Chapter 5

"There--there," said The Roman, stilling the storm with one finger. "Just a little joke between us two; just a little confidential joke. Now for a bee-ootiful recitation. Splendid spring weather--yesterday was a cut; of course you all took the hour to study conscientiously--eager for knowledge. Fifth and sixth rows go to the board."

While The Roman's modulated accents doled out conjugations and declensions Stover sat, without a thought in his head, his hands locked, staring out at the green and yellow necktie that rose on Pebble Stone's collar.

"Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!" he said at last. "Dished! Spinked! He'll flunk me every day. I certainly am in wrong!"

He raised his eyes at the enthroned Natural Enemy and mentally threw down the gage of battle with a hopeless, despairing feeling of the three years' daily conflict that was to come. For, of course, now there could be no question of The Roman's mortal and unsparing enmity. But after the first paralyzing shock Dink recovered himself. It was war, but the war he loved--the war of wits.

The Roman, having flunked a dozen by this time, had Channing, the Coffee-colored Angel, on his feet, on delicate matters of syntax.

"Top of page, third word, Channing--gerund or gerundive?" said The Roman.

"Gerund, sir."

"Too bad!" said The Roman musically, and on a lower octave repeated: "Too bad! Third line, fifth word--gerund or gerundive?"

"Gerund, sir," said the Coffee-colored Angel with more conviction.

"No luck, Channing, no luck. Tenth line, last word--gerund, Channing, or gerundive?"

"Gerund-ive," said the Coffee-colored Angel hesitatingly.

"Poor Channing, he didn't stick to his system. The laws of probability, Channing----"

"I meant gerund," said the Coffee-colored Angel hastily.

"Dear me! Really, Channing?"

"Yes, sir."

"Positive?"

"Absolutely, sir."

"It _was_ the gerundive, Channing."

The Coffee-colored Angel abruptly sat down.

"Don't want to speculate any more, Channing?"

"No, sir."

"No feeling of confidence--no luck to-day? Try the gerundive to-morrow."

The discouraged began to return from the boards, having writ in water. The Roman, without malice, passed over the rows and, from flunking them individually, mowed them down in sections.

"Anything from the Davis House to-day? No, no? Anything from the Rouse House combination? Nothing at all? Anything from the Jackson twins? Alas! How about the D's this morning? Davis, Dark, Denton, Deer, Dickson, nothing from the D's. Let's try the F's. Farr, Fenton, Foster, Francis, Finch? Nothing from the F's--nothing from the D F's! Nothing at all?"

Dink burst into laughter, and laughed alone. The Roman stopped. Every one looked surprised.

"Ah, Stover has been coached--well coached," said The Roman. "But, Stover, this is not the place to laugh. The D F's are not a joke; they are painful, every day facts. Well, well, it has been a beautiful recitation in the review--not exceptional, not exceptional at all. Has any one the advance? Don't all rise at once. Strange what trying weather it is--too sunny, not enough rain--every one rises exhausted. Will Macnooder kindly lead the massacre?"

Macnooder disdained to rise; one or two faltered and tripped along for brief spaces, and then sat down. The Roman, counting his dead, hesitated and called:

"Stover."

"Me, sir?" said Dink, too astonished to rise. "Why, I'm unprepared, sir."

"Unprepared?" said The Roman with a wicked smile. "I never thought you would be unprepared, Stover."

The smile decided Stover.

"I'll try, sir," he said.

"Very kind of you, Stover."

Dink rose slowly, put the book on his desk, tightened his belt, buttoned his coat and took up the prosy records of Cæsar. Pebble Stone showed him the place. He straightened up and, glancing at the first line, saw:

"_Ubi eo ventum est, Cæsar initio orationis_ ..."

"Cæsar," began Dink in a firm voice.

"Excellent!" said The Roman.

"Cæsar, wherever the wind blew him, initiated the orators ..." Dink continued smoothly, after a rapid glance.

The Roman, from a listless attitude, gripped the desk, pivoted clear on one leg of his chair, staring at the familiar text as though it had suddenly taken on life and begun to crawl about the page.

Dink, resolved not to be bested, gravely and fluently continued to glide on, without pause or hitch, turning syllables into words, building sentences wherever he met an acquaintance. On and on he went, glib and eloquent, weaving out of the tangled text a picture that gradually, freeing itself from the early restraints, painted in vivid detail a spirited conference between Cæsar and the German envoys. The class, amazed, resorted to their books; many of the unprepared, quite convinced, stared at him as though a new rival to the high markers had suddenly appeared.

The Roman, fascinated, never quitted the text, marveling as the tale ran on, leaping adverbs and conjunctions, avoiding whole phrases, undismayed by the rise of sudden, hostile nouns, impressing into service whatever suited it, corrupting or beating down all obstacles.

Once or twice he twitched spasmodically, twice he switched the leg of his chair, murmuring all the while to himself. Finally he rose and, slowly approaching to where Stover stood, glanced incredulously at his book.

"Shall I stop, sir?" said Stover.

"Heaven forbid!"

Stover completed the page with a graphic, rushing account of the athletic exercises of the ancient Germans, and sat down without a smile.

The Roman, back at his post, wiped his eyes with his handkerchief and spoke:

"Very well run, indeed, Stover; excellently well run. Take your breath. Very fluent, very vivid, very persuasive--a trifle free, a trifle--but, on the whole, a very creditable performance. Very! I was sure, whatever you did, Stover, you wouldn't bore us. Now, let us see how the same passage will appeal to a more prosaic, less richly-endowed mind."

Then Red Dog rose and, unfeelingly, brought the scene back to Rome and the deliberations of the Senate.

But this was a detail that did not interest Dink in the least. He had clashed with The Roman and not retreated. He had his first moment of triumph, attested by the admiring glances of the class and the muffled whisper of Straus, saying:

"Gee, you're a peach!"

The session ended with a solemn warning from The Roman.

"One word," he said in his deepest tones, "just one word to the wise. We have journeyed together for two whole terms; there is only one more between you and reassignment. Candor compels me to say that you have acquired not even a flunking knowledge." He turned and raked the awed ranks with the sweep of a pivot gun, and then took up again in cutting, chilling, spaced syllables: "I have, in the course of my experience as a teacher, had to deal with imbeciles, had to deal with mere idiots; but for sheer, determined, _monumental_ asininity I have never met the equal of this aggregation. I trust this morning's painful, disgraceful, disheartening experience may never, never be repeated. You may go."

And Stover, who had brazenly planned to remain and converse, went swiftly out with the rest, little imagining that he whom he had ranked as a deadly, unforgiving foe sat a long while chuckling over the marvelous route Dink had gone, murmuring gratefully to himself:

"Wherever the wind blew him, Cæsar initiated the orators."

VIII

In the hallway the Coffee-colored Angel jabbed him with his elbow, muttering:

"You laughed at me, you miserable Rinky Dink. I'll fix you for that."

He disappeared swiftly. Before Dink could frame a reply he was surrounded by an admiring chorus. The Tennessee Shad and Macnooder shook hands with ceremony.

"You'll do," said the Tennessee Shad.

"You certainly will!" said Doc Macnooder.

"You've made a hit with Lucius Cassius," said the Tennessee Shad.

Dink shook his head; he knew better.

"You must always recite--always," said Doc Macnooder, from his great knowledge of the nature of masters. "Whether you're prepared or not--recite."

"I will," said Dink.

"And say, Dink," said Macnooder, "keep that outfit we sold you. There'll be more hayseeds in the fall."

Dink had thought of that; he had thought of something else, too, which he craftily hid in his own memory.

"Next fall I'll show them a thing or two," he said gleefully. "I'll make souvenir crockery sets the rage."

The Coffee-colored Angel and the petty annoyances of the Green House forgot, he went with a hitch and a kick, loping along, while his delicately-balanced imagination, now soaring above the gloomy descents of the morning, swam joyfully in the realms of future triumphs.

In this abstracted mood he passed Foundation's gloomy portals and Laloo standing in his door gazing down the road, and took the leafy path that led to the Green.

All at once he heard a battle cry and, turning, beheld the Coffee-colored Angel and the White Mountain Canary spring from their concealment and bear down upon him with unmistakable intent. Now, whether in a former existence Dink had been parent to the fox, or whether the purely human instinct was quicker than the reason, before he knew what he had done he had bounded forward and burst for home in full flight, with his heart pumping at his ribs. Easily distancing his pursuers, he arrived at the Green House before it dawned upon him that he had been challenged and run away.

He stopped abruptly with clenched fists, breathing deep.

"Now let them come," he said, turning.

But the Coffee-colored Angel and the White Mountain Canary, having abandoned the hopeless chase, had gone another way.

Angry and ashamed, Dink went to his room, vowing terrific vengeance. He planted himself before the mirror and, doubling up either arm, felt the well-hardened muscles.

"There were two of them, and I didn't have time to think," he said. "I'll fight 'em--any of 'em."

Reassured by the scowling ferocity of his reflected countenance, he turned away. But, passing near the window, he saw the Coffee-colored Angel and the White Mountain Canary come militantly up the stone walk. A moment later their steps sounded on the stairs. He went hastily to the door and shot the key. An instant later the door was tried, and then the contemptuous face of the Coffee-colored Angel loomed through the transom.

"I knew you were yellow the moment I looked at you," he said scornfully. "Pah!"

Dink did not answer. He was all in a whirl. His action in locking the door, so contrary to his heroic resolutions, left him in confusion.

"I wonder if I really am afraid," he said, sitting down-all in a heap. The look in the Coffee-colored Angel's eye had brought him an unpleasant creeping sensation in the region of the back.

And yet the Coffee-colored Angel, bone for bone and inch for inch, was just what he was--only he had fled from him, inadvertently, instinctively, it is true, yet feeling the running menace at his back.

"I'm a coward!" he said, staring at the opposite wall. "I must be a coward! If I weren't I would have opened that door."

Now, Dink had never fought a real fight. He had had a few rough-and-tumble skirmishes, but a fight where you stood up and looked a man in the whites of the eyes, a deliberate, planned-out fight, was outside his knowledge, in the mists of the unknown. And so his imagination--which later should be his strength--recoiled before that unknown as it had recoiled the moment he stepped from the stage to face his new judges; as it had recoiled in the hushed parlor before the closed door of the head master's den, and again at the thought of stepping into the batter's box and risking his head against the deadly shoots of Nick Carter, of the Cleve. He had never fought, therefore he was aghast at the fear of being afraid.

"Well, I won't run again," he said desperately. "I'll have it over with--he can only lick me."

But he did run again, and often, despite all his resolves, impelled always by the psychological precedent that he had run before.

The Coffee-colored Angel and the White Mountain Canary made a regular ceremony of it, raising a hue and cry at the sight of him and bursting into derisive laughter after short chases.

Dink was miserable and now thoroughly frightened. He slunk into the solitude of his own company, avoiding the disdainful looks of his House mates. He knew now he was a coward and should never be anything else. He did not blame Butsey, who scarcely spoke to him. All he thought of was, by roundabout ways, to put off the dreadful hour when either the Coffee-colored Angel or the White Mountain Canary should catch him and beat him to a quivering, senseless pulp.

Then the unexpected happened. One day, cutting across fields to avoid his persecutors, he was suddenly shut off by the White Mountain Canary, who rose from ambush, jeering horribly. Cut off from the Green, Dink returned post-haste up the village, when all at once the Coffee-colored Angel closed in on him. Only one way of escape was open to him, down an alley between two houses. With the Coffee-colored Angel at his heels he dashed ahead, turned the corner of the house and found himself caught in a blind area.

Whereupon he turned on the Coffee-colored Angel and slathered him, drove him hither and thither with terrific blows, knocked him head over heels, caught him by the throat and beat him against a wall, rolled him on the ground and rubbed him in the dust, tore his clothes, blacked his eyes and left him beaten and supinely, passively wallowing.

He walked out on his tiptoes, like a terrier, head erect, his chest out, fists still folded, tears in his eyes--tears of pride and relief. He had fought a fight, he had received terrific blows and minded them not. He had thrashed the Coffee-colored Angel: he could thrash or take a thrashing from any one. He had his first thrill, the thrill of conscious rage, comparable only to first love and first sorrow. He had licked the Coffee-colored Angel--he was not a coward!

At this highly-auspicious moment the unsuspecting White Mountain Canary perceived the despised object of his chase and, raising a shout, triumphantly bore down upon him. With a rush he cleared the intervening space and then, catching sight of the new Dink, stopped as though he had been jerked in by a rope.

* * * * *

A few moments later the group on the Green House steps were lazily working out a French translation, which Beekstein, the Secretary of the Department of Education, was reading to them, when suddenly, in the fields opposite, two figures appeared, zigzagging wildly.

"Here comes the Dink again," said Stuffy Brown. "They'll get him this time."

"Who's after him?" said Tough McCarty. "He's a disgrace to the House."

"It's the White Mountain Canary," said Susie Satterly.

"Hello!" said Cheyenne.

"What?"

"I'll be darned--no--yes--dinged if it isn't the Dink chasing the Canary!"

As they sprang up, amazed, Stover dove at the fleeing tormentor, caught him, and the two went down in a heap, thrashing to and fro.

"Well, I'll be jig-swiggered!" said Cheyenne.

"I'll eat my pants!"

"The Dink!"

At this moment the awful wreck of the Coffee-colored Angel limped up. A chorus broke out:

"The Coffee-colored Angel!"

"Shot to pieces!"

"Massacred!"

"Kicked by a horse!"

"What hit you?"

"Dink," said the Coffee-colored Angel, taking a tooth out of his muddy mouth. "I caught him."

Presently they saw Stover arise and loose the battered White Mountain Canary, who broke wildly for shelter.

"Well, anyhow," said the Coffee-colored Angel, "Dink's swallowed the Canary."

"What's he up to now?" said Cheyenne.

They watched him approach the fence, deliberately take off his coat, remove his collar and necktie, tighten his belt and methodically, slowly roll up his sleeves.

"Here he comes," said the Coffee-colored Angel, moving swiftly away. "Why, he's crying!"

Dink came up the path, choking with rage and the knowledge of his own tears, and in front of them all threw down his coat.

"You thought I was afraid, did you? You thought I was a coward!" he sobbed. "Well, I'll show you whether I'm afraid of you, any of you, you big bullies! You big stuff, you, come on!"

And suddenly advancing, he squared off and struck Tough McCarty a wild blow, crash on the nose.

IX

They adjourned to a sheltered spot back of the stump willows and chose a bare space of soft, green turf. At their sides the brook ran splashing over the cool stones.

"Who'll be Dink's second?" said Cheyenne Baxter, the referee.

There was an embarrassed pause.

"Go on, any of you," said Tough McCarty generously.

"I'll be," said the Coffee-colored Angel. "He licked me square."

He stepped over and held out his hand.

"I don't want you--I don't want your hand!" said Dink with a scream. "I don't want any second; I won't have any! I hate you--I hate the whole lot of you!"

Cheyenne Baxter consulted with Tough McCarty and came over.

"Say, Dink," he said kindly, "Tough doesn't want to fight you now; it isn't fair. He'll give you a fight any time you want--when you're fresh."

"I don't want to wait," cried Stover, blubbering despite himself. "I'll fight him now. I'll show him if I'm afraid, the big bully!"

"What rounds do you want?" said Cheyenne, seeing it was wisest not to interfere.

"I don't want any rounds," cried Dink wildly. "I want to get at him, the great, big mucker!"

Cheyenne went over to Tough, who stood apart, looking very uncomfortable.

"Better go on, Tough. Don't hurt the little varmint any more than you have to."

It was a strange fight. They stood around in silence, rather frightened at Stover's frenzy. Tough McCarty, overtopping his antagonist by four good inches, stood on the defensive, seeking only to ward off the storm of frantic blows that rained on him. For Dink cared not a whit what happened to him or how he exposed himself.

Blinded by rage, crying from sheer excess of emotion, shrieking out inarticulate denunciations, he flung himself on McCarty with the recklessness of a mad dervish, crying:

"You thought I was a coward,--darn you! You great, fat slob! You thought I was afraid of a licking, did you? I'll show you. Lick me now if you can, you big brute! Lick me every day! I'm not afraid of you!"

"Confound the lunatic!" said Tough McCarty, receiving a solid thump in the ribs. "I can't stand here, getting pummeled all day. Got to hit him--ouch!"

Dink, in his frantic rush, throwing himself under his enemy's guard, almost bore him to the ground by the shock of his onslaught. McCarty, angrily brushing the blood from his already outraged nose with the cuff of his sleeve, shook himself like an angry bear and, catching Stover with a straight-arm blow, sent him rolling on the turf.

Back again and again came Stover, hurling himself wildly onto the scientific fists that sent him reeling back. The green arms of the trees, the gray faces of the onlookers, the blue of the tilting sky rushed into the reeling earth, confounded together. He no longer saw the being he was fighting, a white film slipped over everything and then all went out in blank unconsciousness.

When he opened his eyes again he was on his back, looking up through the willows at a puffy cloud that turned against the blue. At his side the brook went softly, singing in whispers the note that stirred the leaves.

Something wet fell on his face and trickled uncomfortably down his neck. Some one was applying a dripping cloth.

"Coming to?" said Cheyenne Baxter.

Then Dink remembered.

"Where is he?" he cried, trying to spring up. "Fight him,--fight him to the end!"

A strong hand pressed him down.

"There, there, you fire-eater!" said Cheyenne. "Go easy. You've had enough blood for one afternoon. Lie back. Shut your eyes."

He heard whispering and the sound of voices going, and lost consciousness again.

When he saw the face of the day once more he was alone with Cheyenne, who was kneeling by his side, smiling as he watched him.

"Better now?"

"I'm all right."

"Let me carry you."

"I can stand."

Cheyenne's good right arm caught him as he tottered and held him.

"I'm all right," said Dink gruffly.

Aided by Cheyenne, he went weakly back to the Green. At the steps Tough McCarty sprang up and advanced with outstretched hand, saying:

"Put her here, Dink; you're dead game!"

Stover put his hand behind his back.

"I don't want to shake hands," he said, flushing and gazing at Tough McCarty until the pupils of his eyes seemed to dwindle, "with you or any of you. I hate you all; you're a gang of muckers. I'll fight you now: I'll fight you to-morrow. You're too big for me now; but I'll lick you--I'll lick you next year--you, Tough McCarty--or the year after that; you see if I don't!"

Tough McCarty stood back, rightfully offended. Cheyenne led Dink up to his room and lectured him.

"Now, young bantam, listen to me. You've shown your colors and we respect you for it. But you can't fight your way into being liked--put that in your pipe and smoke it. You've got to keep a civil tongue in your head and quit thinking this place was built for your special benefit. Savez? You've got to win your way if you want to be one of us. Now, when you get your head clear, go down and apologize to Tough McCarty and the Angel, like a man."

The advice, which a day later would have been gratefully received, came inopportunely for Dink's overwrought nerves. He gave an angry answer--he did not want to be friends--he hated them all--he would never apologize--never.

When Butsey White came with friendly offers he cut him short.

"Don't _you_ come rubbering around now," he said scornfully. "You went back on me. You thought I was afraid. I'll do without your friendship now."

When a calmer view had come to him he regretted what he had done. He eliminated Tough McCarty--that was a feud of the instincts--but it certainly had been white of the Coffee-colored Angel to offer to be his second; Cheyenne was every inch a leader, and Butsey really had been justified. Unfortunately, his repentance came too late; the damage had been done. Only one thing could right him--an apology to the assembled House; but as the courage to apologize is the last virtue to be acquired--if it ever is acquired--Dink in his pride would rather have chopped off his hand than admit his error. They had misjudged him; they would have to come to him. The breach, once made, widened rapidly--due, principally, to Dink's own morbid pride. Some of the things he did were simply ridiculous and some were flagrantly impudent.

He was one against eight--but one who had learned his strength, who feared no longer the experiences he knew. He stood ready to back his acts of belligerency with his fists against any one--except, of course, Butsey White; for roommates do not fight unless they love one another.

He had always in him the spirit of the rebel. To be forbid a thing, with him, was to do it instantly. He refused all the service a Freshman should do. At table he took a malignant delight in demanding loudly second and third helps of the abhorrent prunes--long after he had come to feel the universal antagonism. He would not wake Butsey in the morning, fill his basin or arrange his shoes. He would run no errands. He refused to say sir or doff his hat to his superiors in the morning; and, being better supplied with money, he took particular pleasure in entering the House with boxes of jiggers or tins of potted meats and a bottle of rootbeer, with which he openly gorged himself at night, while Butsey squirmed over the unappetizing pages of the Gallic Wars.

Finally, the blow came. Cheyenne Baxter, as president of the House, appeared one evening and hurled on him the ban of excommunication--from that hour he was to be put in Coventry.

From that moment no one spoke to him or by the slightest look noticed his existence. Dink at first attempted to laugh at this exile.