AMICI

Who cares for the burden, the night, and the rain,And the long, steep, lonely road?When out of the darkness a light shines plain,And a voice calls hail and a friend draws reinWith a hand for the stubborn load?

Who cares for the burden, the night, and the rain,

And the long, steep, lonely road?

When out of the darkness a light shines plain,

And a voice calls hail and a friend draws rein

With a hand for the stubborn load?

He strolled across the road and stood with both hands on the rail which guarded the landslide, and looked into the distance. Below him, at the foot of the landslide and rolling to the river and lodged in the hollows were tin cans and burnt-out kettles and broken china; the Western city had dumped its refuse along this way. From below, untidy children screamed in an untidy garden. But he did not hear or see these things.

Back of him a woman ran down a path to the gate which he had left swinging, and latched it and stood a moment watching him. All his life he had looked into the distance, she considered. A smile came, for the woman loved him. She lingered, gazingat the tall figure with its air of distinction, its shabby clothes. A breeze lifted the loose hair, and she knew, though his back was turned, how a brown-gray lock had blown across the broad forehead—the forehead of a thinker, a dreamer. She sighed. The wife of an unsuccessful inventor is likely to sigh often. She turned to go back, but a little lad scrambled suddenly over the fence.

“Letter, Mrs. Ellsworth,” he exploded. “Mother says come s’afternoon. Mother says postman made mistake.” He was scrambling back in the same second, with consistent suddenness.

She looked at the letter, saw that it was addressed to her husband, glanced at him, and went with it into the house.

The man, unconscious, still stood with those glowing eyes miles off, where the river widened and lawns sloped to it and large houses overlooked it. He threw back his head and gazed high into the orange and rosy sky, and laughed.

“Up as far as that gold-edged fellow—farther. It seems queer that I’ll be swimming there before long. But I shall. Andmyaeroplane won’t tip over.”He thrust his hands into his pockets and smiled happily. “I’ve done it; just to get it on the market and I’ll have made good. I’ll have earned my place in the world. And a fortune for Margaret and Jack. Her drudgery over. Margaret,” he repeated half aloud; and again: “Margaret.” Then a cloud drowned the brightness from his face. “If I could get money for the model,” he spoke aloud. “The thing is so sure. It’s a hideous joke not to have a thousand or two now.”

His mind, working this way and that trying to find a solution for the problem, his thought travelling along all possible ways, came shortly on another thought, stirring sorely at a touch.

“The fellows,” he murmured. “A lot of them have money.” He drew his hand sharply from his pocket and thumped on the rail. His dreamy eyes flashed. “Not if I starve,” he cried. “Never that. I won’t poison the memory of college days. I’ve got my place among them yet; they don’t know; nobody knows.”

He dived into a coatpocket, and brought out a letter. Looking over his shoulder, one might haveread that the class of such a year of Yale University would hold its thirtieth reunion three months from the date; that it was hoped that John Ellsworth of this class would be present; that he was requested to let the class secretary know. Signed with a name which brought to the man’s lips a half-laugh.

“Little old Saint Peter,” he murmured.

With that his face was grim. Peter Price had sent a letter with the formal notice; a friendly, easy letter, taking it for granted that all of the “boys” would bring to Alma Mater this June some simple gifts of the years. Such gifts as success and good spirits and manly work well done; money to enrich Yale perhaps; perhaps big lads to carry on her banner; perhaps honored names for her roll of fame. The man’s head bent farther over the flimsy rail. He caught at it again with both hands. He stared, not away now at the gleaming, darkening river, but at the rubbish—broken pottery, old chair-legs, things whose day was done. His day was done; he was fifty-two, and had not made good; he was a failure. They had expected great things of him; hewas to have been a Newton, an Edison. He was to have made the class illustrious; they had said it, patting him on the shoulder in generous boy fashion, that last day in New Haven almost thirty years ago. He remembered well how, a dozen boys, they had stood together on the campus, under the elms, very tender-hearted over each other at this parting of the ways, very shamefaced at their unaccustomed softness. Jimmy Pendleton, his chum, with an arm stretched to Ellsworth’s shoulder—for Jimmy was short and chubby—had fallen into prophecy.

“We’re all great men, that’s sure, but it’s Johnny who’s going to be our crown of glory. He’s going to invent things. Flying-machines will be play. You listen while I tell you that this class will be known as the class of John Ellsworth.” And the others had growled assent in deep, friendly young voices, while Ellsworth called them all “darn fools,” with love and gratitude bursting his ribs. He had felt fairly sure that Jimmy was right.

“Apollo, too,” Jimmy went on, for Ellsworth had been voted the “best-looking man.” “And our starsingster. I’m no inventor, and I can’t sing, and something tells me I’m no beauty either,” and he rumpled his shoe-brush black hair sorrowfully.

Again the group agreed cordially. “You sure are not, my son.” Peter Price had spoken. “You’re neither inspired nor beautiful—so’s you’d notice it; but don’t worry, you may be an honest man yet.”

Ellsworth, across the stretch of years, recalled such details. The years had been before him then, and sunshine had flooded them. But one by one his inventions had gone wrong; fate had been against him. And now that he had at last a certainty he must wait, honor and wealth within reach of his hand, till some other man, whose hand was not weighted by poverty, should lift it and grasp success. It is a thing that happens to inventors; many times a man has died broken-hearted close to his heart’s desire.

“Down and out,” Ellsworth said. And stood, bent, in the twilight.

So he turned and came slowly to the large, old, half-empty house, and a sound of music floated to him, and a light shone through the curtained glass.He halted. He must not frighten her. He opened the door, trying for commonplace cheerfulness. But she saw. She was playing at her old tinkling piano; the music stopped.

“What is it, John?”

It was futile to lie to Margaret. “Just bothered over my job,” he said.

Her arm was about his neck. He drew her down beside him on a sofa, and like an unhappy child laid his head against her shoulder.

“Don’t bother, dearest,” she spoke.

“It’s not just that, Margaret,” he said then. “It’s everything. I’m down and out. I’ve kept you down with me. You might have been rich, happy—”

“I am happy,” she interrupted.

“You’re wonderful,” he said. “My best friend; my only friend now. I used to have a lot and they’re all gone. Except you, my darling, I haven’t a friend in the world.”

“John, don’t,” she begged. “It’s not our affair if we have friends. We’ve just got to live our lives as well as we can, and let the rest come or go.” Hereyes fell on the letter. “For you, John. It might be from a friend, this very letter. Read it, dear. It’s from New York. It might be good news.”

He shook his head; then tore the envelope. As he read his face darkened. His wife waited.

“What is it?”

He stared angrily at the paper. “It’s—insult,” he said. “Read it.”

She took it from him and the man went and stood with his head against the mantel, his face in his folded arms. She read, and waited a long minute, considering. “I can’t see it that way.”

He whirled about. “You can’t see it as an insult that some man should want to pay my way? As if I were a pauper?”

The woman considered again. “We’re not paupers, but we’re—poor. This man must be rich. He must be fond of you to want you there. He must have a feeling for other people’s feelings, because he keeps back his name so that you won’t have any burden of gratitude. That’s fine-grained and delicate of him.” She looked again at the letter. “The secretary, Mr. Price, says that no one but he himself and the manhimself will ever know.” She waited a moment, tense, biting her lip, thinking hard. Then: “I want you to go, John,” she broke out beseechingly.

“Go?” He looked at her in amazement. “Go? On charity?”

“Not charity, friendship,” she insisted. “Think about it. You care a lot for your class; suppose you had plenty of money and heard that one of them had none—wouldn’t you be eager to do this very thing? Could you do it in a kinder way? Wouldn’t you think it selfish of him to refuse you the joy of doing that? Isn’t it as big to take generously as to give generously? He has a chance to give you money and he’s taking it; you have a chance to give him pleasure and you’re— Don’t refuse it, John,” she pleaded.

“Why, Margaret,” he answered wondering, “what has got into you? You’re so proud, so independent; more than I. However poor we’ve been, I’ve known that you preferred it to letting any one, your cousin for instance, help us. You sent back his check. And you’re asking me to accept money from a man whose name we don’t know.”

“Ah, but I know he’s heavenly, or he wouldn’t have done it like this,” she threw back. “And not knowing the name helps. It’s as if an angel had flown down with manna. It would be silly to refuse manna. And, John,” she went on eagerly, “there’s possibility in it. When they heard about your airship—”

He made a quick gesture.

“No, you wouldn’t ask them; but you couldn’t refuse to let them have shares in a great—And there would be business men who would know how to organize—”

He interrupted. “Margaret, you’re dreaming. You know how I am; it’s impossible for me to exploit myself. I might not tell them if they asked.” He went on sadly: “I was thinking to-night that none of them knew I was—a failure.”

Her arm was around his neck again; her lips on his cheek. “You’re not!” she cried vehemently. “Success isn’t all making money; success is being somebody, something. And you’re that. There’s nobody so wonderful—” She flew back without a pause. “But that’s not what we’re talking about.John, you know how I’d guard your self-respect—and I want you to do this. It might mean everything. If you could only, this year, get the aeroplane started, Jacky could go to Yale.” A thrill shook her; his arm around her, he felt it, and his will and his pride were like wax in a flame.

“Where is Jacky?” he demanded.

“He had to go to the office after dinner”; she spoke reluctantly. “Extra work. But it means extra pay, and he won’t be late to-night.”

He groaned. “The boy is only seventeen; he ought to be studying and playing tennis; I can’t bear to have him spend his youth and strength in a railway office.”

“Don’t worry, dear; Jacky is boiling with youth and strength. And he’s enchanted to make money.”

Again Ellsworth groaned. “It’s wrong; it’s my fault.” He got up and paced the room; his soul was in torment. He went on fiercely: “If I were a steady-going dry-goods man; if I knew how to run a paper factory! Fool! I’m good for nothing. If I could make hair-pins!” he added longingly.

The woman laughed. “You’re so absurd, John,” she said.

“It’s not absurd.” He halted before her and fired the words indignantly. “If I had a satisfactory business in hair-pins you would have a limousine and Jacky would be in college instead of in a railway office nights—at seventeen.” He hesitated. “Sometimes,” he went on in a low voice, “I’m not sorry that the two older ones died.”

“Don’t, John.” The woman threw out her hands passionately. “I miss them—always. I never get over missing them. Don’t say you’re not sorry.” Her face was quivering. Then she pulled herself together with a quick effort. “We mustn’t talk about the babies. It’s Jacky now. John, I do think it might mean everything for him that you should go to New Haven in June.”

The man looked beyond her dreamily from his gray, vision-seeing eyes; one might have thought his mind had wandered from the subject. Then he spoke in a matter-of-fact way. “If you think so, Margaret, I’ll go.”

The class of thirty years back had taken for commencement week the largest house to be let in New Haven. The Thirties, as the youngsters called them,were an impressive body. There was a cabinet officer and an ambassador and a United States senator, a famous physician, and a handful of judges; there was a capitalist with a name spoken in whispers, so colossal was his wealth; there were railroad presidents and a great engineer and lesser fry who were yet not small fish. It was an uncommon collection of personages for one class. And not one of these grandees was allowed to pay fifty cents for his own taxicab or the price of a glass of beer. Each had made his contribution as he felt it fit for the reunion fund; each had all expenses defrayed from that fund, and no one but the class secretary knew what proportion each had given. They were for those days on a level—sons of Alma Mater, brothers.

Most classes coming back to reunions at Yale wear a costume for commencement time. It is considered that this common dress helps to wipe out inequalities. The Thirties wore this year blue blouses of workmen, to signify, it was said, how they felt themselves laborers in the thick of the world’s work. The strong blue made an insistent note of colorabout New Haven in those bright days of late June, and the grizzled heads and thoughtful faces were more distinguished for the severity of the setting. Peter Price, driving a magnificent sixty-horse-power car, in such a blouse, in the blue-crowned, visored cap of a mechanic, was a study in incongruity.

“Saint Peter,” remarked the finished and cultivated ambassador to a great court, sitting in a profound chair with his heels on the table, “Saint Peter is fooling us. Where’s he got to? He’s been gone one hour and forty minutes and what he’s after heaven only knows.”

“Likely all for your own good, Wuggie,” came soothingly from the great doctor—the Beloved Physician, men called him. “Little Saint Peter’s doing good deeds in the dark; that’s his way. You’d better shut up and keep cool, or you’ll have apoplexy; you’re getting powerful fat.”

“I’m not fat at all, Molly Allen,” growled his Excellency. The distinguished heels came down. “I’m going to find Saint Peter. He’s up to some deviltry, and we’d better trail him. Who’ll come?”

A dozen blue blouses poured out of the front door.Lazily they strolled in a long, erratic group up the diagonal walk across the green, past the three churches and into College Street. Arm was linked in arm; hands were on shoulders; they were more unconscious, more careless to the seeming than the grave lads in their scholars’ caps and billowing black gowns, the men of this year’s graduating class, whom one met as they swept, alert, serious, from one responsibility to another. These older men in their workingmen’s blouses, covering shoulders which were holding up the nation, these iron-gray men, lounging up College Street, smiled a little wistfully at the black figures swinging past, at the untired eyes, solemn to-day with this great business of graduating. Such as these had they been on that day in June thirty years back; such as themselves would these become when thirty years should be gone. “Good luck! A happy voyage! God bless you!” the gentle half-smile of the old fellows in midocean said to the youngsters as they hurried past, setting their new white sails. But the youngsters did not notice.

“Where’s Saint Peter?” demanded the ambassador, halting his blue squad.

With that the senator wailed suddenly as they stood, eleven strong, in College Street: “Oh, little old Saint Peter—hurry up.”

As if in answer, a mountainous touring-car swept around the corner of Chapel Street. Behind the wheel was a small man of fifty-odd, in a blue blouse, in a mechanic’s cap, blue-crowned, visored. At his side a dried-up, tiny countrywoman, in an apologetic black hat, sat stiffly. A purple ribbon was around the hat, and dusty, artificial violets on its brim. A clean, brown calico dress went with it, and a worn and patient but spirited old face. Under the queer hat one saw gray hair strained back and screwed in a knot; life had few frills for this farmer’s wife. A large basket of eggs was held in her lap. Peter Price drew up at the curb.

“Mrs. Ryder,” said Saint Peter, with great courtesy, “let me present Judge Whalen and Mr. Cutting and Dr. Allen and Mr. Pendleton; and Mr. Ellsworth and Judge Arbuthnot; and Mr. Secretary Loomis, and—see here, fellows, that tonneau holds five, not fifty—and Senator Butler and Mr. Garden and Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Digby.”

The blue-bloused regiment closed, bare-headed, around the little old woman.

“Pleased to meet you,” said Mrs. Ryder happily, as she bowed at each name. And one felt that she was pleased to meet one. Mrs. Ryder would have been, with a chance, a famous hostess. “Are you young men comin’ back for your fust meetin’?” she snapped out, quite in the spirit of the game, in her quaint, sharp, old New England voice.

And the “young men” roared at her unexpected little joke. Not at all shy was Mrs. Ryder, but enchanted with the situation. To the ambassador, inquiring, she explained how old Whitey and the buggy had broke down as they come along with her eggs, and how Saint Peter had rescued her with his chariot of fire. Saint Peter looked sheepish. Would they guy him, or wouldn’t they?

“Better climb out now,” he threw back to the mass-meeting in the tonneau. “Mrs. Ryder and I must get to market with our eggs.”

“They’re perfectly beautiful eggs,” reflected Jimmy Pendleton. “I need some eggs. What’ll you sell them for, Mrs. Ryder?”

“Let me in!”

“We all need eggs,” rose in chorus.

“How much, Mrs. Ryder?” demanded the president of the R. V. & St. M. Railway.

“Wal, they’re some dearer than last week,” hesitated Mrs. Ryder.

“Yes, yes. Much dearer. I think I noticed they were two dollars a pound,” suggested the United States senator.

And jeers arose from knowing ones. “They don’t sell eggs by the pound, you poor old idiot. Two dollars a box,” corrected Mr. Secretary Loomis, and Mrs. Ryder shook with laughter.

“Eggs is sold by the dozen,” she stated.

“Of course. I knew that sounded queer,” agreed Jimmy Pendleton. “Two dollars a dozen it is. How many dozen?”

“I couldn’t cheat you young boys,” said Mrs. Ryder. “Eggs is twenty cents.”

“Apiece,” stated Pendleton firmly.

“No,sir,” responded Mrs. Ryder as firmly. “A dozen, ef you please.”

“But not such eggs,” said the doctor. “See, boys, what a lovely color these eggs are.”

“We couldn’t take them under fifty cents a dozen,” said Jimmy Pendleton.

And Mrs. Ryder’s New England conscience was carried by storm, and the total sum of fifteen dollars travelled from various pockets to her ancient leather purse.

“Now, I’ll do some tradin’ at the store,” she announced with perfect confidence in their interest.

“You run along with your eggs to headquarters, Saint Peter,” ordered the ambassador, “and we’ll wander back and meet you.” And the big touring-car had glided away.

Ellsworth, among the others through this episode, contributing his share, had yet felt himself an outsider. To all of these men the dollar given the old country woman was less than nothing; to him it was an item. As he realized what this difference stood for, he felt himself of another world. There were men among these far from rich, but he was the only one who might not throw away a dollar. And with that a rush of despair came over him. Why had he come? Why had he let Margaret persuade him? He must go back and face a life doubly hard becauseof this taste of care-free life. Nothing had happened which could help him; nothing would happen. Margaret’s eyes would ask, and he would not be able to meet her eyes. He felt physically sick as he thought of that. No one had spoken of his work except in general terms; he had shrunk from details because he had no record of work accomplished. There had been a glow of happiness in seeing the remembered faces, in hearing the old voices; they had been glad to see him, friendly, quick to give him his ancient place of honor among them. In the rush of the first days, in the levelling atmosphere which the blue blouses created, he had forgotten till this moment that these were successful men; that he was that grim thing—a failure. The kindly farce of the old woman and her eggs waked him. Not one of “the fellows” was poor as he was poor. Even Jimmy Pendleton—but, Ellsworth reflected, what did he know about that? Jimmy at fifty-two was the natural development of Jimmy at twenty-two, short, mild of face, carefully dressed, chubbier; his shoe-brush mop of black hair replaced on top by a shining baldness. There was a half-deprecating air about Jimmywhich seemed to tell of a career not too glorious; it was comforting to Ellsworth.

Yet even Jimmy had tried to pay the old lady two dollars a dozen for thirty dozen eggs. Sixty dollars! Ellsworth, sauntering across the sunny green, bit his lip. How many years was it since he had spent sixty dollars thoughtlessly? When he and Margaret were married there had been enough; they had not worried when his models had taken large sums and had not returned them. But now there was no money even when its return would be certain. He thought with a pang of his flying-machine, the long-sought sure thing, doomed to lie idle till some luckier man should invent one like it and win fame and fortune. How “the fellows” would have patted him on the shoulder if he had had that success to bring to the reunion! It was cruelly unjust; he was torn with keener suffering than he had felt in all the years before.

By now the party had turned into the big house, where a blue banner hung out with the legend in white letters: “Headquarters of the Class of —.” Blue blouses poured from rooms to meet them; voicesand laughter filled all the place; Saint Peter was back, and he and his eggs were the joke of the moment. Ellsworth shot through the gay crowd and made his way to a little smoking-room. No one was there. He dropped into a chair by a table; his arms stretched out, and his head fell on them. Down and out. The men’s laughter rang through the hall. Why had he come? What could these men, with their full lives, their honors, and their large affairs, care for a bit of wreckage washed among them by a chance wave from the lost sea of boyhood? He would go back to the woman who loved him and whose life he had filled with disappointments, and carry to her this disappointment more. Down and out.

“Johnny.”

He started angrily and stared up at the man whose hand was on his shoulder.

“Jim! How you frightened me! I’m deadly sleepy.” He rubbed his eyes, where tears were. “I’m not quite fit, and I dropped into a chair—” The words trailed off.

But Jimmy Pendleton was looking at him as he would have let no man but Jimmy Pendleton look.He was searching into his soul, without pretence of doing otherwise.

“Johnny, old boy, get it out of your system. We didn’t room together three years for nothing. I know something is on your mind, and I know you’d be better if you could talk it over with a man. You know I’m to be trusted.”

Across the torture that wrung him it seemed that a strong hand had laid a check. The twist of the rack had stopped; slowly, as he stared into the face of the man beside him, dim things that looked, far off, like hope and courage and peace, stirred out of the dark of his consciousness. Jimmy Pendleton’s hand was on his; it was Jimmy’s face he saw, but it was a transfigured face. Jimmy might be fat and short and bald, but how had it happened that one had never before seen the strength in the square jaw and the keenness in the eyes, the air of power in the man? He knew in that second that here was a personality on which he might lean.

“Tell me, old chap,” said Jimmy, and pressed down the weight of his steady hand.

Ellsworth told. He poured out the aches that hadfestered through sore years; the things which even Margaret had only half known. The sting of long misery washed away in the cool river of the other’s understanding silence. He talked on disjointedly, easing his soul at every breathless sentence. At last the tale was told, all of it. A tale of fortune failing by a hairbreadth; inventions patented and never known; discoveries anticipated, a month, a week, by some other; years of patient experiment come to nothing. He spoke haltingly of his wife, the girl whom Pendleton had also known, of her unfailing courage; of the two dead children, of the boy who could not have his birthright of opportunity.

“I haven’t been lazy, you know, Jim,” he explained. “I’ve worked. But it does seem as if I played in bad luck. And lately I’ve lost confidence. Except in this last thing; I have to believe in that; it’s the real thing. If—” He stopped.

“What, Johnny?”

Ellsworth put his hand in his pocket, hesitated, looked at the other man doubtfully. The truth was that he had kept a small drawing of his beloved machine by him, with a half-formulated idea ofbeing ready if any chance should come. Here was, perhaps, the chance. It flashed into his mind, it was a pity that it was only Jimmy Pendleton. But he drew the drawing out slowly; a thin paper with orderly, intricate lines, numbered and lettered. The sight of them made a new man of him.

“Look, Jimmy!” He spread the paper. “Isn’t it a miracle that nobody has thought of this? It’s the simplest thing—it’s inevitable—it’s sure.” His face was brilliant. Pendleton bent over the paper. “You see, it’s this way,” Ellsworth said, and explained.

Slowly Pendleton’s expression changed. What had been sympathy turned to critical interest, to surprise, to analytical study of the thin little paper. After a long pause he lifted his head. “Johnny,” he said, “I’m not an expert, but I know something about it, and I believe you’re right. I think you’ve got a big thing.”

“Think!” repeated Ellsworth indignantly. “Think!—I know it. There’s no earthly question that it’s a big thing.” With that he groaned. “Will it ever do me any good?”

“What do you mean?”

Ellsworth hesitated. “I can tellyou, Jimmy.” He had it in mind that this was a poor man too. He would not seem to be asking for help.

“Go on,” said Pendleton.

“The point is—the point is that I haven’t money to make my model.”

Pendleton stared at him as he talked swiftly, explaining the need of money, two thousand dollars perhaps. Pendleton, silent, stared. With that the voices down the hall were shouting a name.

“Ellsworth! Johnny Ellsworth,” they were calling. “Come down and sing; oh, Johnny Ellsworth.”

Pendleton’s chubby face lost the masterful lines. He chuckled. “We’ll have to go,” he said. “I’ll take this,” and he folded the drawing and put it in his pocket, and caught Ellsworth’s arm and drew him down the hall and into the big room where the greater part of the Thirties were gathered.

“It isn’t time for lunch,” the ambassador explained. “And Molly Allen has been talking medicine till we’re sick, and we want you to make music, Johnny Ellsworth. Get up there and sing till you bust, please.”

Ellsworth found himself swung to a chair which appeared on a table, and a learned judge was playing “Lauriger Horatius” on the piano, and he was singing it in the lovely tenor which had never grown old, which had a subtle tone somewhere in it which gripped the souls of human beings. The men’s voices rolled into his when the chorus came, and all the house rang with strong music.

Ubi sunt o poculaDulciora mellæRixæ pax et osculaRubentis puellæ.

Ubi sunt o pocula

Dulciora mellæ

Rixæ pax et oscula

Rubentis puellæ.

The swinging old air thundered like the diapason of an organ. And as it ended, “Give us a jolly one,” the senator cried. And the judge at the piano dashed into “Dunderbeck,” and Ellsworth was leading, beating time with his hand, while every man jack, he who could sing and equally he who could not, was roaring out the classic lament:

For long-tailed rats and pussy catsShall never more be seen;They’ll all be ground to sausage meatIn Dunderbeck’s machine.

For long-tailed rats and pussy cats

Shall never more be seen;

They’ll all be ground to sausage meat

In Dunderbeck’s machine.

Some of the stouter lads of fifty gasped a bit then, while the judge tinkled an interlude on the keys. Then the doctor spoke, out of a cloud of cigarette smoke which banked his chair; lounging, with his legs crossed, and his keen face thrown back, and his eyes—the luminous blue eyes which could hold, it seemed, every worth-while human expression—with those extraordinary eyes on the ceiling, he spoke out of the smoke:

“There’s one song, you fellows, which I like to think hits off our class. The words aren’t much—pretty poor,” he reflected, half aloud, “but they seem to—do. ‘Amici.’ I’d like to hear Johnny Ellsworth sing ‘Amici.’”

Instantly Ellsworth was pelted. “‘Amici’—sing ‘Amici,’” they threw at him.

The beautiful voice, with its haunting under-quality, floated out over the company of middle-aged men.

The judge struck a chord; the crowded room was still. Then the beautiful voice, with its haunting under-quality, which caught at the secret softnesses in souls, floated out over the company of middle-aged men, and behold they were boys again. Very quietly they listened. The famous doctor’s eyes were still on the ceiling; the cabinet minister stared hard atthe window; the bishop’s big gray head was bent, and his look introspective; most of them gazed at Ellsworth singing. Then the chorus came, and with a stir as if a breeze had touched all across a field of corn, the whole room blew softly, deeply, into the music.

Amici usque ad aras,

and the rest.

So they sang it, gathered back to their old altars, the men who had been friends for thirty years.

When the judge’s fingers lifted from the last note there was a silence which said things none of them there could have said in words. It spoke, as a silence will sometimes, of memories and faith and loyalty. It told, as each man looked at the faces about him, carved with the tools of Time, the sculptor, the silence told of sorrow and joy, of lives each with its full measure of fighting and of pathos, but each lived by the line of straight honor, without which one does not comfortably face Alma Mater. An every-day group of American men. A country is not going to ruin at once which shows by the hundred such sons.

“Come down, Johnny Ellsworth; you’ll never sing better than that, so you’d better stop now,” said the ambassador, and Ellsworth, his hand on the offered shoulder, saw the light flash in something bright on the ambassador’s lashes, and wondered if it were possible that Wuggie Lawrence had been actually touched by his singing. Then they were in motion again and pouring out, a burly regiment, up the street to lunch at Commons.

There were two special cars waiting, after lunch, to take them,en masse, to the game, the Yale-Harvard baseball game, which takes place on Tuesday of commencement week, and is the rallying of the returning classes.

“I’ll save a seat for you, Johnny. In the first car.”

Pendleton called this as John Ellsworth flashed past him up the stairs, when they had come back from lunch. The writing-room was full, and Ellsworth wanted to send a word home. He ran up the two flights and began his letter. Doors were all open this midsummer day, and across the hall two maids, unconscious of him, were talking noisily.Ellsworth heard them without hearing the words until a name made its sharper impression, as names do.

“J. H. Pendleton,” the woman said. “Yis, it’s sure him. The short, fat one. That’s the awful rich Pendleton. Nora McGinnis, she says last night as how Barney O’Neill he says as how he gits tin thousand a day.”

Ellsworth got up and shut the door. Jimmy Pendleton. Of course. Even Ellsworth had heard of J. H. Pendleton, the financier. But he had never thought of his old chum as such a person. Nobody had told him. Everybody had taken it for granted that he knew. Jimmy Pendleton! And he had been patronizing him as in the college days, when he with his music and genius and good looks was a great man, and roly-poly Jimmy did not count. Suddenly he remembered their talk before lunch. He had given his confidence; he had uncovered his poverty, his need of money. His face flushed. He remembered that no word was said as to helping him; he thought, with bitter illogic, that friendship ceased at the point where effort came in. It was pleasant, this class feeling, for those who had prospered; for theunlucky it did not exist. The rich man had listened, and then had been glad to end the subject by carrying the other off to sing songs. Down-stairs the voices surged up louder, and little by little died away. They were gone to the game. This afternoon’s events were the culmination of the reunion of the classes; but he could not go. He stared out into the tree-tops; his half-written letter fell to the floor; minutes went by and rolled into half an hour, an hour. He did not stir. An hour more he sat there, sinking ever deeper into unhappy thoughts. Then his misery focussed suddenly into a push of despair. He would not meet them again; he would go home. Hurriedly he began to pack.

There were two trolley-cars to take the Thirties to the game. Jimmy Pendleton saved a seat, but as Ellsworth did not come he got out and went through the second car.

“Anybody seen Ellsworth?” he asked.

Nobody had. Then the car started, and he rushed back to his own place. Out at Yale Field things moved rapidly, yet even there, as the blue-bloused Thirties formed in procession, Pendleton cast aglance about even then for Ellsworth. He had a word which he was anxious to say to him. Coming out on the car he had sat next the great engineer; he had taken out Ellsworth’s drawing.

“What do you think of that, Digby?”

And Digby had studied it while the car shot through the sunshiny city and the uproarious crowds. He lifted his head at last, and turned and searched till he found a man two seats behind, the Secretary of War.

“Pass this to Loomis, please,” he commanded the men between, and spoke across: “Tom, you’d better get that thing for the government. It’s Ellsworth’s. It’s a go. Look at it.”

And Loomis had looked, and laughed. “I don’t understand a word of it,” he had thrown back, “but if you say it’s a go, that settles it. Where’s Ellsworth?”

The question repeated itself to Pendleton marching down Yale Field. “Where’s Ellsworth?” he wondered over and over. A vague uneasiness disquieted him through the bright turbulent afternoon, but it was not till he found himself in the midst of the maddance all over the color-starred field, celebrating Yale’s triumph, that it came to him, with that unreasonable certainty which boys call a “hunch,” what had happened. Something had upset the man, and he had not come.

“Great Scott!” thought Pendleton; “it wouldn’t surprise me if he had taken a train.”

With that he knew that he must find him. It was hard to miss being with “the fellows” when they marched down the street together behind the class banner to make their call on the president; he cared very much that his voice should not be part of the ringing shout which would send up the name they all delighted to honor in the Yale cheer for the president of Yale. But somebody had got to see to Johnny Ellsworth.

He brushed an automobile as he left the grounds and, looking up, saw friends. “For the love of Heaven give me a lift,” he begged. “And drive fast. Important business. I’ve got to get to town.”

So that the sea of people had hardly begun to trickle back into the city when he was landed in front of headquarters.

“Mr. Ellsworth here?” he demanded of the servant who met him.

“Just gone, sir.”

“Gone? Where?” threw back Pendleton.

“Couldn’t say, sir. But he had a dress-suit case. Perhaps he’s took a train, sir.”

Pendleton whirled. He looked about for a taxi, for anything to take him to the station; everything had gone to Yale Field. The servant, watching, understood. “Mr. Price’s car, sir—” Pendleton vanished to the garage. In three minutes more he was whirling toward the station. In five minutes he was dashing through the archway to the tracks. A train was slowly pulling out. He looked up at the car windows helplessly as they passed, and suddenly, out of one of them, Ellsworth’s face of tragedy looked down at him. He caught at the hand-rail and swung on. He walked down the car and dropped down.

“Why the devil do you make a fellow run on a hot day?” he inquired, and fanned himself with his hat.

Ellsworth stared. “What’s this for, Jimmy?” he said. “It’s no good. I’m going.”

“Old boy,” said Jimmy Pendleton, “you’re going to Stamford good and plenty. That’s the first stop. I’m going there, too. But do you know what will happen then?” There was a lawless gleam in the speaker’s eye. He went on: “We’ll get off at Stamford, and we’ll catch the next train up.”

“No,” said Ellsworth.

“My son, I don’t want talking back,” answered Pendleton. “We’re going, you and I, to New Haven, to Digby and Loomis, who are hot on your trail, with that picayune little paper of yours. Digby took one look and told Loomis to lose no time pinching it for the government. So Loomis is sitting on the front steps waiting for you to come and pick up your everlasting fortune.”

Then for one moment the good angel was frightened, for his charge turned pale and trembled.

“Cheer up, old man,” adjured the good angel. “It’s good news. It’s all right.”

“Jimmy, are you lying?” demanded Ellsworth.

“Don’tbe an ass, old chap,” pleaded Jimmy earnestly. “It’s Gospel truth. You’ve arrived. I never was so pleased in my life, Johnny. Giveyou my word.” In a handful of sentences he told his tale.

“But what made you stampede, you old goat?” he inquired. “I thought you were happy as a clam after you had hypnotized us with that voice of yours. What got into you?”

And Ellsworth, laughing shakily, told his tale.

“Of course, I didn’t say anything definite,” Pendleton said, “because I wanted you to get the start as your right, not as a boost from me. I thought of Digby at once. So you couldn’t bear it that I’ve got money,” he added, a bit wistfully. “Why, that’s all I’ve got. I haven’t any music, or looks, or genius, or any boy, or”—his voice broke on the little word, but he went on thickly—“or any Margaret.”

There was an odd silence for a second, and Ellsworth slewed about and looked at him. Pendleton’s commonplace blue eyes met his with a look not commonplace, a look defiant and tragic and lonely. The blind was down and the soul of the man was at its windows. Ellsworth’s gaze was a question. Pendleton answered.

“Yes,” he said, “that’s it. I loved her. Nobodyelse, ever. But of course you won out. And you’ve had her. And you think your life has been hard. Fool, Johnny Ellsworth. Me, I’ve had millions—and nothing else. Millions aren’t particularly cosey to live alone with.”

Ellsworth’s hand was on the other’s now. “I never knew,” he said, stammering the short words.

“Well, you know now,” said Jimmy Pendleton, “and if you grudge me any fun I can get out of being a millionaire, you’re a devil. That boy of yours,I’mgoing to send him to Yale;I’mgoing to take him abroad; I’m going to—oh, damn.”

“What?” Ellsworth laughed.

“Why, you’ll be rich in six months. The boy won’t need me.”

“You shall go halves in the boy, Jimmy,” the other spoke brokenly. And then, in a flash: “There’s a man in the class I must find now, and I don’t know who he is.”

“What do you mean?” Pendleton asked.

And Ellsworth told the story of his coming to New Haven. As he finished, staring with a new passion of affection at the bald head and unclassicprofile turned from him to the flying landscape, he felt his pulse leap and stand still. In that second he knew.

“Jim,” he said, “it was you.”

Pendleton turned his head and looked at him. “I suppose you’ll want to pay me,” he said sadly.

Ellsworth, quite careless of the hundred or so people about them, put his arm around the other’s shoulder. “Never, Jimmy,” he said. “You’ll never see a cent of that money till your dying day. So give it up. And I’ll never thank you. I—I can’t.”

“Go to thunder,” remarked Pendleton savagely. And then, after a pause: “Wouldn’t you have done it?”

“Margaret said that,” Ellsworth threw at him. “Margaret said it would be selfish not to take it. She said that the man who did that thing in that way was heavenly. That’s her word, heavenly.”

There was no answer, but the slow red which spread to Jimmy Pendleton’s bald head showed that he heard.

“I thought I had no friends,” Ellsworth spoke a moment later. “I thought you fellows were kind-hearted,but would draw the line at taking any trouble.”

“Johnny,” said the other, “I want you to cut out that. It’s poor. It’s cheap. Don’t be a conceited ass and think you’re the only man with decent feelings. The cockles of your heart warm up when the class is concerned, don’t they? You’d go a long way for one of us, wouldn’t you? All right, then; why shouldn’t we be as decent as you? We are; we’re pretty fond of each other, and you’re one of us. Moreover, you ungrateful chump, you’re a special one, for that voice of yours gets us where nothing else can. Nobody gives a hang, except to regret it for you, if you’ve pulled off success or not. That’s your damned self-consciousness, don’t you know. And look here, Johnny, it’s nothing new to say, but the world is full of friends if you’ll hold out your hand and take ’em. Most people are kindly; they’re only hesitating for fear you’ll snub them, just the way you’re hesitating. It’s such a foolish waste of energy to be always on guard against a lot of well-meaning good souls. When we get back to New Haven to-night just look at the fellows withnew glasses—try rose color. See a friend in each one of them; he’s there all right.”

“I’ll do anything you say, Jim,” said Johnny Ellsworth. “I believe in one man now for good. I didn’t know a fellow could have as good a friend as—”

“Oh, shut up,” said Jimmy Pendleton.

There is a celebration at Yale the night before commencement day which turns the campus into a stage-setting of an unearthly play. The scenery is an orgy of light and shadow; the music is a whirlpool of bands and voices of men. The townspeople are barred, but around Phelps’s archway they gather by hundreds to watch the classes march through. For all over New Haven that night are class dinners, and from the dinners, which are early, the classes in costume march in procession and, carrying torches, pass into the campus. By nine or ten o’clock alumni are congregated there from all over the world, of all ages, from the lads who graduated three years back to gray-haired men who went out from college forty-five or fifty or even more years ago.

Around the edge of the campus are small tents, each forming a casual headquarters for a class, over a keg of beer. The bands play by turns or all together. The men sing as they march; the place is sulphurous with the reek of torches. In orange blurs against the thick air torches flame out, a dozen torches, a hundred, spotty, dancing on the smoke-filled atmosphere. The atmosphere is pinkish; the windows of the buildings about flash red reflections. The quiet elms stand above this turmoil and rustle in the June night breeze.

“Welcome back, boys of mine,” they seem to say. “You are mad with play to-night, but so were your grandfathers sometimes; so will be your grandsons. Come back to me always and play, always safe, always boys, under my branches.”

And the pink smoke and the flaring red brightness lift to the branches, and the light shines on the under side of the leaves, and, against the absolute blackness of the night above, the million leaves of the campus elms have the look of carvings in the roof of a limitless cathedral.

The runaways had just missed at Stamford anup-bound train and had waited a long time for the next. When they finally landed at New Haven it was eight-thirty in the evening. They had dined en route, and Pendleton was in the blue blouse and cap which he had forgotten to change in his rush after the escaping Ellsworth. They stopped at headquarters to leave Ellsworth’s bag and to let him get into the class costume. Then, through the delirium of the town, the staid old New England town gone mad with color and uproar of two thousand “boys” of all ages, they hurried to College Street. In the tunnel of Phelps’s archway Jim Donnelly, Yale policeman, friend of every Yale boy for uncounted years, opposed his authority to trespassers, let pass the rightful lords of the campus. He honored the late-comers, as they forced their way through the crowd, with a short nod.

“Better hurry up; the Thirties are at it,” he admonished them.

Over the wall of the buildings one heard not a sound in College Street; even in the archway one did not hear. As the belated men stepped into the campus the noise burst on them like a clap of thunder.

Bands played, lights flashed, brilliant figures wove and interwove, men’s voices filled all the air. Through the kaleidoscopic crowd a man might thread his way, but there was no empty space in the campus. It was pandemonium let loose. With that, one caught here and there a costume, a face, which one knew. Then, as they stood peering, out of the smoke and darkness, out of the mad uproar, coming to them as if out of a wood, was the head of a column of marching men. And the men wore blue blouses. The Thirties—his class—his friends. By the knowledge of the friend beside him he knew that. They came on, cheered, challenged, greeted now and again out of the waving, changing crowd, marching steadily along, the workmen of the nation.

And as they came, suddenly, by a miracle, the bands all stopped playing at once; there was a moment’s lull, and one heard individual voices in the half silence. And then their own band, the blue-bloused band of the Thirties, broke into music; an indeterminate chord, and it swung full into the familiar rhythm of “Amici.” The foremost men were at Phelps’s archway by now, and somebodyshouted “Johnny Ellsworth,” as they saw him and connected the song with his singing of it that morning. And behold, all along the line they were calling his name, as if they knew, as if they welcomed him back to hope and life and undying friendship.

Ellsworth, dizzy with happiness, took the torch that “little old Saint Peter” thrust at him, and fell into line beside a fat, short, bald-headed man whose face shone to him like the face of an angel. Digby and Loomis were ahead; he had met their smiling eyes, and he knew with a choking gladness that they knew that he had a right in this column of efficient workmen; that he had not come with empty hands to Mother Yale; that he, too, brought his offering of honorable work to lay on her altar. He could not find his voice; but the ambassador, turning, threw back a word.

“Sing, you devil,” he ordered. “What are you good for, Johnny Ellsworth? Sing.”

And with that the voice came, and above the others, clear and sweet through all the others, it lifted suddenly, with its undertone of words unsaid, of things men never tell, of friendship eternal. Thestrong tones of the world-worn men followed that wonderful voice, and tears shone in some eyes as they sang, not knowing that the man who led them was sending up a thanksgiving.

So the Thirties marched about the campus, with torches flaring and bands playing and the classes shouting, and Ellsworth’s voice led them singing “Amici.”

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