Part 8

For this is a sort of a disease, and if it's there it's bound to manifest itself, like other things that break out at about this age. Any fatherly, well-meaning interference, such as a fellow like Lawrence might offer, would have had directly the opposite of the desired effect. If you do not believe this, it clearly indicates that you do not understand it.

Lawrence did not. He, poor devil, skulked off and tried to forget about the freshman, like a rejected lover, and, again like one, he could not, even though he went across the street to avoid meeting those big eyes.

Once more he took a long breath and sneaked off to the freshman's room with a brave lot of kind, smiling advice which he practised saying on the way over. In a moment he came running back to the campus, shouting for joy. The freshman was not at home.

He yelled "Yea" with all his might and danced three times about the cannon, all alone, like a man back on the campus in midsummer. Then because it was Princeton someone else yelled "Yea-a!" from over by Clio Hall. Then Jack Stehman raised his window and yelled "Cork up!" because he felt like it. Someone in East yeaed back in a shrill voice. Tommy Tucker stepped out upon his balcony in Reunion and echoed it mightily. Someone blew a horn, a big Thanksgiving game horn. Others took it up. Windows were thrown open all over the campus. Many voices sounded the ancient cry of "Fresh fire! Heads out!" Shotguns banged. Fire-crackers exploded. Bugles sounded. Distant Dod took up the echo. Witherspoon Hall was already doing its part.

Within two minutes Lawrence was joined by a score of fellows who danced with him about the cannon, yelled "Fresh fier-r-r! Heads out!" until they had brought everyone out they could, then called "Leg pull. All over!" and ran back to their rooms again, feeling that they had done their duty. Windows slammed shut again. A voice from down in Edwards Hall answered "All over!" Every one went on where he left off. All felt refreshed and strengthened for their duties, and Lawrence leaned alone against the cannon. But he too felt better.

He decided that this was a species of Providential interposition, a sort of vision as it were, the interpretation of which was that any man who would allow a little fool freshman to destroy the happiness of the culminating year of the best period of life in the dearest spot on earth would be an unmitigated ass.

He now fell to distracting his mind with work and other things, and realized the beauty of existence, as all undergraduates should. Besides the beauty of existence there were others that he was in the habit of dwelling upon during sunset rambles through the woods down toward the canal; pretty little foolish thoughts which young men who are still students and have yet to choose an occupation have no business in thinking. But the way her hair swept back from that brow of hers on either side of the chaste part and then swirled-- But that will do. Lawrence and his affairs already occupy too much space.

And as suddenly as they were interrupted in that paragraph were his walking-time thoughts cut short whenever that confounded freshman loomed up with an arm about the Thompson boy, followed by a brindle bull-dog and a trail of cigarette-smoke.

II

Gussie Thompson was an angel-faced child with pretty ringlety hair, and he had come to college from a strict boarding-school with the intention of making a bad man of himself. And when a boy wants badly to go to the devil there is no reason why he should find it very difficult. In this thought I find I have been anticipated by Virgil.

But though the descent is easy it does not follow that it is always graceful. Thompson, who was conscientiously trying to do it properly, had his discouragements and sour balls just as often as the poler who sat in the next seat and wore trousers that were too short.

People persistently considered Gussie disgustingly good, when in reality he was very bad and smoked big black cigars with red and gilt bands about them. And indeed it is discouraging to walk down to the football practice with the gang, breathing cigarette-smoke at every fifth step, and then have some class-mate you have nothing to do with ask you, before all the fellows, to lead class prayer-meeting the next Sunday. But all that was over long ago.

He now wore the dark bad expression without any conscious effort. No one asked him where the Greek lesson was any more. He seldom had to blow his breath in fellows' faces. And at the club he was no longer obliged to blink and say, "How do I look this morning?" they asked of their own accord, "Full last night, Gus?" just as some people say "Good-morning."

One evening, at about the beginning of the season known to some as "bock beer time," he was in his room surrounded with a few of his own sort, and a knock came at the door. But it was not a very loud one, so he did not take the trouble to answer until there came a second knock, an emphatic one. Then he emptied a lungful of cigarette-smoke and shouted, "Come in and shut your damn racket." He looked up.

Lawrence was framed in the door-way, Lawrence the senior, with his 'varsity sweater and his impressive air.

On the campus Lawrence generally nodded to Thompson, when he remembered him. Once, not long ago, he had walked up the rear stairs of Dickinson with him and said, "What do you fellows have at this hour?" and Gussie wondered when the clubs held their first elections.

With his words of apology and welcome Thompson felt a wave of satisfaction at having a gang about the table with cards and beer-mugs on it. He was glad he had strung the champagne-corks over the mantel-piece.

All of the gang had arisen, and yet this was a Princeton room. If the senior observed the unusual mark he showed little gratitude, for without seeming to be aware of their presence he said, in his gruff voice, "When will you be at leisure, Thompson?" and looked at his watch.

He was the sort of senior that could do these things, and it had the desired effect. They all remembered that they had engagements and picked up their caps and said, "So long, old man," and got out. This was not done constrainedly but as a perfectly natural thing. And Gussie beamed.

The door slammed and the freshman said, "Have a drink, Lawrence."

The senior said, "No, I thank you," and then contradicted himself, "Yes, I will take a little of that." He did not approve of little boys having whiskey in their rooms and big cut-glass decanters on their bookcases, but he remembered something. "That's good whiskey, Thompson." Lawrence sipped and whiffed and held his glass to the light, "excellent whiskey." He gravely smacked his lips. "It reminds me of some Bourbon they once gave us down in Kentucky, on the Glee Club trip--in Louisville, I think it was. They called it Pendennis Club."

Thompson pushed a cigarette-case across the table. "That's Pendennis Club," he replied, simply. "A friend of mine down there sends it to me. I find you can't get good liquor in our part of the country. It's all rot-gut." He twisted his pretty brows into a scowl and emptied his small lungs of smoke aimed at the ceiling.

"I see," said Lawrence, looking interested.

"You know what they say about Kentucky," the freshman proceeded, "for good whiskey, fast horses, and pretty women."

"Yes," said Lawrence.

The freshman refilled his guest's glass with Pendennis Club and his own lungs with cigarette-smoke, which he allowed to seek the free air of the room slowly, with his head tipped back and a mouth twisted scornfully as he had once seen another devil of a fellow do it, who said, "I don't give a damn for the girl." All of which was lost on Lawrence, who was rubbing his chin and looking in the other direction and wishing he had not come.

"By the way, Thompson, speaking of horses, how did you come out playing the races last fall? I often saw you on the train going up--" this was a lie--"when I was slaving over football. Luck stay by you?"

Then the freshman leaned back and said things about Futurity Stakes and plunging at Morris Park and a lucky sixteen-to-one shot, intermingled with a brave lot of profanity and considerable cigarette smoke. Lawrence wore the look of a man listening, and thought up what to say next.

"By the way, Thompson," only it was not by the way to anything but his own thoughts, "where's your friend Darnell? I didn't see him with the others in here."

"No," said the devil of a fellow, "he won't own up to it, but he's a good bit of a poler at heart, Lawrence."

"I did not think it of him," said Lawrence, sincerely. "He's a blame nice fellow though, isn't he?"

"Right. He's the best friend I have. He's pretty young and has a lot of things to learn, but he's a mighty nice man. Awfully clever chap, too. Wish I had his brains. I believe he comes from very nice people in New York, doesn't he?"

"Yes. Thompson, you are dead right in saying he's too young."

A beam of pleasure shot across his young host's face, which was seen by Lawrence, who now felt all right, and began to talk.

"He's entirely too young, Thompson, and the deuce of it is that he doesn't realize how very young he is. A fellow like that never does. You know what I mean. And as far as I can see--I think you had the same thing in mind a moment ago--he is about to make a fool of himself unless he is very careful. He's entirely too nice a fellow, Thompson, for anything like that to happen." Lawrence leaned back and put his feet on the table.

"You see," he continued, "Darnell tries to do things that you fellows do, who are more mature, and he doesn't seem to realize that he is only a boy. Now with you and me it is different. We are older and know things and have been around a bit and-- You know what I mean. We can do a lot of things and have a good time and be none the worse for it, but as for Darnell, why, he's a kid, Thompson, a mere kid."

Thompson breathed cigarettes and looked judicial.

Lawrence moved his chair around so that he could lean an elbow on the table. He looked at the fire through the glass of liquid in his hand. "Thompson, I'm in a hole. A bad hole, too. I'm going to tell you about it and maybe ask your advice. I don't mind telling you because I know you can keep your mouth shut. I came here this evening for that very purpose.

"You know I know Darnell's people and all that. Well, I know his sister quite well." That happened to be a lie. "And last commencement when she was down here she asked me to look after her brother when he entered in the fall." That happened to be true, though Lawrence had forgotten it. "She's a pretty good friend of mine, and whenever I see her"--he could not have distinguished her from the other little girls in the school up-town--"she always asks me about her brother. And, well, Thompson, a fellow hates to lie to a respectable woman, you know."

"Only a cad will lie to a decent girl," said the other, sympathetically.

"Certainly. Now, Thompson, I'll tell you what I think I'll do. I am going to very frankly ask you to help me out of this hole." Lawrence looked closely at the freshman. Then he went on, talking rapidly now with his eyebrows tucked down and the words coming between his teeth. Thompson had seen him do it before and had practised it in his room alone.

"You can do it or not, just as you please, but you are the only one whom I'd care to ask to do it. You are the only one I'd trust with it. In fact, you are the only one that _could_ do it. Thompson, you know yourself that you have more influence over Darnell than any man in the class."

"Oh, I don't know," the freshman feebly protested.

"Well I do. He has as much as told me so. I am going to ask you very frankly to-- I don't know what your views are," the senior interrupted himself, "but I believe in having all the fun in the world I can for myself as long as I mind my own business. But I'd just as soon, when I have the chance--" Lawrence looked down at the whiskey which he was gently swishing around in his glass. He made his voice sound as if embarrassed. "Well, dammit, I'm no saint, but you know it says somewhere that saving one soul will wipe out a multitude of sins or something of that sort."

"God knows we have enough of them," said the devil of a fellow, who now hurled the butt of his cigarette at the fire and arose from his seat. He threw back his head and spoke.

"Lawrence, you needn't say any more. I can give you my answer now." He plunged his hands in his pockets and began striding up and down the room and scowled as he strode.

"Lawrence, I am a peculiar man, and I think my own thoughts and lead my own life according to my own ideas. I keep this room here open to everyone who desires to enter. My whiskey and tobacco is anybody's who wants it. And as long as my guests mind their own business my room is theirs. But when certain members of my class, certain milksops and sanctimonious Gospel sharks come up here and tell me that I am doing wrong and tell me what it is my duty to do, I very frankly tell them to go to hell." He looked around the walls at the Saronys and a French print or two as if to call them to witness, then went on:

"Lawrence, I perceived your drift from the start, and at first, I must confess, I was somewhat taken aback, Lawrence, by your approaching me on such a subject."

The one listening with a bland look of attention on his face and his feet on the table considered this rather fresh, but said nothing.

"But only for a moment," the freshman continued, "only for a moment, I assure you. You talked to me like a man to a man, a real man, not a Gospel shark or a poler, but a man who knows things and yet gives a fellow credit for some good impulses. I appreciate your situation exactly. I have been placed in similar ones myself. I know how it is. And I'm glad you came up here to-night. You rushed in where angels would not have dared, and I'm damn glad you did." He stopped walking the floor. "Now I'm not accustomed to this sort of thing, Lawrence, as you must know, and I won't promise much. But I give you my word, I'll do my best for Darnell."

Lawrence took the hand Thompson dramatically held out to him. He restrained another impulse, an ungrateful one, and said, "Thompson, I always thought I understood you better than your own class-mates did." And Gussie blushed.

The senior arose. "Gus,"--he called him Gus--"I appreciate to a nicety the delicacy of your position in this matter. Please don't let it inconvenience you in any way. I shall always be grateful to you for what you have undertaken this evening, and if I can ever be of service to you, please command me." Some of this was sincere. "I have an engagement now. Good-night. No, I thank you, no more to-night. Come up and see me some time, Gus. Good-night."

"Good-night, Harry," said the other. "Wish you would drop up often."

"I know that," thought Lawrence, as he closed the door, "only I wouldn't say 'Harry' very often if I were you."

Left alone, Thompson took a gulp of whiskey straight without wincing very much, stretched out in a big chair and planned how to follow his friend Lawrence's suggestions, wrinkling his brows and looking no doubt very much like the man of the world that he read about as he did so.

Meanwhile Lawrence was saying to himself, "Still, it's all in a good cause," and hurrying along the street with his coat-collar turned up, like a man ashamed of himself.

"This time next year," he was thinking, "I'll be out of college and hustling in the big world which recent graduates are always telling me I know nothing about. I suppose I shall have to get used to boot-licking and getting pulls. That's business. But just at present I don't like the taste." So he hurried up the street for a counter-irritant, while the mood was on him.

A few moments later he was saying, "The fact of the matter is, Darnell, I'm in a pretty bad hole, and I think I'll ask your advice."

"_My_ advice?" said Darnell.

"Yes, if you do not object to giving it."

"I think you know what I mean," said the freshman, "don't you?"

"Yes," said Lawrence, "I know what you mean." He also knew he was finding it a different matter talking to this freshman.

"Well, I'll tell you about it anyway," he went on. "Last year, when your friend Gus Thompson's sister was down here for the sophomore reception--what?" The freshman's big eyes were making him nearly blush.

"Why, Gus is an only child, you know. You must mean his cousin."

"Did I say sister? I meant cousin. His cousin, of course--she's a smooth girl, his cousin. Well, his cousin got at me and asked me to look after him when he entered college and see that he poled and all that. Sort of queer thing, wasn't it? But I promised to do it, and you know you hate to lie to a--well, I hate to deceive her about it."

Then Lawrence went on to point out that while he, Darnell, had plenty of fun in life, he kept up in first division at the same time, which was the way to do, whereas that boy Thompson, who seemed rather immature, had two conditions and was in a good way to being dropped; and he, Darnell, had considerable influence over Thompson--oh, yes, he had: Gus had only that evening referred to Darnell as his best friend, and so on. But Lawrence forgot to say damn this time.

When he finished, the freshman turned toward the senior two fine-looking eyes filled with surprise and some other things which caused Lawrence to feel like a hypocrite, which he was.

"Why," replied Darnell, "of course, Lawrence. To be sure I don't know how well I can succeed, but I'll be very glad to try it. And, Lawrence, I think I ought to tell you that I appreciate your trusting me in a thing of this nature, only----"

"Oh, that's all right," said Lawrence, arising.

"Only, Lawrence," continued the freshman, who seemed to have something to say, "why didn't you tell me this was what you wanted long ago? I would have been willing, I think, without your cultivating my acquaintance so long."

"See here," said Lawrence, with his hand on the door-knob, "to be right honest, I never dreamed of asking you to do anything of the sort until this very day. If I cultivated you it was for yourself and because I like you. I never told anyone _that_ before. Good-night."

On his way across the campus Lawrence stopped and told an innocent old elm-tree this: "The man that first said '_Similia similibus curantur_' was very much of a fool. I feel more like a fellow cribbing in exams than I did before." Then he kicked the elm and shouted "Hello-o, Billy Nolan, are you up there?" and ran up the stairs to smoke a good-night pipe and talk about senior vacation. He felt better in the morning.

It was one evening about a week after this that young Thompson came running up to Lawrence's room with a scowl on his face, and talked like an important man in a hurry.

"Why, he's dead easy! I'll say, 'Aw, let's get out of here, this beer is rotten.' 'All right,' he'll say, 'let's wander over to the room.' Minute we get there he proposes that we pole the Greek or something. See his idea? He thinks he'll sour me on being quiet, but, ha, ha! I fool him every time--how? Why I just sit down and pole to beat the band until too late for him to join the gang. See? Oh, but he's easy! I have made up my mind to keep that boy from making a fool of himself, and when I make up my mind to a thing, I don't believe in crawling. Besides, poling won't hurt me any."

"Oh, no, Thompson," said Lawrence sympathetically. "I don't see how it can hurt you."

Darnell came in a little later and sat down in the very same chair and had this to say: "Lawrence, Gus Thompson is a queer fellow. You know he doesn't go with the crowd any more, and because _he_ is sour and doesn't care to have any good times, he tries to interfere with my enjoyment too. He's always proposing that we stay in the rooms--you know we room together now. I thought I could look after him better in that way-- Well, when he kicks on poling I start to join the gang, and then he says 'All right, let's pole.' He must be jealous about me. But that's the way I work him. He's so easy."

"Yes," said Lawrence, "lots of people are."

THE SCRUB QUARTER-BACK

Tommy Wormsey was a meek little boy with an ugly face, mostly covered with court-plaster, and he would rather fall on a football than eat.

When he came trotting out upon the field, the college along the side lines always smiled at the way he tipped his head to one side with his eyes on the ground, as though he was ashamed of himself and of his funny little bumpy body, stuck into a torn suit and stockings which weren't mates and had holes in them. When he skimmed over the ground and dived through the air and brought down a two-hundred-and-something-pound guard, with his knotty little arms barely reaching about the big thighs, it looked very absurd, and when he jumped up again, yelling "3--9--64" in his shrill earnest voice, and ran sniffling back to his place, with his sorrowful face seeming to say, "I know I oughtn't to have let him slide so far, but please don't scold me this time," the crowd laughed uproariously, which hurt his feelings.

But he paid very little attention to anything except the scrub captain's orders and the admonitions of the coachers, to whom he said, "Yes, sir," and "I'll try it that way, sir." He was afraid of them, and looked down at his torn stockings when they spoke to him. Those of the crowd along the ropes who knew everything, as well as the other spectators who only knew a few things, said that Freshman Wormsey had more sand and football instinct than any man on the field. But they did not know what a coward he was at heart.

More than once when a 'varsity guard had broken through and jumped on him, and the scrub halves had fallen on him from the other direction to keep him from being shoved back, and the other 'varsity guard and the centre, who were not light, had thrown themselves upon these, and one of the ends had swung round and jumped on the top of the pile on general principles, Wormsey, at the bottom, said "ouch!" under his breath, if he had any. He weighed 137 pounds stripped.

At night, after the trick practice with checkers at the Athletic Club, he always hurried back to his room, and stacked the pillows and sofa cushions up in the corner of the room, with the black one in the centre, and taking his place on one knee in the opposite corner, socked the ball into the pile. Every time he missed the black one in the centre he called himself names.

Sometimes when he did this he became excited, and sprang forward and knocked down chairs and tables and things. But he paid no attention to that. He only bit his nails and fell to passing again, and kept it up sometimes until eleven o'clock, which was a whole hour later than he had any business to be out of bed.

But there were days when it became tiresome, this constant pound, pound, pound, fall down, get up and pound again, and once in a while there came dark times when he felt that it all didn't pay, which was very unpatriotic thinking; and the next day, when the crowd yelled, "Well tackled, Wormsey!" he wondered how he could have been such a mucker as to think it. But it was rather hard work for a seventeen-year-old boy whose bones weren't knit to play two thirty-minute halves every day as hard as they were doing now, and then practise place kicks and catching punts afterward, besides keeping hold of all the signals and systems and stuff that were drummed into his little head every evening, along with the rest of the second eleven, in the room across the hall from the one where the 'varsity were learning their systems and signals and tricks.