sullenly to the teacher’s, shot a swift, significant glance at Mulcahy, and looked out across the table at the red banner upon the wall. He said nothing, for there was nothing that he could say.
“There’s a great difference between not smoking at all and smoking a little,” the teacher continued in a severe lecture tone. “As I have explained, we do not forbid smoking, except to scholarship men; we try to discourage it all we can, because we consider it harmful. You toldme that you did not smoke. I find you smoking. You have not been honest with me.”
Mr. Alsop paused to give Archer an opportunity to reply. Sam racked his brain for some non-committal form of words, and found none. “Yes, sir,” he said desperately.
“He probably thought, sir, that he smoked so little that it was practically none at all,” interposed Mulcahy. “I’ve never seen him smoking before to-night.”
“He should have said so, then,” declared Mr. Alsop, addressing Mulcahy. “My question was a friendly one and should have been frankly answered.” He faced the culprit again, who, with angry red cheeks and hostile, defiant eyes, now looked squarely at him. “I want to be helpful to you, Archer, but I can’t be that unless you trust me. If you had been honest with me, I shouldn’t have said anything different to you then from what I am saying now, but it would have been pleasanter for you to hear. Any smoking at all is bad for a boy of your age. The habit will grow on you, if once you get it, in spite of you. It will interfere with your physical and mental growth,and unfit you to do your best in studies or in athletics.”
“Yes, sir,” said Sam, whose indignation over the unfair treatment which he was enduring did not prevent his recognizing the truth of the instructor’s words.
“Good night!”
With this abrupt salutation, Mr. Alsop went his way downstairs, wholly satisfied with his own conduct, but confessing serious disappointment with certain of the boys under his care. If only Archer were as straightforward, and Fowle as orderly, as John Fish, the well would be less a source of uneasiness to him and less damaging to his pride. Archer evidently needed watching; and Fowle—well, Fowle would certainly have to go before the end of another term. That boy’s perpetual disregard of rules and apparent contempt for authority were unendurable!