Chapter III: Preface (3)

That evening at dinner Burleigh and Rattleton entertained the table with a glowing description of a new play they had seen on the previous night, at the Howard Athenaeum. They were most enthusiastic about it.

"I can't understand," declared Burleigh, "how such a piece and such a troupe happened to drop into the old Howard. Such scenery! Why, the stage setting was the best I ever saw. One act was laid in the pine woods; you could look way through them, apparently, live birds flew about among the branches, and they must have burned some sort of balsam in the wings, for you could actually smell the pines."

"That's a new smell for the Howard," remarked Hudson.

"Yes, and those two girls!" added Jack Rattleton. "By Jove, wasn't that blonde a beauty!"

"The brunette was better," averred Burleigh. "How she did sing! They have splendid songs all through the play."

"Never saw such acting," said Jack, "even--certainly never at the Howard."

"The hero was a magnificent young man," Burleigh went on. "You ought to see him throw down the villain in the last act. I'm going again as soon as I can."

"Why haven't we heard of it before?" queried Stoughton, suspiciously.

"It was a first night," explained Burleigh, promptly. "Jack and I were pioneers. You fellows ought to go see it. You'll hear enough of it before it is over; but go in now while it is fresh."

"I have nothing to do to-night," said Hudson. "I believe I'll go. Who is with me?"

Stoughton and Gray both agreed to join him. Holworthy and Randolph were going to drive over to a ball in Brookline.

"I'd give anything to go with you chaps," said Burleigh, "but I have got to work into the wee sma' hours on my forensic. It is due to-morrow morning, and I haven't done a thing on it."

"I'd like to see that show again, too," said Jack, "but I don't feel very well to-night. I'm going to turn in early."

The three theatre-goers started for town immediately after dinner. They stopped at one of the clubs first, and picked up three or four other men on the strength of Burleigh's eulogy of the play.

Whoever has been through Harvard College and never been to the Howard Athenaeum has neglected his advantages; fortunately such deplorable instances are rare. Who, that has improved his opportunities, does not remember the old stamping-ground, where the commingled perfumes of orange-peel, humanity, and peanuts would smell to high heaven, were they not stopped in a concentrated mass by the grimy roof. There things are real, things are earnest, unweakened by affectation and refinement. The villains are real bad villians, and carry knives, not cigarettes. They know how to gloat. The heroes have red undershirts and true nobility, and don't mind showing either. The heroines are not ashamed of sentimentality. Neither is the audience. There, too, is music that you can remember and whistle, that you can sing afterwards on the way back to Cambridge; not music that you must contemplate with rapt gaze on the ceiling. There you will find humor of the broad, plain, unmistakable variety, humor at which you can laugh for its own sake, not for the maker's wit or your own in detecting it. Nor, in that shrine of the Muses, does pleasure always end with the fall of the curtain. Frequently you may see two or three excellent fights on the way out, and perhaps be granted a share in one yourself. Oh, you get your money's worth at the classic Athenaeum, for it is all for fifty cents (thirty-five in the gallery).

"I have a suspicion," said Stoughton, on the way in town, "that those fellows were lying to us. I'll bet this show is something awful, they were probably bored to death, and conceived the happy thought of getting us sold in the same way."

"Never mind," said Hudson, philosophically; "we'll have a good time anyway."

Before the curtain had been up ten minutes, Dick's suspicion gained ground; it's truth was fully confirmed long before the end of the play. The scenery, the birds, and the pine balsam effects were wholly creatures of Burleigh's capable brain; as for Jack Rattleton's houris, Stoughton declared that "Noah was a fool to have saved them; he ought to have shut them out in the rain long enough to get a wash any way."

Even the Athenaeum audience was dissatisfied and inclined to jeer. Gray wanted to leave at the end of the first act.

"Hold on," insisted Hudson, "let's stay here and make this a success. There's lots of good sentiment all through it, just your style Gray. All it needs is a little enthusiasm in the house to warm up the actors. Let's lead the applause on the strong points."

So they stayed, and their efforts were attended with such success, that they might have had a free pass for future performances. Every time the hero said, "I am the just man and you are the villain," or the heroine declared she would never leave him while life lasted, or showed other symptoms of heroism, the knot of students would stamp, and applaud, and rouse the finer feelings of the whole house. The grateful actors certainly did warm up, and delivered with more and more vim their honest expressions of lofty sentiment and occasional touches of patriotism, the latter utterly uncalled for, but always welcome. The audience became worked up as well, but in the last act suddenly began to hiss.

"Hullo! what's up now?" asked Gray, who had not taken the Athenaeum course faithfully, and was not learned in it; "what are they hissing at?"

"Good gracious, man," answered Hudson, "don't you see? Don't display your ignorance. They are hissing the villain. It's the greatest compliment you can pay him. Go ahead, hiss like a good one."

On the whole, the performance was a grand success, and Hudson insisted that Gray had made an undoubted conquest of the second lady. After it was over some one mentioned "broiled lob. and musty," at Parks, but it was voted to return to Cambridge and make a rarebit there.

"We'll go pull out Ned Burleigh, and have it in his room," suggested Dick.

"No you don't!" exclaimed Hudson. "You forget I'm his chum. I'll have no Welsh rarebit made in that room unless we draw lots and I get stuck. The room would smell of cheese and stale beer for twenty-four hours."

"Let's land on Rattleton then. We'll teach him to lie."

Feeling in a luxurious mood they scorned the cars, and chartered a herdic, four men getting inside and three on the roof. For those readers who know not the herdic, I will explain that it is a sort of tiny omnibus in which four thin people can sit uncomfortably. It usually has two wheels and never more than one horse--sometimes not quite as much.

"I may as well tell you before we start," said Stoughton, who sat on the top, to the driver, "that we are not Freshmen, so don't break a spring on the bridge and tell us that it will cost you ten dollars to get it mended."

"I know you're old hands," answered Jehu, with a grin, "I know youse fellers. I remember your face pertickler. Mebbe you disrecollect comin' out with me one night from Parker's. Let's see, guess it was two years ago, after the Institoot dinner."

"All right, my friend, say no more," acknowledged Dick, as the other two men shouted. "The drink is on me. Here is the price of it."

The door at the back of the herdic is held shut with a strap that leads through the roof to the driver's seat. This was secured firmly, so as to keep the inside passengers safe, for it is an established courtesy for those inside to slip out when near the college, leaving the others to pay the driver and joining them later. By means of the strap, however, and the lack of a knife among the insiders, all arrived well together at the building where Rattleton roomed.

"I'll go to the Fly and get the cheese and beer," said Gray. "You get your chafing-dish, Dick."

Stoughton roomed in the same building with Rattleton, as did Hudson and Burleigh. While he went after his chafing-dish the others reconnoitered Rattleton's quarters. The door was locked and all was dark. The glass ventilator over the door, however, was unfastened, and large enough to admit a man. Jack Rattleton always left his ventilator unfastened, for he often depended on it for his own ingress. The reason of this was very simple,--the door had a spring bolt, and it was characteristic of Mr. Rattleton's nature to frequently leave his keys inside and shut the door when he went out. It was a very simple matter for Hudson to climb over the door through this ventilator, drop down, and open the door from the inside.

"Look out for Blathers," said one man. "If that pretty pup is in there he'll take a piece out of your leg."

"He knows my voice," answered Hudson, as he "shinned" over. He let the rest in and lit the gas. Rattleton was not in his bedroom.

"Humph," grunted Hudson. "Said he wasn't well and was going to turn in early. The abominable liar."

They poked up the fire and had it roaring when Stoughton returned, bearing the chafing-dish and a long pipe, his dear Mary Jane.

"That's a good idea," said Hudson, as his eye fell on the latter article. "You've brought that disgusting black pipe. We can stand it for a while, and it will permeate Jack's room and teach him the beauty of truth. Puff away on Mary; serve Jack right."

Rattleton's plates and other necessities were foraged out by the time Gray appeared with the cheese and beer. Not seeing Rattleton, he asked how the others had got in. Hudson explained. "This open ventilator habit of Jack's" he added, "is worse than rooming on the ground floor. Ned Burleigh and I had enough of that in Freshman year, before we moved up here. Our room was a regular darned club. Everybody would drop in there between lectures, chin when we wanted to study, and smoke our tobacco, just because it was too much trouble to go up-stairs. We couldn't leave our window open at night without having some fools crawl in, at any time after midnight, and raise the deuce."

"Yes, I remember. It was very pleasant," remarked Stoughton.

The creation of the rarebit was well under way with the usual accompaniment of advice and altercation over the ingredients, when shouts were heard from under the window, of "Jack, Jack Rat, Oh, Jack!"

Hudson threw up the window and saw Holworthy and Randolph below in a buggy. "Mr. Rattleton is not in, gentlemen," he said, "but come right up and make yourselves at home."

"All right; be with you in a moment, as soon as we have taken this trap round to Blake's."

"It is the two society fritterlings," announced Hudson, as he drew in his head. A few minutes later Randolph and Holworthy appeared in their big coats.

"Seems to me you're back from your ball pretty early," observed Gray.

"Hol didn't find the person there he wanted to see, so he soured on the whole thing and dragged me away early," Jack Randolph explained.

"What a whopper," said Holworthy, as he took off his ulster. "It was very stupid, and Jack himself suggested that we should be happier in Cambridge."

"Aha," cried Stoughton, who was stirring the "bunny" with a master hand. "Very nice. Two gentlemen in faultless evening attire. They'll do for the waiters. Here, quick, hand up your plates before this thing gets cold."

While they were eating the rarebit, a step was heard in the entry, accompanied by the trotting feet of a dog, and the locked door was tried. Then a familiar voice drawled "What the devil is going on in here?"

"Hullo, Jack," cried Stoughton, "come right in. Don't be bashful."

"Open the door, you arrant burglars," demanded Rattleton. "My keys are on my bureau, or somewhere inside."

"Climb over the transom as I did," Hudson called. "You'll have to turn your back to the company in the performance, but don't mind the awkwardness of the position."

"We'll excuse your back. We have your hair-brushes and the fire shovel already," added Randolph, cheerily.

"Don't be such babies," said Jack, (whenever any of the gang was at a disadvantage, he was apt to age suddenly) "come, let me in."

"Are you sorry you told a naughty fib to-night?" asked Hudson, with his hand on the knob.

"Yes."

"Will you set up the ingredients for a punch?"

"Yes."

"All right then, you may come in," said Hudson, graciously, opening the door.

"How was the play?" inquired Jack, pleasantly, as he went into his bedroom after the wash-basin, the regular understudy for a punch-bowl.

"Enjoyed it immensely, in spite of your wishes for our entertainment," Hudson declared. "We know now your ideal of talent and beauty."

"Don't blame me. That was all Burleigh's rot," protested Jack, apologetically, but with a chuckle. "Why don't you pull him out?"

"That is a good plan," assented Hudson. "Two of you come up and help me capture the elephant. He may resist." A committee of three went up to wait upon Burleigh.

"What is the sense of this meeting as to the temperature of the grog?" asked Rattleton.

"Hot!" promptly moved the two who had driven over from Brookline. The motion was carried, so Jack put the kettle on the fire.

"Speaking of the drama and brother Burleigh," said Holworthy, "do you remember the time, Dick, that we saw the old man suping in that spectacular play in Sophomore year?"

"I'm not likely to forget it," answered Dick. "You fellows remember that show called 'Albrachia,' or some such name, full of red fire and fairies? Hol. and I went in to see it one night, and whom should we discover as leading demon in the grand climax, but the stout Edward. We nearly stood up and cheered,--but we'll make him tell about it to-night."

"Hullo, here is the sylph now!" exclaimed some one, as the committee returned in triumph with Ned in tow.

"The perjured loafer told us he was going to work on his forensic," cried Hudson. "Look at this," pointing to Burleigh, whose generous proportions were swathed in gaudy pajamas.

"I hear you enjoyed the play exceedingly," remarked Burleigh, as he made for the fireplace, and spread his huge form all over the front of it.

"So we did, no thanks to you," answered Gray.

"Any men who are such Athenaeum Lotharios as to be decoyed in town by the mere mention of two pretty actresses, deserve to get sold," declared Ned, severely.

"Here, take your toddy and stop your mouth," said Stoughton. "As a penance for your lies, you can give us some reminiscences of your disreputable career on the stage."

After some demurring, Burleigh was persuaded to begin his yarn. The "tea" was made by this time, and enthroned on the student's desk in the centre of the room. With "tod and tobac." the party disposed itself about the room, every one with a view more to ease than grace. Blathers, as usual, chose his master's outstretched legs. Ned Burleigh, with a cigar, stood in front of the fire in his airy raiment, his feet apart, warming his exterior with the genial blaze, and his interior with the genial toddy. Would that we could have those evenings again!

THE HARVARD LEGION AT PHILIPPI.

"What do you want me to relate?" asked Burleigh. "The great battle of Philippi?"

"Yes, we would like to hear about that," answered Stoughton, "and also your experience with the Hosts of Darkness."

"That was a very short and painful affair," Ned explained. "I'll tell you that first. You must know, my children, that I was once a godless Sophomore even as other Sophs. You may scarcely believe it now, but I was. Among other follies, I took to 'suping' occasionally. Of course my intentions were purely noble; I wanted to elevate the stage. On one occasion this man Hudson, here, led me to the Boston Theatre, where an elaborate show was being given and 'supes' were in demand. You fellows must remember the play, it was called 'Alboraka, the Wizard.' They wanted only one man for that night, and as I was the handsomer, they chose me. I comforted Steve by promising to share with him the quarter that I expected to earn; I believe on the strength of my promise he bought a seat in the peanut gallery."

"Oh, no, I didn't," interrupted Hudson, "I had a seat right under a box where there was a theatre-party of Mrs. Mayflor Tremont's, with a lot of girls I knew. I was thundering glad I wasn't on the stage, and had more than half a mind to point you out to them."

"You wouldn't have troubled me at all," answered Ned. "That is where we unknown woolly Westerners get the drop on the Boston men, and you dudes who go in for Boston society. However, to go on with this confession, I was appointed leader of the Hosts of Darkness. I don't know why I was singled out for this distinction, unless it was on account of my superb figure."

"That was it," corroborated Stoughton. "You did look stunning in those red tights, even more fetching than you are now in those pajamas."

"The part was not a difficult one, but very important," Burleigh continued. "I had to look fierce, and bear aloft a huge red and gold affair. This was referred to once or twice as 'yon gonfalon of Diabolus,' so I suppose that's what it was. I only had to go on the stage twice. In the last scene, where the Wizard got thrown down, there was a high bridge at the back of the stage. It was steep on the sides, shaped a good deal like the Chinese bridge in a blue willow-ware plate; don't you remember? I had to hold this bridge for the Wizard at the head of my minions, and was doing it with dignity and grace. My instructions were to stay there until the Queen of the Fairies should point at me and say 'Avaunt, vile blood-fiends, to the shades below'; then to retire with signs of rage and terror, while the Hosts of Light came up the other side of the bridge. Now I was watching and listening to the Queen carefully, and I am sure she never pointed at me, or opened her head about 'avaunting.' I think myself that my fatal beauty in the red tights had made an impression on her, and she didn't want me to leave. She probably couldn't find it in her heart to call me a blood-fiend; at any rate there was some hitch, for the Hosts of Light began coming up the bridge ahead of time. Of course, I wasn't going to avaunt without orders, so I stood there waiting for my cue. The leading angel called me a most vile name, in an anxious undertone, and poked his spear violently in the pit of my stomach. He hurt me like the devil, so I promptly smashed him on the head with the Gonfalon of Diabolus, and bowled him down among the advancing Hosts of Light, to their utter confusion. The next minute something lit on the back of my neck, and that is all I know. I believe it was a sandbag hove from the wings, and that I was dragged out by the heels."

"You were, you were," Holworthy shouted at the recollection, "but it was done so quickly that half of the audience didn't see it."

"When I came to," Ned went on, "I was on my face behind the scenes, with four or five able-bodied Irishmen sitting on my back. The 'super' captain was going to turn me over to the cop; but I begged pardon all round, paid for the leading angel's broken head, and finally managed to smooth things over."

"They are pretty careful how they take amateur supes at any of the theatres now. Nothing like the battle of Philippi can ever occur again," said Rattleton, regretfully.

"Give us that, Ned," said Stoughton; "I guess some of these fellows have never heard an accurate account by one of the heroes."

"That was truly the grandest suping event in history," said Burleigh, refilling his glass, and returning to his position by the fire. "It was just after that new theatre was opened, way down there on Washington Street. It was a cheap shrine, but I tell you, now, Melpomene was right in it. The owners had no idea of making it a low-down variety hall, not much. They were going to give high-class performances and educate the masses. One of the first things they had there was a Shakespearean revival, run by a peripatetic star named Riley. The fellows used to go in and supe all the time. They rather liked to have Harvard men for two reasons: first, because it was cheap, and, in the second place, I think Riley's manager rather expected us to bring all our friends and relatives there to see us act, and give the place a boom.

"The first night of _Julius Caesar_ came on Jim de Laye's twenty-first birthday, and he was going to give a dinner, after which we intended to fill a box at the show and give Caesar a good send-off. I went in town to get the box, and at the office I heard the manager, or some official, complaining about lack of supes. I made inquiries, and it ended in my contracting to furnish him with ten good men and true for that evening at reasonable rates. He gave me as a bonus a few tickets for any of my family or 'lady friends.' It showed how green he was to take ten of 'de Ha'vards' at once. They never would have done that anywhere else in town.

"The other chaps all fell in with the arrangement, and we had the dinner at Parker's early. A man does not get to be twenty-one years old every day in the year, so we took pains to see that Jim did it properly.

"That lazy goat on the sofa there (pointing to Rattleton) had not been seen in Cambridge that afternoon, and knew nothing about the suping arrangement. Of course, he was late to dinner, as usual, and of course, as usual, he turned up with that d----d dog of his. After dinner, when we adjourned to the theatre, we wanted him to leave Blathers behind at Parker's, but he insisted on taking the pup along, wrapped in his overcoat. He assured us that Blathers would keep perfectly quiet, and no one would ever know he was there. We might have known better, but I suppose we were in a yielding mood. De Laye and two or three others brought bottles of fizz in their overcoats. They said it was always well to propitiate the natives, and thought such provisions might be popular with the Thespians. Jim swore he'd make noble Romans of every man of 'em. We got there early, and Blathers was tied up and hidden away under Jack's coat in a corner of the dressing-room. In the performance we all did our parts like little men. Rome was proud of her citizens that day. As for our mob-work, that showed positive genius."

"How Marc Antony's speech over the body did go!" chuckled Rattleton from the sofa.

"The stage-manager was delighted and complimented us, and so did Riley himself. Jack Rat had made friends with Riley very early in the game. He had invited him out to lunch in Cambridge, and had hinted at getting him to coach the Pudding show. Moreover, Jack and I had steered several large parties in to Riley's performances, and Riley knew it. It was a lucky thing for us, as it turned out, that he and Jack had got so chummy.

"All went well until the battle scene. They had put us all on the same side; in fact, we constituted the entire army of Brutus--that was another evidence of greenness in the management. The battle had been raging mildly for some time. We had marched and counter-marched, and had been reviewed and exhorted two or three times, without even getting a glimpse of the enemy. At last it came to the scene where Brutus' aggregation gets driven across the stage by Antony's offering a desperate resistance. Cassius had been killed, young Cato was going to be captured, and everything was going to the bow-wows. While we were standing in the wings along with Antony's army, waiting to go on, Jim de Laye said, 'Hang it, let's put a little real good acting into this thing; these stage scraps are too woodeny.' Of course I did my best to restrain this idea among my companions, but it became popular at once in spite of anything I could say. I must confess I always had rather a desire myself to see that oily-mouthed peep of a Marc Antony well thrashed. The next minute we had to go across the back of the stage, hotly contesting every inch of the way with our trusty wooden brands, two up and two down. About half way over, that crazy Jim de Laye opened the ball by smiting his man hip and thigh and other parts, in the most life-like manner. The other supe hit back in just anger, and there was an instant rally of the Brutus forces. My man was a little fellow, and I did him up in time to see an entirely new feature introduced in the scene. Marc Antony himself suddenly appeared, hard pressed by a togaed citizen. The way he got there was this--correct me, Jack, if I make any mistake in this part of the history. Blathers, as I told you, had been left curled up under a coat in the dressing-room. Some of the employees had found him there, however, untied him, and started in to play with him. Mr. Blathers, finding himself in strange company, slipped away from them and went looking for his master. Just as the battle scene began, he arrived at the wings, where Marc Antony was waiting to go on. Antonius was in very bad humor about something. He asked in fluent Latin, 'What the ---- that dog was doing there?' and made a kick at Blathers. I guess Blathers was in much the same mood, for he turned around and effected a prompt connection with the calf of Marc Antony's leg. He was a disappointed dog; he got his mouth full of horsehair. Antony wasn't touched, and let Blathers have it with the other foot.

"Now, Jack had not been assigned to the army, and was off duty in that scene. He was standing in the wings in Roman citizen's clothes, trying to flirt with the vestal virgins.

"Hold on," interrupted Jack, "you told me to correct any mistake. That's one."

"Well, perhaps they were not. You know more about that than I do," admitted Ned. "Any way, he turned around just in time to see his faithful hound doing somersaults from Marc Antony's toe. I'll do Jack the justice to say that he is generally slow to wrath--he is too lazy--but when that ugly pup of his is concerned, he loses his head.

"He not only lost his head that time, but tried to knock off Marc Antony's too. Marc went, staggering out into the field of battle, and Jack, the fool, followed him up. As I said, the battle had opened in earnest all along the line when this happened, and the house was already on it's feet. It was a good, warm house. It was mainly from Sou' Boston, and had taken about thirty-five seconds to get on to the magnificent realism of the scene. It went wild with delight at this addition to the affair. Blathers rallied and flew out on the stage to the support of Jack's charge. This time he tore all the padding off Marc's legs, amid the enthusiastic plaudits of the audience.

"The stage-manager yelled for the policeman, and went tearing about after him. 'Colonel' Dixey, of Kentucky, who was also off duty in this scene, had enticed the cop into a distant corner, along with the departed Caesar and a bottle of fizz. J. Caesar was a tragedian who would have been dear to the heart of a _Puck_ artist. He was a thirsty soul with a radiant nose and a beery eye. Shortly after his death he had attached himself to Colonel Dixey and his overcoat, and the Colonel had warmly requited his affection. In fact, Dixey devoted two whole bottles to the good work, and at the end of the fourth act Caesar had had some difficulty in doing his own ghost. He was free after that, and during this last act, he and the Colonel had let in the blue-coat, and retired into a secluded nook among the scenery. The Colonel had filled Caesar up to the brim, and had got the law pretty well zigged, too, when the manager brought the news of battle. All three rushed to the front, the cop, of course, getting there last. The conflict was at its height, when dead Caesar appeared, boiling drunk, and took sides with inspiring shouts against his own avengers. Dixey pitched in too, and these reinforcements turned the tide at once. Brutus was victorious at all points. We rushed Marc Antony and his gang clear off the field, and destroyed the flying remnants behind the wings. The audience fairly howled and encored wildly.

"The cop was utterly useless, he grabbed the small man that I had floored in the beginning of the row, clubbed him a little, and hung on to him like grim death. The manager was crazy, and told him to send for a hurry-up wagon, and run us all in. We showed the law great respect, though, after the shindy was over; called him sergeant and offered to support him in maintaining the peace. He didn't know exactly who was responsible, so he contented himself with shaking the little man some more, and declaring that he could 'attend to this business alone, and didn't want no help, see?' Marc Antony wanted the blood of Jack and Blathers, but Riley, the star, who played Brutus, was inclined to think that Antony was to blame for the whole thing. You see Antony had got more applause than Brutus all through. His great speech had had a particular success, probably due to our able presentation of the populace. Riley sat on Marc first, and then they both went for Caesar, who was maudlin in the corner. He had got a helmet on, wrong side before, and was begging us with tears in his eyes to go 'once more into the breach, dear friends, or close the wall with our English dead.' When Brutus cursed him he drew himself up and hiccoughed, 'Et tu, Brute,--hic--well--hic you seen me at Philippi anyhow.'

"Riley went back on the stage and made a little speech, and the audience cheered him to the echo. Then the play went on, Brutus died like a man, and all the principals, including J. Caesar and Blathers, were called before the curtain. Jack made it up with Marc Antony, and after the show we consoled the vanquished army with what was left of the champagne. Most of the supes were Irish, anyway, and had enjoyed the pleasantry."

IN THE EARLY SIXTIES.

It was ten o'clock and time for John Stuart Mill to give place to Mary Jane, so Stoughton threw the former into an arm-chair and took the latter from the mantel-piece. He filled and lighted her affectionately, and the content of the evening pipe came upon him. Then he bethought him of beer and pleasant converse, and strolled around to the Pudding in pursuit thereof.

There he found the usual ten o'clock "resting convention" in session beneath its blue cloud of nicotine. The "earnest resters," as Burleigh termed them, were stretched about in various attitudes, more of laziness than repose. They were just then engaged in the popular pastime of blackguarding the last number of the _Lampoon_ for the benefit of Hudson, one of the editors.

"Hullo, Dick," remarked that gentleman, glad to change the subject as Stoughton entered, "we knew you were coming; smelt Mary Jane as soon as you turned the corner."

"Did you, really," replied Stoughton, making room for himself on the sofa by removing Rattleton's legs to a neighboring chair, and spilling the dog Blathers on the floor. "What was that chum of yours doing in the building last night? Were you also engaged in the unseemly disturbance?"

"No," answered Hudson, "I had nothing to do with it. I decline all responsibility for Edward Burleigh. I am not my room-mate's keeper."

"I heard him carolling on the stairs at an hour when singing should be left to the little birds. He hammered on my door for a while, but I knew enough not to get up. I wonder he didn't raise the proctor. He shouted, through my key-hole, something about the war being over."

"Yes," said Hudson, "that was what he told me when he woke me up by sitting on my chest. He was going to carry the good news all through the Yard, but I persuaded him to go to bed and wait until morning."

"Where had he been?"

"Well, you see, Jack Randolph carried him off yesterday evening to a meeting of the Southern Club, as an invited guest, to span the bloody chasm with him. They spanned it a good many times there, I guess, and then as it was a beautiful moonlight night and perfect sleighing, they decided that the bloody chasm ought to be spanned in Brookline and other neighboring towns. So they got a cutter, and must have conducted spanning operations on a wide scale all over the country, for they didn't get back until dawn. George Smith, the policeman, says he saw them sitting on the steps of Harvard Hall, singing 'John Brown's Body' and 'Dixie,' and hymns of peace while the sun rose."

"I deny the aspersion on the Southern Club," exclaimed 'Colonel' Dixey, from the other end of the long sofa. "I was present at the meeting, and we had nothing to induce sunrise hymns. I don't know what Jack and Ned did afterwards, but they didn't get it at the Southern Club."

This somewhat veiled assertion raised an incredulous chorus: "Oh, Dixey, may you be forgiven." "Come, come, Colonel, do you mean to persuade us that an organization containing at least three members from Kentucky is run on a cold-water basis?" "Where is the glory of your old commonwealth?" "Bet the meeting was full of rum--rum and rebellion! Don't deny it, Colonel." "Drink and treason!"

"Neither, sir, neither," replied Dixey to this chaff. "I grieve to hear such narrow-minded accusations. Prexy was there and made a speech.--Oh, Holworthy! You know that man we saw yesterday in the Transept of Memorial? He was at the Southern Club with Prexy."

"Oh, yes," said Holworthy, "who was he?"

"A grad. from Georgia. I have forgotten his name."

"I thought he was a grad., and not a stranger, for he didn't have a guide book, and didn't ask us to show him the "_campus_." Had he been a soldier?"

"Didn't say. If so, he was probably a Confed."

"Well, he looked like an interesting old cock anyway," said Holworthy to the others. "He was standing before one of the tablets with his hat off. Somehow, when we saw him, our own hats felt so uncomfortable that we took them off, too, as we passed through."

"Holly made up all sorts of poetry about him," added Dixey.

"No, I didn't; but I do think he did the right thing in uncovering."

"Of course he did," said Ernest Gray, emphatically. "No man ought to keep his hat on in that transept."

"Oh, now you've done it, Hol," groaned Stoughton. "You have started the 'Only Serious.'"

"We get too careless going back and forth in it every day," continued Gray. "We don't fully appreciate it, or we forget what it means."

"Forget what it means! Great Scott, Ernest, have you never heard a Class Day oration or poem? What would our inspired youths do without the poor, hard-worked old transept? How did they ever get inspired before it was built? Don't we have our hearts fired all up at least once a year on that subject?"

"Except those of us who may have been previously fired by the Dean," put in Rattleton, with a contemplative sigh over eminent possibilities.

"Well, it is a pity then that the Class Day conflagration doesn't last a little longer. I don't believe in keeping sentiment for special occasions. It would be better for all hands to preserve a little of it throughout the year, and in this place, of all others, I should think at least a little reverence for the past might be kept alive. But one might suppose that there was no such thing as reverence at Harvard nowadays."

"Hooray!" "Hear, hear!" "Go it, old man!" "Good for the Only Serious!" "Pegasus in a canter!"

"That's right," answered Gray warmly, to this burst of invidious encouragement. "Laugh at anything that is serious or the least approach to feeling; it is the fashion."

"Brought on by over-doses of gush," remarked Stoughton, knocking the ashes contemptuously out of Mary Jane.

"Of course, there is a lot of twaddle talked about such things," answered Gray, "and I acknowledge that exaggeration tends to cheapen patriotism, but the existence of a lot of tinsel in the world doesn't make gold less valuable, does it?"

"Quite true," assented Hudson, "and because Dick Stoughton smokes such a pipe as Mary Jane, there is no reason why we should all give up tobacco. That is a better simile than yours."

"Well, it is a good thing that Harvard men have not always been so afraid of appearing in earnest," growled Gray. "I don't believe there was so much brilliant wit wasted when men were leaving college every day to join their regiments. I wish I had been here then."

"So do I," drawled Rattleton; "what a bully excuse a fellow would have had for not getting his degree."

"What an excitement there must have been," went on Gray, without noticing the interruption. "Just think of being cheered out of the Yard when you left for the war, and then perhaps distinguishing yourself, and coming back to Class Day with your arm in a sling."

"Just think of coming back in a pine-box," added Hudson, graphically.

"Well, suppose you did? You have got to die some time, and your name would have been put on a tablet in memorial."

"Yes, but you wouldn't have been tickled by seeing it there," said the irritating Stoughton. "Half your patriotism is vanity, Ernest, you shallow theatrical poser."

"It would do you men good to read the _Memorial Biographies_," Gray continued, now thoroughly aroused, and paying no attention to the side remarks. "They ought to be part of the prescribed work for a degree."

"Yes, but as Hudson says, you couldn't do that if you were a biographee," reasoned Dane Austin, the law-school man, taking a hand in the baiting.

"It would be perfectly disgusting to hear you fellows talk this way," Gray declared, "if one didn't know that it was all affectation. I am not sure that that fact does not make it worse. You all really feel just as I do, but you are afraid to say so."

"Another appalling case of Harvard indifference," observed Stoughton.

"The modern dilettante has no noble desire for red war."

"He likes to make people believe that he has no noble desire for anything, and he has a morbid fear of being a hypocrite. As a matter of fact, you are all of you the worst kind of hypocrites, for you try to appear worse than you are."

"Oh, dear, no," Rattleton protested, lazily, "that would be too hard work for any of this crowd--except me."

"A war would be a good thing to stir you up. I almost wish the war times would come again," exclaimed Gray, hotly.

"Now you are getting right down to work," laughed Hudson. "What a rise we are getting out of our earnest young man to-night."

"You let your feelings get away with you, Gray," added Holworthy. "I don't believe it was all glory and enthusiasm in those days. You forget there was another side to it. For instance, Jack Randolph's governor was not cheered out of the Yard when _he_ left for the war."

"Yes, there _was_ another side to it," came a voice from the other end of the room, and a big arm-chair, that had been facing the fire with its back to the knot of men, was pushed around so as show its occupant. He was evidently one of that wide class known to the undergraduate as the "Old Grads." An old grad. attains his title as soon as he ceases to be a very young grad.; there is no transition degree. In this case he seemed about middle aged, perhaps fifty, with hair turning gray, and a rather deeply marked brown face. The latter was just then a little flushed, and had the expression often seen on a face that has just been looking a long time into a fire and a long way through it.

The lounging students started a little at this sudden interruption, and stirred as young men do on finding themselves suddenly in the presence of an older one. Rattleton took his long legs down from their supporting chair, Hudson pushed his hat back from his nose to its proper place, Dixey took his hands out of his pockets and sat up straight, while Dick Stoughton paused in the act of relighting Mary Jane, and when the match burnt his fingers forbore to swear. As the cause of the disturbance rose and came towards them they stood up. Hollis Holworthy showed signs of positive uneasiness. He turned bright red in the face, as he recognized the man whom he had just described as "an interesting old cock."

"I--I beg your pardon, sir," he began, "I had no idea----"

"That the old cock was present?" laughed the older man. "I assure you, my boy, that I was not in the least offended, and even had I cause for offence, I deserved it. Your remark was a retribution, a striking repetition of history. I remember once asking Holworthy of '61 who the bully old boy in the beaver hat was, and the bully old boy proved to be Holworthy '32. Thirty years are like a spy-glass--your views depend upon the end through which you look."

The thirty years melted at once beneath the laugh that followed this introduction, and, as the stranger took a chair among the group, the smoke went up again from Mary Jane and other pipes.

"Then you were in college with my father?" asked Holworthy. "You must have been here just in the time of which we were speaking."

"That is the reason why I took the liberty of joining so abruptly in your conversation," said the graduate. "I want to tell you young men a story. I have never told it before, and would not tell it to any other audience, but I know that it can be fully appreciated by you, and it belongs to your traditions. So I am going to give it to you, if you do not mind being bored for a while by an old grad."

"I don't think any of us will raise any serious objections," said Stoughton, as he paused.

The graduate smiled and then began: "As I said when I just now interrupted your discussion, there was another side to the glory of the war times in the old college. To the war itself there was, of course, another side, and I was on it. Up to the breaking of the storm we boys had not troubled ourselves much about the out-look. Most of us took politics lightly, and though burning then, still, among us at least, they were, as now I suppose, more the subject of good-natured chaff than of bitter feelings. However deeply the more thoughtful of us may have felt, they never allowed their convictions to interfere with their friendships. Of course, there were a few loud-mouthed zealots who made themselves disagreeable, but they were as much so to men of their own opinions as to those of the opposite.

"Hardly any one really expected war, or, if he did, ever said so. The historic shot fired on Sumter was, therefore, as much of a shock to our little community as to all of the North--even more, for a civil war meant more to us. To us, you know, fraternity is a reality.

"When the news came so that it could not be denied, it was not talked of between us Southerners and the rest. Next came the news that my State had gone out. That night my chum Jim Standish and I sat in our window-seat and smoked a long time without speaking. Finally the question came from him, 'Well, old man, are you going?' I said, 'Yes.' Then he put out his hand and I took it hard. When we had nearly finished our pipes Jim spoke again, 'When this is over, Tom,' he said, 'you will come back and get your degree with us.' I shook my head, I remember, and answered: 'It won't be over until long after our commencement--or else Harvard will be in a country foreign to me.'

"You see I remember that evening and the conversation very vividly. It was all we ever held on the subject. I knew what Jim's opinions were, and he knew mine well enough; but he was too much of a gentleman to make my position any harder for me than it was. I was going to do what I considered my duty,--let that pass now also; it was more than a quarter of a century ago.

"Very soon the letter came from home, but I did not need it to hurry me. Jim and I were together almost every minute until I went away, and all my other friends seemed to go out of their way to show me courtesy and affection.

"The night before I left was Strawberry Night at the Pudding, and I remember I had intended not to go to the rooms. They were then in the top of Stoughton. I was packing in my room when Jim and Harry Rodes and one or two others came in, as a committee, to insist on my going. The committee accomplished its purpose by the usual smooth-tongued diplomacy of the undergraduate. They told me not to make a damn fool of myself, and that if I did not come round like a man, the theatricals should not go on. So I went, and tried to forget on my last night in the Yard that there was any world outside of it. That is the play-bill of those theatricals hanging over there on the wall now. What a time we had that night!

"I went home next day, with Clayton Randolph, Jack Randolph's father, as the rising generation always puts it. There was not much difficulty in getting South at that time. I enlisted soon after I arrived, and, as a result, was rather busy for four years.

"Of course, for a long time I heard nothing from Cambridge. You boys know how almost the whole graduating class went to the front, and many an underclassman did not wait for his Commencement. You can read the degrees won by some of them in Memorial Hall. Every now and then I saw in that precious booty, a Northern newspaper, a name that I had last heard called in a recitation, or had myself many a time shouted across the Yard.

"The stray Northern papers were not my source of news in all cases. There was one name that for a time was in the mouths of all our men, and I had to risk their scorn and suspicion in defending it. They would hardly believe that the man who could lead a black regiment, and die in the front of his niggers in that terrible charge on Fort Wagner, was not a hardened ruffian, a desperate mercenary, but a fair-haired boy of five-and-twenty, and the most sunny, lovable gentleman that ever left the ballroom for the battle-field.

"I saw myself the fall of a man of different mould, but of the same metal. We were holding a strong position and had repulsed two heavy charges, when we saw the enemy forming for a third. This time they came closer than in either of the previous attempts, and it looked for a minute as if they would reach us. But our fire was frightful, aided by several batteries that were pouring in grape and canister at short range. The regiment immediately in front of us came on well; but no body of men could stand it, and at last it wavered and then broke. Through the smoke I could see a mounted officer tearing about and trying desperately to rally the men, striking with the flat of his sword, and evidently beside himself with anger. Then, as he found it was no use and his men left him, he turned, rode all alone straight at us, and was shot through and through. I have seen too much of what is ordinarily called courage to be attracted to a man solely by that commonest of virtues; but this man's splendid scorn of surviving his failure, his fury at what he considered disgrace, and his deliberate self-sacrifice, lifted his act above the common run of bravery. That man had breeding, and I wanted to have a look at him. After the fight was over, I went to where he lay dead with his horse. It was Boredon of '61. I had hated that man. He had been one of those disagreeable cranks of whom I have spoken, a man absorbed with one idea and allowing that idea to color all his feelings, and spoil his manners. He had been to me as a red rag to a bull. But when I recognized him there, I would have given a great deal to have been able to tell him how proud I was of him. Evidently he had at least the hard part of a gentleman. I went back to my brother officers, and, with a good deal of boyish swagger I am afraid, said to them, 'That fellow was at Harvard with me. That is the sort of fools they make there.'

"Well, the war went on until we were hemmed in around Richmond in '64. It was at that time that I ran across Clayton Randolph, whom I had not seen since we left Cambridge together. I came near not recognizing him in the circumstances in which I found him. A battery of artillery had got stuck in the mud, but as I came up to it the last gun was being dragged out. An officer seemed to be doing most of the work, shoving on the wheels and encouraging his tired men. Shortly afterwards we were again halted next to the same battery, and there was the same officer sitting on a stump. His old uniform was covered with mud and axle-grease; his beard was four days' old; but he was Clayton Randolph, Randolph the dandy, Randolph, the model of neatness, whose perfect clothes had always been an object of chaff among us; Randolph, whose heaviest labor had been to polish his hat, and deepest thought to plan a dinner. He was sharing his piece of stale cornbread with a hungry little darky. You may imagine that we were rather glad to see each other. Clayton, however, had no more Cambridge news to give me than I had to give him, which was rather a disappointment. His battery was stationed near my regiment that winter, so we managed to see a good deal of each other in camp.

"One day, as I was sitting in front of my tent, I saw Clayton come galloping into the company street as though carrying urgent despatches. On seeing me he began shouting and waving his cap, as if there was danger that I might not see him and hear what he had to say. He was evidently beside himself about something,--and so was I, when he pulled up and yelled: 'What do you think? Jim Standish is in Libby prison!'