Part 5

"There's a very helpful note on page eighteen of Geschmitzenmenger's Ancient Art that I wish you would all turn to." Then after a moment he added: "As some of us may have failed to bring the book this morning, I think I shall read the note in question aloud." He came to the edge of the platform and with a solicitous smile held out his hand; but no one in the front row had a book to lend him. His smile changed to an expression of mild disgust, and he glanced along the second row of seats. No one responded, however, and he swept the room with a look of annoyance, exclaiming, "Come--come," and snapping his fingers impatiently. Just then the fellow next to me murmured: "Will any lady or gentleman in the audience kindly lend me a high hat, three rabbits, and a dozen fresh eggs?" and I laughed. And as I laughed, I leaned over to hide my face--and there on my lap was Geschmitzenmenger's Ancient Art; after Hemington had given it to me I was so interested in whether he would catch his car or not that I had never looked at it at all.

"Is it possible that no one has provided himself with the book I requested you to procure?" Mr. Much was asking incredulously. I saw my chance to make a hit, and after a moment of impressive silence I arose and walked to the platform. There was a gust of dumfounded laughter, followed by prolonged applause. As I went back to my seat all the fellows who could reach me insisted on patting me on the back and grasping me by the hand. It was most embarrassing. But the really sickening part of it was to come.

Mr. Much made a little speech about me, saying, "I am glad that there is at least one, etc., etc., etc.," and when he had finished he opened the book with a flourish and found, as was quite natural, that none of the leaves had been cut. I suppose this was in the nature of a last straw, for he simply stood there a minute, fingering the pages helplessly and smiling the pitiful, philosophic smile of one who has lived long enough to have had even his most conservative illusions dispelled; then he turned the book around and held it open for every one to howl at, and finally he dismissed us with a hopeless gesture that expressed the unutterable. Whereupon I was seized by strong, willing hands and borne aloft all over the Yard, followed by the whole class hooting and jeering.

It was this that led Berri to say that my name had become a household word.

"You see," Berri went on, "when an instructor reads my examination book, for instance, the signature of the writer conveys nothing to him; but when he strikes yours--he stops and exclaims, 'Where have I seen that name before?' Then he sharpens his pencil to its finest possible point and gives you E."

"But you do agree with me that it's terribly unjust?" I asked him; for that, after all, seemed to be the main thing.

"Why, of course it's unjust," Berrisford answered decidedly. "It 's one of the worst cases that has ever come to my notice."

It did n't occur to me until afterward that, as these were our first examinations, Berrisford's "notice" had not been particularly extensive. For I felt so badly about the whole thing that it was agreeable to know that an intelligent person like Berrisford believed I had been shabbily treated. It was his moral support, I think, that gave me nerve enough to complain to my adviser.

My adviser is a young man and seems like an appreciative, well-disposed sort of person (he offered me a cigar after I had sat down in his study), so I did n't have any difficulty in telling him right off what I had come for.

"I 've heard from my hour examinations," I said, "and I find that I have been given E in all of them." (I was careful not to say that I had failed or flunked, or had n't passed, as that was not the impression I wished to convey.)

"We have met the enemy and we are theirs," he answered pleasantly. "Yes, I heard about that," he went on, "and I hoped you would come in to see me." Then he waited awhile--until the clock began to get noisy--and at last he glanced up and said,--

"What was it doing when you came in? It looked like snow this afternoon." But I had n't gone there to discuss meteorology, so I ignored his remark.

"I can scarcely think I could have failed in everything," I suggested.

"It is somewhat incredible, isn't it?" the young man murmured.

"I never stopped writing from the time an examination began until it stopped," I said.

"What did you think it was--a strength test?" he asked brutally.

"I told all I knew."

"Yes," he acknowledged; "your instructors were convinced of that."

"And I don't think I got enough credit for it. If I had the books here, I feel sure I could make this plain."

"Well, let 's look them over," he answered readily; and much to my astonishment he went to his desk and brought back all my blue-books.

I confess I had n't expected anything quite so definite as this, but I tried to appear as if I had hoped that it was just what might happen. We sat down side by side and read aloud--first an examination question (he had provided himself with a full set of the papers) and then my answer to it.

"'Explain polarized light,'" he read.

"'The subject of polarized light, as I understand it, is not very well understood,'" I began; at which my adviser put his hands to his head and rocked to and fro.

"If you don't mind," I said, "I think I'd rather begin on one of the others; this physics course is merely to make up a condition, and perhaps I 've not devoted very much time to it; it isn't a fair test." So we took up the history paper and read the first question, which was: "What was the Lombard League?" My answer I considered rather neat, for I had written: "The Lombard League was a coalition formed by the Lombards." I paused after reading it and glanced at my adviser.

"It was a simple question, and I gave it a simple answer," I murmured.

"I 'm afraid you depreciate yourself, Mr. Wood," he replied. "Your use of the word 'coalition' is masterly."

"But what more could I have said?" I protested.

"I don't think you could have said anything more," he answered inscrutably.

I read on and on, and he interrupted me only twice--once in the philosophy course to point out politely that what I constantly referred to as "Hobbe's Octopus" ought to be "Hobbe's Leviathan," and once in the questions in English Literature, to explain that somebody or other's "Apologia Pro Vita Sua" was not--as I had translated it--"an apology for living in a sewer." (I could have killed Berrisford for that--and it sounded so plausible, too; for any one who lived in a sewer would naturally apologize.) He let me proceed, and after a time I could n't even bring myself to stop and contest the decisions as I had done at first; for I dreaded the way he had of making my most serious remarks sound rather childish. So I rattled on, faster and faster, until I found myself mumbling in a low tone, without pronouncing half the words; and then I suddenly stopped and put the blue-book on the table and stared across the room at the wall. He did n't express any surprise, which, on the whole, was very decent of him, and after a minute or two of silence, during which he gathered up the evidence and put it back in his desk, we began to talk football and our chances of winning the big game. He said some nice things about Duggie, and hoped the rumor that he was overtrained was n't true. I told him that I lived in the same house with Duggie and knew him very well, and feared it was true. He seemed glad that I knew Duggie. I stayed for about fifteen minutes so as not to seem abrupt or angry at the way my visit had turned out, and then left. We did n't refer to the exams again, so I don't see exactly how I can ever right the wrong they have done me. If my adviser were a different kind of man, I could have managed it, I think.

I have n't seen very much of the fellows lately, except, of course, at meals--that is to say, at luncheon and dinner, for I can't stand their comments at breakfast. They greet me with "Hello, old man--what's this I hear about your trying for the Phi Beta Kappa?" "Is it true that you're going to get your degree in three years?" "I should n't go in for a _summa cum_ if I were you; a _magna_ is just as good;" and all that sort of thing. They evidently find it very humorous, for it never fails to make them all laugh. I 've taken to breakfasting at The Holly Tree, as I don't often meet any one I know there. I did one morning, however, come across the little instructor who had charge of the Freshman registration and made quavering remarks at me in a kind of Elizabethan dialect. He's a most extraordinary person. As he does n't say more than half he means, and as I don't understand more than half he says, I find conversation with him very exhausting. But I like him, somehow.

I was reading a newspaper when he came in and did n't realize that he was standing near me until I heard a slow, tremulous, reproachful voice saying,--

"Who's been sitting in my chair?" It seems that he always has his breakfast at the same table in the chair that I, in my ignorance, had taken. I jumped up, of course, and after he had sat down and leaned back, he murmured feebly, "I 'm an old man; but I know my place." I did n't know why he said this, as he is n't an old man at all; he can't be more than thirty-six or thirty-seven.

"I'm a young man, but I seem to know your place, too," I laughed, as I looked around for another chair.

"You clever boys chaff me so," he replied mournfully. "You mustn't chaff me; I'm only a simple villager." Just then the waitress appeared at a hole in the buff-colored fence that deludes itself into thinking it differentiates the kitchen from the dining-room, and the little man pounded softly and gently on the table, exclaiming,--

"What ho--Katy; some sack--some sack!" A request that Katy evidently understood better than I did, for she withdrew and came back in a moment with a cup of tea.

"How now, Sir John--is not my hostess of the tavern a most sweet wench?" the instructor inquired of me; which caused Katy--who had lingered to hear what we wanted for breakfast--to twist a corner of her apron around her finger and gurgle ecstatically,--

"Now, Mr. Fleetwood, you stop."

We sat there talking for more than an hour, and I don't know when I 've had so improving a conversation. We talked mostly about books and plays. Mr. Fleetwood seems to care a great deal about both and discussed them differently from the way most people do. At our table at Mrs. Brown's, for instance, a book or a play is always either "rotten" or a "corker." But Fleetwood has no end of things to tell about them. He seems to know all the people who do the writing and acting, and remembers all the clever remarks they 've made to him at various times, and the even cleverer ones he made in reply. Finally, when I got up to go he relapsed suddenly into his more doleful manner and said,--

"You will come to my Wednesday Evenings--won't you?" I felt as if I ought to have known what they were; but I 'd never heard of them, so I suppose I looked mystified.

"The lions roar at my Wednesday Evenings," he explained, turning on the tremolo in his voice, "but they won't hurt you--because they like me. They 'll like you, too, if you 'll come." I said I should like to come very much.

"When do you have your Wednesday Evenings?" I asked; for he was so dreadfully vague. He looked at me vacantly and then stared at the ceiling awhile, as if trying to think.

"On Wednesday evenings," he at last petulantly quavered; and I left, for I began to think I was losing my mind.

With the exception of Fleetwood that morning I have n't met any one else I know at The Holly Tree. To tell the truth, I haven't been very sociable of late. The result of the exams was rather depressing, and besides--I can't help realizing that solitude is inexpensive, if nothing else. I don't like to go in town unless I can pay my share, and, as I have n't been able as yet even to get my watch out of hock, in spite of mamma's urgent telegram, I don't see my way to going to the theatre and eating around at expensive hotels. Of course I could have the tickets charged--but they 're the least of it. And anyhow I owe so much already I hate to make it worse. Berri advised me to pawn the old-fashioned fob that belongs to my watch and get the watch back. (The fob has a huge topaz or some such thing in it that ought to bring a lot.) But I 'm tired of disposing of heirlooms.

I went to the first Symphony in Sanders' Theatre the other night. Duggie gave me his ticket, as the head coach, and the doctor who looks after the team told him he was n't feeling well and made him go to bed instead. It was a wonderful concert, and I enjoyed it very much, although I could n't help wondering all the time why I was enjoying it; for a man who looked like a Skye terrier played beautiful, sad things on the 'cello until I felt so lonely and homesick and as if I had wasted my life and broken my mother's heart, that I began to sniff; and the lady who was sitting next to me (she had a huge music book on her lap and was following every note with her finger and swaying from side to side like a cobra) turned and glared at me.

On Saturday afternoon they would n't let Duggie play in the game, and advised him to go home for Sunday. He came into my room where I was sitting by the fire feeling pretty blue, and after talking awhile said he wanted me to go with him. Berrisford came in while I was getting ready, and when he saw how little I was taking with me he exclaimed: "Good Heavens, man--you can't go that way! Duggie wouldn't mind, and neither would his family; but you must show _some_ consideration for the servants. And you 'd better take a piece of bread in your pocket, to munch when nobody 's looking, as you 'll get there too late for tea, and they don't dine until sometime during the middle of the night." He made me pack my dress-clothes (they've been mended) and gave me his hairbrushes, as they have ivory backs with black monograms on them. I can't feel thankful enough that he warned me in time; for everything turned out just as he said. (Berri _is_ clever; there's no getting around it.)

I can't write about my visit to-night; it's too late to do justice to the novel and delightful time I had. I enjoyed every minute of it; even the thing that Duggie told me on Sunday morning did n't spoil it. (Berri said he probably took me home with him in order to break the news gently.)

We had been sitting on the rocks in the sun, looking out to sea and listening to the lazy waves break over the beach about half a mile away (at that distance they looked like a flock of sheep playing on the sand), when Duggie told me in as nice a way as one possibly can tell disagreeable news that the Administrative Board had decided to put me on probation.

*VI*

It's curious how little you know, after all, about the fellows here of whom you know most. As time goes on I suppose you gradually learn more--although I 've been told by upperclassmen that they 've seen certain fellows every day for years, and, while apparently intimate with them, have never taken the trouble to find out their real names--their first names, that is to say. And as for knowing what their families are like--what they 've been used to before they came to college--you can only guess; and you usually guess wrong. At least, I do. Berrisford, however, is very wonderful. He has a mind as comprehensive in its scope as the last seventy-five pages of an unabridged dictionary, and his talent for sizing people up and telling you all about them is really remarkable. He is the last person in the world, though, that I should have picked out as a citizen of Salem, and one day I told him so. He explained himself by saying that his mother had made an unfortunate marriage. I felt very sorry, as the only time I saw his mother I thought her lovely.

"He was very handsome and had a great deal of money, and was the best and most delightful man I ever knew," Berri went on.

"Well, I don't see anything so dreadfully unfortunate in all that," I ventured.

"Ah, but he was n't from Salem," Berri explained simply. "He didn't even have any cousins there, although for a time mamma's family tried to delude themselves into believing they were on the track of some. They traced him back to Humphrey de Bohun and Elizabeth Plantagenet, but there they lost the scent; and as mamma's people--perhaps you know--came from the King of Navarre and Urracca, Heiress of Arragon, why--of course--well, you know how people talk. It was all very sad. Naturally mamma never cared to live in Salem after that, and I think my grandparents were rather relieved that she preferred to stay most of the time in France. They used to come over and see us every few years, but of course no one in Salem ever knew about that; every one believed that grandfather had to take a cure at Carlsbad--at least that was what was given out whenever he went abroad. I suppose I can't help seeming somewhat crude now and then," he mused dismally; "dilute the strain and it's bound to show sooner or later. But there--I don't know why I've told you all this; it is n't the sort of thing one can discuss with everybody."

"All this" was intensely interesting and mysterious to me, but I don't think I can ever get on to it entirely; just when I 'm beginning to feel that I 've mastered the details I collide with a perfectly new phase and find I don't know anything at all. My ignorance has led to several discussions with Berri--the heated kind that always result in coldness. When I told him, for instance, that I 'd met Billy in town one morning and he 'd taken me home for luncheon, Berri said, "How nice," and proceeded to effect a union of his eyebrows and the top of his head.

"Now what on earth is the matter with Billy?" I exclaimed indignantly, for I 'd enjoyed my luncheon exceedingly, and the house was the biggest thing I had ever seen.

"Oh, Billy 's all right. He 's really very nice, I imagine--although, of course, I don't know him very well," said Berri. "Why do you ask?"

"Who wouldn't ask when you hang your eyebrows on your front hair that way at the mere mention of his name?" I demanded. "Why do you say 'of course,' and why do you always make a point of the fact that you don't know him well? Who cares whether you do or not?" I pursued, for I wanted to clear this mystery up once and for all.

"Well, you seem to care a good deal," Berrisford laughed.

"Oh, not personally," I assured him, "only in the interest of science."

We squabbled for an hour, and at the end of that time I had discovered that (1) Billy's family spell their name with an _e_--a most incriminating thing to do, apparently, and (2) their house is on the left-hand side of the street as you go up, which (3) makes it easier for a rich man to pass through the moat into Heaven than to draw a beam of recognition from the eye of his neighbor. It was all very confusing--especially as Berrisford insisted that no one had ever told him these things--he had known that they were so when he came into the world.

"Well, I don't see how you 've allowed yourself to be so friendly with me," I wondered sarcastically. "You 've been pretty reckless, it strikes me. How do you know what side of the street our house is on in Perugia, Wisconsin--or whether, indeed, we live in a house at all?"

"Oh, you 're different," Berri laughed.

"Different from what?"

"From everything; that's why I 'm willing to run the risk. You 're a strange, barbarous thing, and I like you immensely."

That was all the satisfaction I got. The reason I thought of this was because Duggie and I discussed it among other things that Sunday morning on the rocks.

It was perfectly evident that Duggie's family lived on the right side of the street, and didn't "spell their name with an e," although I should never have seen them in this light if Berrisford hadn't opened my eyes ("poisoned my mind," Duggie called it). Duggie's father resembles the Duke in Little Lord Fauntleroy, and his mother--well, his mother is like Duggie; one could n't say very much more than that. My impression of them is that they are between nineteen and twenty feet high, and when they and Duggie and his elder sister and two younger brothers were assembled, they looked the way family groups of crowned heads ought to look and don't.

The sister met us at the station with a cart and two ponies.

"They told me to take care of myself," Duggie said to her sort of doubtfully.

"He 's afraid of my nags," she explained to me as I clambered up beside her.

"I 'm afraid of your driving," Duggie answered. "I brought Jack Hollis down here to rest one Saturday and Sunday," he said to me, "and after she'd whirled him around the country for several hours on two wheels and run into a few trees and spilled him over a cliff, the poor thing went back to town with heart disease and has never been the same since."

Now, of course, Duggie merely meant to give me an exaggerated idea of his sister's driving, and she, of course, knew that his remark was quite innocent; but nevertheless she began to blush (it was then, I think, that I first noticed how pretty she was) and abruptly gave one of the horses a slap with the whip that sent us plunging and nearly snapped my head off.

"Hold on, Tommy," Duggie called to me. "This is what I go through every time I come home." Then, as a flock of terrified hens scuttled shrieking from under the ponies' feet, he added: "Tell them I was very brave and hopeful to the end and that my last words were about the team." But pretty soon the horses settled down into a fast, steady trot, and we bowled along the prettiest road I 've ever seen--between thick woods, and, farther on, great, uneven meadows marked off in irregular shapes with low fences of rough stone. The meadows to the right ran back to the woods, but the ones on the left stretched away ahead of us into a vast plain. It gave me a queer, happy feeling that I can't explain--as if I were going to soar out of the cart and over the meadows--straight on into space. I could n't imagine where such a sweep of luminous horizon led to--it seemed extraordinary to come across anything so much like a prairie in New England. The air, too, had a lot to do with the way I felt. It was wonderful air--not cold exactly, and not wet; although I thought every minute that it was going to be both. It had a peculiar smell to it that, without knowing why, I liked. I filled my lungs with it, and somehow it made me feel bigger than I usually do. Then all at once the ponies scampered over the top of a little incline, and, although Miss Sherwin was telling me something, I gasped out:

"Oh-h-h-h--it's the ocean!" and forgot what she was saying, and even that she and Duggie and the cart were with me at all. For I had never seen it before; and it was right there in front of me--brimming over in long, slow, green, pillowy things that rolled forward and slipped back, forward and back, until all at once they got top heavy and lost control of themselves and tumbled over the edge in a delirious white and green confusion that slid across the sand in swift, foamy triangles almost up to our wheels and made the ponies shrink to the other side of the road in a sort of coquettish dance. Then there was a very slim, refined-looking lighthouse on a gray rock bordered by a little white frill where it touched the water, and beyond that, putting out to sea, was a great ship with bulging sails, and a steamer that left a lonely trail of black smoke sagging after it for miles.