Chapter 5

MASTER TURNS PUPIL

The rector received Irving with a smile. "Well," he said, "I think you must be a believer in the maxim, 'Hit hard and hit first.' Would you mind telling me what was the trouble?"

"It wasn't so much any one thing," replied Irving. "It was a culmination of little things.--Oh, I suppose I started in wrong with the fellows somehow."

He was silent for a moment, in dejection.

"A good many do that," said Dr. Davenport. "There would be small progress in the world if there never was any rectifying of false starts."

"I can hardly help it if I look young," said Irving. "That's one of my troubles. I suppose I ought to avoid acting young. I haven't, altogether. They call me Kiddy."

"We get hardened to nicknames," observed the rector. "But often they're affectionate. At least I like to cherish that delusion with regard to mine; my legs have the same curve as Napoleon's, and I have been known as 'Old Hoopo' for years."

"But they don't call you that to your face."

"No, not exactly. Have they been calling you 'Kiddy' to your face?"

"It amounts to that." Irving narrated the remarks that he had overheard in dormitory, and then described Westby's performance at the blackboard.

"That certainly deserved rebuke," agreed the rector. "Though I think Westby was attempting to be facetious rather than insolent; I have never seen anything to indicate that he was a malicious boy.--What was it that Louis Collingwood did?"

Irving recited the offense.

"Weren't you a little hasty in assuming that he was trying to tease you?" asked the rector. "When he persisted in wanting to show you how the forward pass is made? I think it's quite likely he was sincere; he's so enthusiastic over football that it doesn't occur to him that others may not share his interest. I don't think Collingwood was trying to be 'fresh.' Of course, he shouldn't have lost his temper and banged the ball at your door--but I think that hardly showed malice."

"It seemed to me it was insolent--and disorderly. I felt the fellows all thought they could do anything with me and I would be afraid to report them. And so I thought I'd show them I wasn't afraid."

"At the same time, three sheets is the heaviest punishment, short of actual suspension, that we inflict. It seems hardly a penalty for heedless or misguided jocularity."

"I think perhaps I was hard on Collingwood," admitted Irving.

"If he comes to you about it--maybe you'll feel disposed to modify the punishment. And possibly the same with Westby."

"I don't feel sure that I've been too hard on Westby."

The rector smiled; he was not displeased at this trace of stubbornness.

"Well, I won't advise you any further about that. Use your own judgment. It takes time for a young man to get his bearings in a place like this.--If you don't mind my saying it," added the rector mildly, "couldn't you be a little more objective in your interests?"

"You mean," said Irving, "less--less self-centred?"

"That's it." The rector smiled.

"I'll try," said Irving humbly.

"All right; good luck." The rector shook hands with him and turned to his desk.

There was no disturbance in the Mathematics class that day. Irving hoped that after the hour Westby and Collingwood might approach him to discuss the justice of the reports which he had given them, and so offer him an opportunity of lightening the punishment. But in this he was disappointed. Nor did they come to him in the noon recess--the usual time for boys who felt themselves wronged to seek out the masters who had wronged them.

Irving debated with himself the advisability of going to the two boys and voluntarily remitting part of their task. But he decided against this; to make the advances and the concession both would be to concede too much.

At luncheon there was an unpleasant moment. No sooner had the boys sat down than Blake, a Fifth Former, called across the table to Westby,--

"Say, Westby, who was it that gave you three sheets?"

Westby scowled and replied,--

"Mr. Upton."

"What for?"

"Oh, ask him."

Irving reddened, aware of the glancing, curious gaze of every boy at the table. There was an interesting silence, relieved at last by the appearance of the boy with the mail. Among the letters, Irving found one from Lawrence; he opened it with a sense that it afforded him a momentary refuge. The unintended irony of the first words drew a bitter smile to his lips.

"You are certainly a star teacher," Lawrence wrote, "and I know now what a success you must be making with your new job. I have just learned that I passed all the examinations--which is more than you or I ever dreamed I could do--so I am now a freshman at Harvard without conditions. And it's all due to you; I don't believe there's another man on earth that could have got me through with such a record and in so short a time."

Irving forgot the irony, forgot Westby and Collingwood and the amused, whispering boys. Happiness had suddenly flashed down and caught him up and borne him away to his brother. Lawrence's whole letter was so gay, so exultant, so grateful that Irving, when he finished it, turned back again to the first page. When at last he raised his eyes from it, they dwelt unseeingly upon the boys before him; they held his brother's image, his brother's smile. And from the vision he knew that there at least he had justified himself, whatever might be his failure now; and if he had succeeded once, he could succeed again.

Irving became aware that Westby was treating him with cheerful indifference--ignoring him. He did not care; the letter had put into him new courage. And pretty soon there woke in him along with this courage a gentler spirit; it was all very well for Westby, a boy and therefore under discipline, to exhibit a stiff and haughty pride; but it was hardly admirable that a master should maintain that attitude. The punishment to which he had sentenced Westby and Collingwood was, it appeared, too harsh; if they were so proud that they would not appeal to him to modify it, he would make a sacrifice in the interest of justice.

So after luncheon he followed Westby and spoke to him outside of the dining-room.

"Westby," he said, "do you think that considering the circumstances three sheets is excessive?"

Westby looked surprised; then he shrugged his shoulders.

"I'm not asking any favors," he replied.

Irving laughed. "No," he said, "I see you're not. But I'm afraid I must deny you the pleasure of martyrdom. I'll ask you to take a note to Mr. Elwood--he's in charge of the Study, isn't he? I'll tell him that you're to write a sheet and a half instead of three sheets."

He drew a note-book from his pocket and tore out one of the pages. Westby looked at him curiously--as if in an effort to determine just how poor-spirited this sudden surrender was. Irving spoke again before writing.

"By the way, will you please ask Collingwood to come here?"

When Westby returned with Collingwood, Irving had the note written and handed it to him; there was no excuse for Westby to linger. He went over and waited by the door, while Irving said,--

"Collingwood, why didn't you come up and ask me to reduce your report? Didn't you think it was unfair?"

"Yes," Collingwood answered promptly.

"Well, then--why didn't you come to me and say so?"

Collingwood thought a moment.

"Well," he said, "you had such fun in soaking me that I wasn't going to give you the additional satisfaction of seeing me cry baby."

"I'll learn something about boys sometime--if you fellows will keep on educating me," observed Irving. "I think your performance of yesterday deserves about a sheet; we'll make it that."

He scribbled a note and handed it to the boy.

"Thank you, Mr. Upton." Collingwood tucked the note into his pocket with a friendly smile, and then joined Westby.

"Knock you down to half a sheet?" asked Westby, as they departed in the direction of the Study, where they were to perform their tasks.

"No; a sheet."

"Mine's one and a half now. What got into him?"

"He's not without sense," said Collingwood.

"Ho!" Westby was derisive. "He's soft. He got scared. He knew he'd gone too far--and he was afraid to stand by his guns."

"I don't think so. I think he's just trying to do the right thing."

It was unfortunate for Irving that later in the afternoon Carter of the Fifth Form--who played in the banjo club with Westby--was passing the Study building just as Westby was coming out from his confinement.

"Hello, Wes!" said Carter. "Thought you were in for three sheets; how do you happen to be at large so soon?"

"Kiddy made it one and a half--without my asking him," said Westby.

"And Collingwood the same?"

"He made his only a sheet."

"That's it," said Carter shrewdly. "I was waiting to see the rector this morning; the door was open, and he had Kiddy in there with him. I guess he was lecturing him on those reports; I guess he told him he'd have to take off a couple of sheets."

"I shouldn't wonder," said Westby. "I don't believe old Hoopo would have interfered much on my account,--but I guess he couldn't stand for Lou Collingwood getting three sheets. And Kiddy, the fox, tried to make us think he was being magnanimous!"

Westby chuckled over his humorous discovery, and as soon as possible imparted it to Collingwood.

"Oh, well, what if the rector did make him do it?" said Collingwood. "The way he did it shows he's all right--"

"Trying to get the credit with us for being just and generous!" observed Westby. "Oh, I don't mind; of course it's only Kiddy."

And it was Westby's view of the matter which most of the boys heard and credited. So the improvement in the general attitude for which Irving had hoped was hardly to be noticed. He had some gratification the next Sunday when the roast beef was brought on and he carved it with creditable ease and dispatch; the astonishment of the whole table, and especially of Westby and Carroll, was almost as good as applause. He could not resist saying, in a casual way, "The knife seems to be sharp this Sunday." And he felt that for once Westby was nonplussed.

But the days passed, and Irving felt that he was not getting any nearer to the boys. At his table the talk went on before him, mainly about athletics, about college life, about Europe and automobiles,--all topics from which he seemed strangely remote. It needed only the talk of these experienced youths to make him realize that he had gone through college without ever touching "college life,"--its sports, its social diversions, its adventures. It had been for him a life in a library, in classrooms, in his own one shabby little room,--a cloistered life; in the hard work of it and the successful winning of his way he had been generally contented and happy. But he could not talk to these boys about "college life" as it appeared to them; and they very soon, perhaps by common consent, eliminated him from the conversation. Nor was he able to cope with Westby in the swift, glancing monologues which flowed on and on sometimes, to the vast amusement of the audience. Often to Irving these seemed not very funny, and he did not know which was the more trying--to sit grave and unconcerned in the midst of so much mirth or to keep his mouth stretched in an insincere, wooden smile. Whichever he did, he felt that Westby always was taking notes, to ridicule him afterwards to the other boys.

One habit which Westby had was that of bringing a newspaper to supper and taking the table with him in an excursion over headlines and advertising columns. His mumbling manner, his expertness in bringing out distinctly a ridiculous or incongruous sentence, and his skill in selecting such sentences at a glance always drew attention and applause; he had the comedian's technique.

The boys at the neighboring tables, hearing so much laughter and seeing that Westby was provoking it, would stop eating and twist round and tilt back their chairs and strain their ears eagerly for some fragment of the fun. At last at the head table Mr. Randolph took cognizance of this daily boisterousness, spoke to Irving about it, and asked him to curb it. Irving thereupon suggested to Westby that he refrain from reading his newspaper at table.

"But all the fellows depend on me to keep them _au courant_, as it were." Westby was fond of dropping into French in his arguments with Irving.

"You will have to choose some other time for it," Irving answered. "I understand that there is a rule against reading newspapers at table, and I think it must be observed."

"Oh, very well,--_de bon coeur_," said Westby.

The next day at supper he appeared without his newspaper. But in the course of the meal he drew from his pocket some newspaper clippings which he had pasted together and which he began to read in his usual manner. Soon the boys of the table were laughing, soon the boys of the adjacent tables were twisting round and trying to share in the amusement. Westby read in his rapid consecutive way,--

"'Does no good unless taken as directed--pain in the back, loins, or region of the kidneys--danger signal nature hangs out--um--um--um. Mother attacks son with razor, taking tip of left ear. Catcher Dan McQuilligan signs with the Red Sox--The Woman Beautiful--Bright Eyes: Every woman is entitled to a clear, brilliant complexion--um--if she is not so blessed, it is usually her own fault--um--Candidate for pulchritude: reliable beauty shop--do not clip the eyelashes--um.--Domestic science column--Baked quail: pick, draw, and wipe the bird outside and inside; use a wet cloth.--No, Hortense, it is not necessary to offer a young man refreshments during an evening call.'"

Westby was going on and on; he had a hilarious audience now of three tables. From the platform at the end of the dining-room Mr. Randolph looked down and shook his head--shook it emphatically; and Irving, seeing it, understood the signal.

"Westby," said Irving. "Westby!" He had to raise his voice.

"Yes, sir?" Westby looked up innocently.

"I will have to ask you to discontinue your reading."

"But this is not a newspaper."

"It's part of one."

"Yes, sir, but the rule is against bringing newspapers to table--not against bringing newspaper clippings to table."

"The rule's been changed," said Irving. "It now includes clippings."

"You see how it is, fellows." Westby turned to the others. "Persecuted--always persecuted. If I'm within the rules--they change the rules to soak me. Well,"--he folded up his clippings and put them in his pocket,--"the class in current topics is dismissed. But instead Mr. Upton has very kindly consented to entertain us this evening--some of his inimitable chit-chat--"

"I wouldn't always try to be facetious, Westby," said Irving.

"I beg your pardon, sir," replied Westby urbanely. "If I have wounded your sensibilities--I would not do that--never--_jamais--pas du tout_."

Irving said nothing; it seemed to him that Westby always had the last word; it seemed to him as if Westby was always skillfully tripping him up, executing a derisive flourish over his prostrate form, and then prancing away to the cheers of the populace.

But there were no more violent encounters, such as had taken place in the class-room; Westby never quite crossed the line again; and Irving controlled his temper on threatening occasions. These occurred in dormitory less often; the fine weather and the fall sports--football and tennis and track athletics--kept the boys out-doors. On rainy afternoons there was apt to be some noise and disorder--usually there was what was termed an "Allison hunt," which took various forms, but which, whether resulting in the dismemberment of the boy's room or the pursuit and battery of him with pillows along the corridors, invariably required Irving's interference to quell it. This task of interference, though it was one that he came to perform more and more capably, never grew less distasteful or less humiliating; he saw always the row of faces wearing what he construed as an impudent grin. What seemed to him curious was the fact that Allison after a fashion enjoyed--at least did not resent--the outrages of which he was the subject; after them he would be found sitting amicably with his tormentors, drinking their chocolate and eating their crackers and jam. This was so different from his own attitude after he had been teased that Irving could not understand it. After studying the case, he concluded that the "Allison hunts" were not prompted by any hatred of the subject, but by the fact merely that he was big, clumsy, good-natured, slow-witted--easy to make game of--and especially by the fact that when aroused he showed a certain joyous rage in his own defense. But Irving saw no way of learning a lesson from Allison.

As the days went on, the sense of his isolation in the School became more oppressive. He had thought that if only the fellows would let him alone, he would be contented; he found that was not so. They let him alone now entirely; he envied those masters who were popular--whom boys liked to visit on Sunday evenings, who were consulted about contributions to the _Mirror_, the school paper, who were invited to meetings of the Stylus, the literary society, who coached the football elevens or went into the Gymnasium and did "stunts" with the boys on the flying rings.

One day when he was walking down to the athletic field with Mr. Barclay, he said something that hinted his wistful and unhappy state of mind. Barclay had suspected it and had been waiting for such an opportunity.

"Why don't you make some interest for yourself which would put you on a footing with the boys--outside of the class-room and the dormitory?" he asked.

"I wish I could. But how?"

"You ought to be able to work up an interest of some sort," said Barclay vaguely.

"I don't know anything about athletics; I'm not musical, I don't seem to be able to be entertaining and talk to the boys. I guess I'm just a grind. I shall never be of much use as a teacher; it's bad enough to feel that you're not up to your job. It's worse when it makes you feel that you're even less up to the job that you hoped to prepare for."

"How's that?"

"I meant to study law; I'd like to be a lawyer. But what's the use? If I can't learn to handle boys, how can I ever hope to handle men?--and that's what a lawyer has to do, I suppose."

"Look here," said Barclay. "You're still young; if you've learned what's the matter with you--and you seem to have--you've learned more than most fellows of your age. It's less than a month that you've been here, and you've never had any experience before in dealing with boys. Why should you expect to know it all at once?"

"I suppose there's something in that. But I feel that I haven't it in me ever to get on with them."

"You're doing better now than you did at first; they don't look on you entirely as a joke now, do they?"

"Perhaps not.--Oh," Irving broke out, "I know what the trouble is--I want to be liked--and I suppose I'm not the likeable kind."

Barclay did not at once dispute this statement, and Irving was beginning to feel hurt.

"The point is," said Barclay at last, "that to be liked by boys you've got to like them. If you hold off from them and distrust them and try to wrap yourself up in a cloak of dignity or mystery, they won't like you because they won't know you. If you show an interest in them and their interests, you can be as stern with them as justice demands, and they won't lay it up against you. But if you don't show an interest--why, you can't expect them to have an interest in you."

They turned a bend in the road; the athletic field lay spread out before them. In different parts of it half a dozen football elevens were engaged in practice; on the tennis courts near the athletic house boys in white trousers and sweaters were playing; on the track encircling the football field other boys more lightly clad were sprinting or jogging round in practice for long-distance runs; a few sauntered about as spectators, with hands in their overcoat pockets.

"There," said Barclay, indicating a group of these idle observers, "you can at least do that."

"But what's the use?"

"Make yourself a critic; pick out eight or ten fellows to watch especially. In football or tennis or running. It doesn't much matter. If they find you're taking an intelligent interest in what they're doing, they'll be pleased. Westby, for instance, is running; he's entered for the hundred yards in the fall games,--likely to win it, too. Westby's your greatest trial, isn't he? Then why don't you make a point of watching him?--Not too obviously, of course. Come round with me; I'm coaching some of the runners for the next half-hour, and then Collingwood wants me to give his ends a little instruction."

"Dear me! If I'd only been an athlete instead of a student in college!" sighed Irving whimsically.

"You don't need to be much of an athlete to coach; I never was so very much," confided Barclay. "But there are things you can learn by looking on." They had reached the edge of the track; Barclay clapped his hands. "No, no, Roberts!" The boy who was practising the start for a sprint looked up. "You mustn't reel all over the track that way when you start; you'd make a foul. Keep your elbows in, and run straight."

Irving followed Barclay round and tried to grasp the significance of his comments. Dennison came by at a trot.

"Longer stride, Dennison! Your running's choppy! Lengthen out, lengthen out! That's better.--I have it!"

Barclay turned suddenly to Irving.

"What?"

"The thing for you to do. We'll make you an official at the track games next week. That will give you a standing at once--show everybody that you are really a keen follower of sport--or want to be."

"But what can I do? I suppose an official has to do something."

"You can be starter. That will put you right in touch with the fellows that are entered."

"Would I have a revolver? I've never fired a gun off in my life."

"Then it's time you did. Of course you'll have a revolver. And you'll be the noisiest, most important man on the field. That's what you need to make yourself; wake the fellows up to what you really are!--Now I must be off to my football men; you'd better hang round here and pick up what you can about running. And remember--you're to act as starter."

"If you'll see me through."

"I'll see you through."

Barclay waved his hand and swung off across the field.