Part 8

In the last days of the month of September the school returned from the fatiguing period of vacation to seek recuperation and needed sleep in the classrooms. George Barker Smith found himself at last a full-fledged fourth former, one of the lords of the school, member of a free governing body, with license to burn the midnight lamp unchallenged, to stray into the village at all hours, to visit the jigger-shop during school and remain tranquilly seated when a master bore down from the horizon, instead of joining the palpitating under-formers that just at his back crouched, glasses in hand, behind the counter. No longer did he have to stand in file once a week before the Bursar to claim a beggarly half-dollar allowance. Instead, once a mouth he strolled in at his pleasure and nonchalantly tendered checks for fifty dollars, with which allowance his parents, for one blissful year only, fondly expected him to purchase all the clothes necessary--per agreement.

He could hire a buggy at ruinous rates and disappear in search of distant cider-mills or visit friends in Princeton, who had gone before. Finally, his room was his castle, where no imperious tapping of a lurking undermaster would come to disturb a little party at the national game, for chips only, of course.

George Barker Smith's room was on the third floor back and had attached to it certain communal rights. Even as the possession of the ground-floor rooms in the under-form houses entailed the obligation to assist at all hours of the night the passage to the outer world, and to assure the safe return therefrom, so room 67 was the recognised highway to the roof of the Upper, when the thermometer had mounted above seventy-eight degrees Fahrenheit.

Those who sought the cooling heights sought security and (be it confessed, now that an inconsiderate Faculty's sanction has made smoking no longer a pleasure but a choice) the companionship of the Demon Cigarette or the "Coffin Nail," as it was more affectionately known. The guardianship of this highway, if it entailed responsibilities, also brought with it certain perquisites and tariffs in the shape of an invitation without expense.

Now, George Barker Smith did not like the odour of tobacco in the least, and he particularly disliked the effects produced by the cheap cigarette which the price rendered popular. But once a fourth former there were so few rules to break that this opportunity had to be embraced as an imperative duty, and so he resigned himself, pretending (like how many others!) to inhale and enjoy it.

The last weeks of September were unusually hot and distressing. The stiff collar disappeared. Two-piece suits became the fashion for full dress and fatigue uniform consisted of considerably less. The day was passed in long, grumbling siestas under the shade of apple trees or in a complete surrender to the cooling contact of peach and strawberry jiggers. Even games lost their attraction, and the only sign of life was the pleasant spectacle of the heavy squad on the football team, puffing protestingly about the circle under the cruel necessity of reducing weight.

After dark, bands were organised which stole away, through negro villages, arousing frantic dogs, to the banks of the not-too-fragrant canal, where they spent a long, blissful hour frolicking in the moonlit water or raising their voices in close harmony on the bank. Other spirits, not so adventurous, contented themselves with lining up behind the Upper in white, shivering line, where the hose brought comfort as it played over grateful backs.

Naturally, at night, smoking up the flue, even with the whispered conversations with the boy below and the boy across, lost all charm. The roof became a veritable rookery. Mattresses were carried up and hot, suffocating boys lolled through the raging night swapping yarns and gazing at the inscrutable stars.

On a certain evening, hot among the hottest, George Barker Smith, in that costume which obtained before the publication of the first fashions, was sitting at his desk in a conscientious endeavour to translate one paragraph of Cicero, which he held in his right hand, for every chapter of the Count of Monte Cristo, which he held in his left.

At his door suddenly appeared the Triumphant Egghead and Goat Phillips, whose title at this time had been conveyed solely for the butting manner of his attack. Each had likewise reached that stage of dishabille where there is little more to shed.

"Hello, old Sockbutts," said Egghead, genially.

"Hello yourself," returned Smith, non-committally.

"We're going up on the roof," continued the Egghead. "Anyone up yet?"

"Not yet."

"It's as hot as blazes," said the Goat. "Better come along."

"I ought to finish this Cicero," said Smith, wondering if he could leave his hero in a sack, ready to be plunged into the dizzy waters below.

"Oh, come on," said the Egghead; "I'll give you that when we come down. Have you any matches? I've got the coffin nails."

A slight shower had ended a few minutes before without bringing relief from the heat.

"Are you coming?" said the Egghead, already out of the window. "Don't be a grind, Smithy."

"Sure, I'm with you," replied Smith, thus forced to repel the insinuation.

The Goat had gone first, then the Egghead, with Smith bringing up the rear.

"Look out, fellows," whispered the pilot, lost in the darkness ahead. "It's slippery as the deuce!"

The way led up a gutter to the peak of one slope, down that, up another and over to a cranny which formed about the back chimneys. The still moist tiles were, in fact, slippery and treacherous, and their movements were made with calculation and solicitude.

Smith, arriving the last at the top of the first peak, waited until the Egghead had descended and climbed in safety to the next ridge, glanced down the twenty feet of slippery slate, and, tempted, called out:

"Look out, fellows, I'm going to slide!"

The Goat and the Egghead, in unison, cried to him to desist, for the second ridge which ended the slope of the first had a downward inclination towards the edge of the roof that made it exceedingly dangerous.

Just how it happened has never been satisfactorily settled: whether Smith actually intended to slide or whether he lost his grip and started unwillingly. However it may be, Egghead and the Goat, astride the second ridge, were suddenly horrified to see Smith's naked body shoot down the slope, strike the moist incline at the bottom, and, bounding down that, with increased velocity disappear over the roof. They heard one thud and then another in the gravel path, three stories below.

The two clung to each other with a dreadful sinking feeling.

"He's dead," said the Goat, solemnly. "Poor old Smith is dead."

"Squashed like a bug," said the Egghead. "We won't even recognise his remains."

"Egghead, it's all our fault--all our fault."

"Shut up, Goat, and don't blubber."

"I'm not."

"You are--for Heaven's sake, brace up! We've got to get down to him!"

They started fearfully over the treacherous return, reaching Smith's room thoroughly unnerved. Then they began to run down the stairs, calling out:

"Smithy's dead!"

"Smithy's fallen off the roof!"

On their trail came a motley assortment of excited boys, rushing out of every room. Without a single hope they tore around to the back of the Upper, and, there, sitting bolt upright in the position in which he had fallen, they found George Barker Smith. They stopped astounded.

"Smith, is that you!" Egghead said, in a hoarse, incredulous whisper, and the answer returned faintly:

"It's me, Egghead."

"Are you dying?"

"I don't know."

"Are your bones all broken?"

"I don't know--I'm full of gravel!"

The boys gazed astounded up at the dark outline three stories above them. Half-way, the slanting roof of the porch had broken the fall and saved him from certain death. They gazed in silence, and then the chorus arose:

"Holy cats!"

"Great snakes!"

"Marvellous!"

"Can you beat that!"

"Mamma!"

"Simply marvellous!"

Smith, still in a comatose condition, caught the sounds of astonishment, and suddenly comprehended, first, that he had done something without parallel in school history, and, second, that he was alive.

"You fellows, get me upstairs," he said, gruffly, "and send for Doctor Charlie. I want to get this gravel out of me."

Macnooder and Turkey reverently carried him to his room, while Shy Thomas, who was clothed in a dressing-gown, went streaming across the campus for the doctor.

A quick examination revealed the amazing fact that not a bone had been fractured.

"You've got a few bruises, and that's all, by George!" said the doctor, looking at him in open-eyed wonder.

"It's the gravel that bothers me," said Smith, twisting on his side.

"You did sit down rather hard," remarked the doctor, with a twitch of his lips. In half an hour he had removed thirty-seven pieces of gravel, large and small, and departed, after ordering rest and a few days' sojourn in bed.

Hardly had the doctor departed when Hickey arrived, full of importance and enthusiasm. For a moment he stood at the foot of the bed surveying the bruised hero with the affectionate and fatherly joy of a Barnum suddenly discovering a new freak.

"My boy," he said, happily, "you're a wonder. You're great. You're it. There's been nothing like it ever happened. Smithy, my boy, you're a genius. You're the wonder of the age!"

"I suppose everyone's excited?" said Smith, faintly realising that Fate had touched him in her flight and made him famous.

"Excited? Why, they're howling with curiosity," responded Hickey, who, having cautiously turned the key in the door, returned and continued with importance:

"Say, but I suppose you don't realise what we can make of this, do you?"

"What do you mean?" said Smith.

"First, where are those thirty-seven pieces of gravel?"

"I threw them away."

"My boy, my boy!" said Hickey, sitting down and burying his head in his arms. "Pearls before swine."

"But they're over there in the basket."

Hickey, with a cry of joy, flung himself on them, counted them and thrust them into his pocket.

"Smith," he said, condescendingly, "you've got certain qualities, I'll admit, but what you need is a manager!"

"Why, what are you thinking of?" said Smith, who began to have a suspicion of Hickey's plan.

"I suppose you would expose your honourable scars," said Hickey, disdainfully, "to any one who asks to see them?"

"Why not?"

"Just out of friendliness?"

"Yes."

"Smith, you _are_ a nincompoop! Why, my boy, there's money in it--big money. Never thought of that, eh?"

"How so?"

"Exhibitions--paid exhibitions, my boy! We'll organise the greatest side-show ever known."

Smith blushed at the thought.

"Won't it be rather undignified?" he said doubtfully.

"Dignity, rats!" said Hickey. "Talk to me of dignity when you hear the gold rattling in your pocket, when you lodge in a marble palace and drive fast horses up Fifth Avenue. My boy, you don't known what you're worth. I'll have Macnooder paper the campus to-morrow. I'll get up scareheads that'll bring every mother's son of them scampering here to see you."

"What do I get out of it?" said Smith cautiously.

"Half!"

"You low-down robber!"

"Who had the idea? Would you ever have made a cent if it hadn't been for me? Do you suppose any attraction ever makes as much as his manager? My boy, I'm generous! I oughtn't to do it! Come now--is it a go?"

"Well--yes!"

"Wait--till you see the posters," said Hickey, squeezing his hand joyfully, "and mind, no private exhibitions. Promise?"

"I promise."

"Under oath?"

"So help me."

"Ta, ta."

Left at last alone, George Barker Smith could hardly seize the full measure of his future. Hickey was right, it was the biggest thing that had ever happened. In one short hour everything had changed. Now he was of the elect--a part of history, a tale to be told over whenever one old graduate would meet another. Even Hungry Smeed's great pancake record would have to be placed second to this. Other more distinguished appetites might come who would achieve fifty pancakes, but no boy would ever go the path he had gone. He was famous at last. At Prom and Commencement he would be pointed out to visitors in the company of Hickey, Flash Condit, Cap Kiefer and Turkey Reiter. Only yesterday he was plain George Barker Smith, to-morrow he might be....

What would the morrow bring? Who would name him? Would it be Hickey, Macnooder or Turkey or the Egghead, or would some unsuspected classmate find the happy expression? He hoped that it would be something picturesque, but a little more dignified than the Triumphant Egghead. He tried to imagine what the nickname would be. Of course, there were certain obvious appellations that immediately suggested themselves, such as Roofie, Jumper, or, better still, Plunger Smith. There was also Tattoo and Rubber and Sliding, but somehow none of these seemed to measure up to the achievement, and in this delightful perplexity Smith fell asleep.

OLD IRONSIDES

THE GREATEST SIDE-SHOW ON EARTH ON EXHIBITION AT ROOM 67 UPPER

MANAGEMENT--Hicks & Macnooder.

Come one, Come all! Come and View the HUMAN METEOR, THE YOUNG RUBBER PLANT, THE FAMOUS PLUNGING ROCKET, THE WORLD-RENOWNED SMITH, THE BOY GRAVEL YARD!

Come and see the honourable scars! No private exhibition. This afternoon only! Old Ironsides is under contract not to bathe in the canal this fall. This is your one and only opportunity to see the results of Old Ironsides' encounter with the gravel path!

Come and see the 37 original guaranteed and authentic bits of gravel which dented but could not penetrate!

ADMISSION, 5 CENTS FRESHMEN, 10 CENTS $500 REWARD $500

To any one who will duplicate this mad, death-defying feat MR. MACNOODER, on behalf of Old Ironsides, will offer the above reward. Doctor's or Undertaker's bills to be shared in case of failure.

ROOM 67 ROOM 67 Exhibition begins at 2 o'clock.

The above posters, prominently displayed, produced a furore. By two o'clock fully one hundred boys were in line before room 67. At two o'clock Hickey addressed the crowd.

"Gentlemen, unfortunately a slight delay has become necessary--only a slight delay. Mr. Ironsides Smith's sense of natural delicacy is at present struggling with Mr. Ironsides Smith's desire not to disappoint his many friends and admirers. Just a slight delay, gentlemen--just a slight delay."

A cry of protest went up and Hickey disappeared. At the end of five minutes he returned radiant, announcing:

"Gentlemen, I am very glad to announce to you that Old Ironsides will not disappoint his many admirers. Only we wish it to be understood that this is a strictly scientific exhibition with an educational purpose in view. No levity will be tolerated. The exhibition is about to begin. Have your nickels in hand, gentlemen; ten cents for freshmen, with the privilege of shaking hands with Old Ironsides himself! Absolutely unique, absolutely unique!"

When the last spectator had filed out, Hickey, Macnooder and Smith divided fifteen dollars and twenty cents as pure profit, of which sum the gravel-stones had brought no less than a third.

When on the fourth day Smith was able painfully to descend the stairs and circulate in the world again he felt the full delight of his newly-acquired fame. At the jigger-shop, Al graciously waved aside his tendered money, saying:

"I guess it's up to me, Ironsides, to stand treat. Such things don't happen every day. Go ahead--do your worst."

Bill Appleby and "Mista" Laloo, the rival livery men, Bill Orum, the cobbler, Barnum of the village store, even Doc Cubberly, the bell-ringer, with his little dog, stopped to watch him pass. When he crossed the campus youngsters gambolled up to his side with solicitous inquiries and the inevitable:

"Say, weren't you awfully scared?"

Even in the classroom the Roman, after flunking him, would say:

"That will do now, Smith. You may sit down--gently."

So he was now "Old Ironsides." He liked the name and was proud of it. It had a certain grim, uncompromising sternness about it that lent it dignity. It sounded well and it had patriotic associations.

For a whole week he knew the intoxication of popularity, of being the celebrity of the hour, of the thrill that runs up and down the back when a dozen glances are following, and the music of a murmured name, admiringly pronounced. Then abruptly another hero was exalted and he fell.

One evening after supper, while the fourth form lounged on the esplanade of the Upper, Turkey Reiter and Slugger Jones amused themselves with teasing Goat Phillips, who, being privileged by his diminutive size, responded by butting his tormentors in vigorous fashion.

"My, what an awful rambunctious, great big Goat," said Reiter, defending himself. "Do goats eat neckties?"

"I'll eat yours," responded the youngster recklessly.

"Ten double jiggers to one you can't do it," said Slugger Jones, lazily.

"Give me the tie," responded Phillips.

More to continue the joke than for any other reason, Turkey detached the green and yellow cross tie, which was his joy, and tendered it. What was his amazement to see Goat Phillips calmly set to work to devour it, and to devour it to the very last shred in the most classic goat-fashion.

When he had swallowed the last mouthful he stood stock-still and gazed at his shrieking audience. Then he began to have doubts; then he began to have premonitions. Then he ended by having settled on rather the most unsettling convictions. The consideration of the act came after the accomplishment, but it came with terrifying force. What would happen now?

"Turkey," he said, grown very solemn, "you don't think I'm going to be poisoned, do you?"

Turkey became serious at once. Everyone became serious.

"What do you fellows think?" said Turkey, addressing the crowd.

No one had any opinions to volunteer. There were no precedents to go by.

"He might get ptomaine poisoning," finally suggested Shy Thomas.

"What's that?" said Goat, horrified. Shy was forced to confess that he did not know. Hungry Smeed thought it was when you cut your toe on an oyster shell.

"See here, Goat," said Turkey, decisively, "we can't fool with this any more. You come with me."

The now thoroughly demoralised and penitent Goat went meekly between Turkey and Slugger toward Foundation House. But on the way, encountering the Roman, they decided to consult him instead.

"Please, sir," said Phillips, with difficult calm, "I'd like to ask you something."

The master stopped and, prepared for any eventuality, said:

"Well, Phillips, nothing serious, I hope?"

"Please, sir, I'm afraid it is," said Phillips, all in a breath. "I've just eaten a necktie, sir."

"A what?"

"A necktie, sir, and I want to know if you think I'm in any danger, sir."

The Roman stood stock-still for a long moment, with dropped jaw; then, recovering himself, he said:

"A necktie, Phillips?"

"Yes, sir."

"A whole necktie?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, Phillips, if you can eat a necktie I guess you can digest it!"

* * * * *

The next morning, when Ironsides Smith unsuspectingly strolled out into the campus, no soul did him honour, not a glance turned as he turned, not a first form youngster, primed with curiosity and admiration, came rushing to his side. Instead, a knot of boys at the far end of the esplanade were clustered in excited contemplation about Goat Phillips, the boy who had heroically eaten a necktie rather than suffer a dare.

Then Ironsides understood--he was the hero of yesterday. A new celebrity had risen for the delectation of the fickle populace. The King was dead--long live the King!

He went to the classroom disillusionised and sat through the hour stolidly tasting the bitterness of Napoleonic isolation. So this was the favour of crowds. In a night to be dethroned and forgotten!

As he descended Memorial steps, Goat Phillips passed, radiant, saluted by capricornian acclamations.

Smith regarded him darkly.

"As though any one couldn't eat a necktie," he said in righteous disgust.

Unacclaimed he went through the crowd toward the Upper--he who had risked life and limb to amuse them for a week!

From a tower window in the Upper the Triumphant Egghead, lolling on the cushioned window-seat, called down lazily:

"Oh, you--Ironsides!"

That was the answer. Let popularity run after a dozen unworthy lights. Other boys would come who would eat neckties, no one ever would go the way he had gone. He had nothing to do with transitory emotions. He must be superior to the voice of the hour. He, Ironsides, belonged to history. That, nothing could take from him!

THE PROTEST AGAINST SINKERS

The feeling of revolt sprang up at chapel during the head master's weekly talk. Ordinarily the school awaited these moments with expectation, received them with tolerance and drew from them all the humour that could be extracted.

These little heart-to-heart talks brought joy to many an overweighted brain and obliterated momentarily the slow, dragging months of slush and hail. They also added, from time to time, picturesque expressions to the school vocabulary--and for that much was forgiven them. No one who heard it will ever forget the slashing that descended from the rostrum on the demon tobacco, in its embodied vice, the cigarette, nor the chill that ran over each of the four hundred cigarette smokers as the head master, with his boring glance straight on him, concluded:

"Yes, I know what you boys will say; I know what your plea will be when you are caught. You will come to me and you'll say with tears in your eyes, with tears:

"'Doctor, think of my mother--my poor mother--it will kill my mother!'

"I tell you, _now_ is the time to think of your mother; _now_ is the time to spare her grey hairs. Every cigarette you boys smoke is a _nail in the coffin of your mother_."

It was terrific. The school was unanimous in its verdict that the old man had outdone himself. Boys, whom a whiff of tobacco rendered instantly ill, smoked up the ventilators that night with shivers of delight, and from that day to this a cigarette has never been called anything but a coffin-nail.

Only the week before, in announcing the suspension of Corkscrew Higgins (since with the ministry), for, among other offences, mistaking the initials on the hat of Bucky Oliver as his own, the head master in his determination to abolish forever such deadly practices, had given forth the following:

"Young gentlemen, it is my painful duty, my very painful duty, to announce to you the suspension of the boy Higgins. The boy Higgins was a sloth, the boy Higgins was the prince of sloths! The boy Higgins was a gambler, the boy Higgins was the prince of gamblers! The boy Higgins was a liar, the boy Higgins was the prince of liars! The boy Higgins was a thief, the boy Higgins was the prince of thieves! Therefore, the boy Higgins will no longer be a member of this community!"

The school pardoned the exaggeration in its admiration for the rhetoric, which was rated up to the oration against Catiline. But on the first Monday of that lean month of February the school rose in revolt. In a tirade against the alarming decline in the percentage of scholastic marks the head master, flinging all caution to the winds, had terminated with these incendiary words:

"I know what the trouble is, and I'll tell you. The trouble with you boys is INORDINATE and IMMODERATE EATING. The trouble with you boys is--You Eat Too Much!"