Chapter IV: Preface (4)

"I forget how he had learned this, but I remember he was very sure of it. By great luck and much energy we both managed to get leave that same day, and go to Richmond together; but we were disappointed in our hopes of seeing Jim. We turned every stone we could, and tried our best with the authorities, but it was no use; we could not get into the prison. There had been several escapes at that time, and no visitor of any sort was allowed to enter. The provost in charge, however, who knew Clayton, told us we might send Jim a letter, subject, of course, to its examination by the authorities. So we wrote him that we were there, and asked if there was anything he wanted us to send him. We explained that we could not get in to see him, but that he must write us all the news he could.

"In a short time the guard who had taken our note came back and asked what relation to us 'that young feller' was. We told him no relation by blood, but something a little closer, perhaps. 'Well,' said he, 'I never saw a feller take on so when I give him your note. He begged me to let him talk to you, and he most cried. Then he begged worse kind just to let him look out of a window where he could see you. He asked which side of the house you was on, and I reckon if I'd ha' told him he'd ha' made a break for the window and risked my shootin' him. I was right sorry, but I couldn't do nothin' for him but get him some paper. He's writin' you a letter now, and says for you to be sure and wait for it.'

"There was no danger of our not waiting for it. Neither of us had heard a word from the old place or from any of our friends for three years. I suppose none of you boys has ever been separated from his college friends for a longer time than the long vacation?"

"I was away for a year after graduating," answered Dane Austin. "I was abroad with a classmate, and I remember the first long letter from one of our chums; all about the Springfield game, and what all 'the gang' were doing. We read that letter over every day for a month."

"Then you can imagine what it was to get news after three years, and three such years. We waited and waited for that letter, and at last it came out to us--a regular volume. I have it now. I don't believe Jim ever wrote so much in all his college work put together. We sat with our backs against a wall while I read it aloud.

"First it gave us all the news from Cambridge;--among other things, that we had won the boat-race on Lake Quinsigamond. Randolph said that almost made up for Gettysburg, and we had a little cheer all to ourselves. I remember a man came running up to hear what the news was and whether the Yankees had been licked anywhere. We told him not that we knew of, but Harvard had beaten Yale, and he went off damning us for making such a row about nothing. The letter went on to say that there would probably be no race that year, as most of the rowing men had gone off to the war. Almost all of our old set had gone into the army, it said. That jolly, good-for-nothing rattle, bad Bob Bowling, who was always on the ragged edge of expulsion, always in hot water with the Faculty, and who had been booked by every one for a very bad end, had disappointed them all and found a distinguished career in a cavalry regiment. But the hero of the class was little Digges, 'Nancy' Digges, the quiet, shy, little pale-faced student who looked as if he would blow away in a strong wind, and whom no one had thought was good for anything but grubbing for Greek roots. This man had been promoted several times for gallantry. At Gettysburg, when Longstreet's corps was right on top of his battery, when his supports had been driven in, his horses shot, and his gunners were falling around him, he had dragged his guns back by hand, one by one, and stopped to spike the last while one of our men was reaching for him with a bayonet. When I read this we both exclaimed: 'Well, I'll be hanged, Little Nancy!'"

"It was at Gettysburg also that Jim had seen Harry Rodes. The last time that Jim had seen him before that was just before leaving college, when Rodes had been elected president of the Hasty Pudding; this time he was lying in the grass, where it was red. There was like news of several other old chums.

"'As for your humble servant,' Jim wrote, 'he has only succeeded in getting himself ignominiously jugged by your Johnnies.' I heard, long afterwards, how he had been captured, pinned under his dead horse, with a broken sabre, and three of our men to his score. 'This is not so much fun,' he went on, 'as that night in the Newton jail, which perhaps you may remember, Tom. You got me into that, you riotous companion and perverter of my youth.' I remembered that scrape of our Sophomore year very well, but I had a strong impression that it was Jim who upset the officer of the law. He told us he could stand Libby, however, well enough, if he only had a little smoke, and asked if we could not give aid and comfort to the invader in the shape of tobacco. At this Randolph exclaimed: 'Jim Standish without his pipe! That is a real case of suffering among the prisoners!' The letter wound up with an injunction to answer it at once and tell all about ourselves and the other boys on our side, and with the hope that we should all be at the next triennial dinner.

"As soon as we had read the letter we went off and spent all our savings in tobacco. That was the only cheap thing in Richmond in those days, and we got enough to last Jim for months, though I have no doubt that he at once gave most of it away. Then we got some paper, and wrote him all we knew of the Harvard men on our side of the fence. We could give an equally good account of them, too; for though, as disobedient children, Alma Mater has frowned on us, she never had cause to blush. We finished the letter before it was time for us to go back to camp, and sent it with the tobacco to Jim. We promised to try again to see him, but neither of us could get leave for a long time. If we had there would have been little chance of our getting into Libby; and if we had gotten into Libby, we should not have found Jim there."

As the speaker paused Stoughton asked, "Why? did he es----" and then stopped, inwardly cursing himself, as he noticed a look that was coming into the face of the narrator. But the latter at once relieved him immensely by continuing.

"Yes, he escaped--very soon after our visit. A lot of prisoners got out together, Jim among them. The news was sent to all the troops near Richmond and instructions to keep a sharp lookout for them. Jim managed to get to our very outer lines, and one pitch-dark night tried to run the picket. The officer in command saw him in the brush and challenged him. Jim, trusting to the darkness and his old hundred-yard records, tried to make a dash for it. The officer fired and shot--shot him down like a dog."

The speaker's cigar had apparently gone out, and no one looked at him while he relit it. They looked at the walls where the firelight danced over the rollicking play-bills of thirty years ago. In a moment the graduate spoke again:

"As I leaned over the dearest friend I ever had, we recognized each other and he smiled. I took his head in my lap and he died holding my hand."

"Then you saw him before he died? Were you with the picket?" asked Gray.

"Yes.--I commanded the picket."

LITTLE HELPING HANDS.

It was all the result of a violent discussion in Stoughton's room. Hudson held that four miles an hour was an easy walking gait; Stoughton and Gray said it wasn't.

"I tell you," said the latter, "when you are doing better than three and a half, you are hitting it up pretty well, and you couldn't keep it up for any length of time. Don't you remember, Dick, we timed ourselves when we walked out from Boston the other night? It took us fifty minutes from the corner of Charles and Cambridge Streets, and that is just about three miles."

"Yes, and we went at a pretty good pace too," added Stoughton.

"That was probably after a supper at Billy Parks'," Hudson explained; "under those circumstances you undoubtedly covered a great many more miles than the crow flies between here and Boston."

"No, witty youth, it wasn't anything of the kind. We don't follow in your footsteps," retorted Dick to this innuendo. "No, sir, you couldn't walk four miles an hour all day to save your neck."

"I'm betting I could," Hudson replied, "I have done it often out shooting."

"I dare say you thought so; have you ever tried it over a measured stretch?"

"No, but I can guess at about what rate I am walking, and four miles an hour is a good easy swing. I'll bet you a V that I can do twenty-four miles in six hours."

"I'll take that," answered Stoughton, promptly.

"So will I, if you offer the same," said Gray.

"Yes, I'll bet with you, too," said Hudson.

Just at that moment Ned Burleigh came in, going through the form of giving the door a thump as he opened it, and telling himself to come in.

"What are you abandoned sports betting about now?" he asked, as he covered the whole front of the fireplace as usual.

"Steve thinks he can walk twenty-four miles in six hours," answered Stoughton, "and we each have five dollars worth of opinion that he can't. What do you think about it?"

"I don't know; he is a pretty fast young man. Is it to be on a cinder track, or over an ordinary road? That would make a great difference."

"Have you any fond hope," asked Hudson, "that I am going to make a Roman holiday of myself on Holmes' Field for the edification of you children and the whole University? I am quite aware that that is just what you would like; you would be out there with a brass band. No, my friend, I ask for no advantages. I am quite willing to take my chances over any ordinary country road, and in ordinary clothes."

"Extraordinary English knickerbockers, you mean," corrected Ned.

"You can take the road from here to Framingham," suggested Stoughton. "That is a perfectly straight one and you can't miss it. It is a little short of twenty-four miles, but we will allow you the slight difference."

"Yes, I know that road," said Hudson. "I drove over it when I was at school at Southborough. Strike the Worcester turnpike, don't you, after crossing the river at Watertown, and then keep on through Newton, Wellesley, Natick, and all those places? All right, I'll take that road."

Ned Burleigh reflected a moment. "I think," he admitted, with a shake of his head, "that it can certainly be done by any man with strength and sand; but Steve Hudson can't do it."

"I'll tell you what, old fatty-cakes," declared Hudson, indignantly, "I'll bet _you ten_ dollars on the event."

"No, I won't go you ten, because I don't believe in betting so much on a certainty. Besides, you are hard up now, and you would undoubtedly borrow from me the money with which to pay me your bet. I can't afford to have you do that, sweet me child, but I will contribute a five like the others, towards this purse."

It was arranged that Hudson should choose his day, and give notice of it to the others in the morning. Then the tones of the ancient bell, tolled by the ancient Jones, came from the ancient belfry of Harvard Hall, and Hudson and Gray went over to a recitation in University Hall.

When they had gone Burleigh delivered himself of a great whoop of ecstasy. "He can do it easily, I know," he said. "We shall lose our money, but, Great Caesar, it will be worth the admission. We must get all the others to bet with him, too, so that he won't back out. Let's go and get ready for it at once."

"What do you mean?" queried Stoughton, "what are you going to do?"

"Can't you guess, Mack, you Eyetalian? Come on, I'll tell you," and they went out over the Square towards a printer's.

Three or four days after this Hudson appeared at breakfast in his walking breeches and big Scotch stockings and announced he was going to start. He would leave Harvard Square at half-past ten o'clock and arrive at the town hall in Framingham at half-past four on that afternoon.

Stoughton and Gray said that they might be at the finish to receive him, if they found nothing better to do, otherwise he could time himself at the finish. Both of these men had ten o'clock lectures, so they could not see him start. Holworthy and Randolph had promised to make up a four for a morning pull on the river. Rattleton, of course, had not yet come to breakfast. Burleigh also had a ten o'clock that he felt he really ought not to cut (it did not strike Steve at the time that this was no reason to Ned for not cutting); so he regretted exceedingly that he would have to let Steve start off uncheered and time himself. He would endeavor to be at the finish, however, to carry Hudson home.

Promptly at half-past ten Steve left Harvard Square, with a swinging stride, and struck up Garden Street by the Washington elm and thence to Brattle Street. He was in fine form and spirits and had chosen his day well. It was one of our glorious, manful November days that have had much to do, I firmly believe, with the progress of this nation; days when a man can do anything; when the sparkling, drinkable Northwester floods your lungs, and swells your chest into a balloon that seems to lift you clear of the ground. On such a day the twenty-four miles ahead of him seemed nothing to Hudson, and he sprang along overflowing with spirits.

The historic University town, with all its associations, seemed to him more beautiful and interesting than ever. Washington, he thought, might have taken command of an army under the old tree four or five times a day in such weather. No wonder Longfellow could keep the Muse at his fireside in that fascinating Craigie house. As he neared the end of Brattle Street, he went by peaceful Elmwood, where a poet, ambassador, scholar, and patriot was then ending his days; and buoyant, youthful Steve was struck by that perfect waiting-place for the great gentleman whose work was done. He wondered whether any of _his_ friends would ever stir and honor the nation, and whether the great man had been anything like them when he was a fool undergrad. The traditions of the Hasty Pudding said that he had been a good deal like other boys.

Hudson reached Watertown well ahead of time. To his annoyance he saw that the street through which he had to pass was crowded, principally with small boys. "Something or other must have happened," he thought. "A dog-fight, or a runaway, or a man carried into a drug store. If the attraction is still on, I am all right; if not, I shall have to run the gauntlet."

He soon discovered that the latter apprehension was the true one, and that he was in for just that species of entertainment. A great cheer went up as he approached, and a body of embryo leading citizens ran forward to meet him. They closed in all around and escorted him along the main street between two lines of shouting people.

"Hey, mister, give us some!" "Go on, you'll do it; good boy, Wingsey." "When're yer goin' to fork 'em out?" "Rats, dat ain't him, dat fancy guy is one o' de Ha'vards, sure." "Will yer look at de jay?" "Get on to de legs!" "What's he got 'em wrapped up in, shawls?" "Naw, carpets." "Say, mister, yer pants is got caught inside yer socks." "I guess them is English, yer know." "Ain't yer going to give us no gum?" "A--ah, let 'm alone, he ain't nothin' but one o' them stoodent jays. He ain't no winged wonder, a--ah!"

The above was what Steve enjoyed in his progress through Watertown. He finally shook off his pursuers on the edge of the village, and breathed freely again, as he "crossed the river and mounted the steep." The beauty of the Charles begins at this point, and he sat down for a minute to look at it and rest. On his left was the first dam, the end of navigation for the college craft; on his right the river wound away from its high banks to the brown meadows beyond. While he sat there a four-oared crew shot under the bridge and rested on their oars in the quiet pool at his feet, just in front of the falls. He knew the man who was steering and called to him. "Hullo, Hudson," came the recognition, "what are you doing up here?"

"Off on a tramp. Glorious day for exercise, isn't it?"

"Yes, you have no idea how I enjoy this rowing," answered the coxswain.

"Have you seen Holworthy and Randolph up around this part of the river?"

"No, they were coming in this boat, but backed out because they had something else on hand, I believe."

"Oh, did they? Well, good-by, I have got to hurry along. I am walking against time."

Steve strode on through Newton, and Newton Centre, and Newton Lower Falls, and all the other Newtons, and to his horror he found in each town the same gathering, and went through the same ovation that he had received in Watertown. Had he gone to work and picked out a public holiday? No, he was sure it was not that, and the fact that it was Saturday, and the schools had therefore turned their swarms loose on the suffering country, would not account for all of the crowd in every village. Perhaps there was an extra election going on in that county. What puzzled him most, however, was that all the urchins seemed to expect something of him besides mere amusement, and a pitiable example of dress.

He passed close by Joe Lee's at Auburndale; several children ran across the lawn of the famous hostel, and after "sizing him up," went back with expressions of disappointment. The worst trial of all, however, was the battery at Wellesley. He had to go by the Female College, or Ladies' Seminary, and there was a large group of the students of that institution, by the roadside. Steve had never before been afflicted with bashfulness, and did not acknowledge that he was troubled in that way now, but he felt peculiarly alone, and would have given much for another man or just a few less girls. By the terms of his bet he could not run any of the distance; but a giggle almost made him throw up the stakes and break the pace. By a great effort, however, he brazened it out, and even smiled cheerfully. He made a penitent inward resolution never to lean out of the window again when a girl went through the Yard.

When more than half way, he stopped to speak with a farmer leaning over the fence by the road. The uncrossed Yankee of the rural districts still clings to a prejudice of his fathers, a prejudice, long since dropped in our more progressive communities, that a man has a right to wear what he chooses and do what he chooses provided he neither shocks nor interferes with any one else. This old farmer looked at Steve with wonder and interest, but did not think it necessary, as had the good citizens of the factory towns, to heap scorn and derision on "de dood." He bowed to the wayfarer, as he would to any well-behaved stranger.

"Good afternoon," said Hudson, grateful for this drop of human kindness. "Can you tell me, sir, how far it is to Framingham?"

"Wa-al, abaout nigh on to ten mile or more, they call it. There's a train goes pretty soon; ye won't find it so fur in the cars."

"Oh, I'm going to walk it," explained Steve, with a smile.

"Thet's a powerful long walk, young man. How fur ye come already?"

"From Cambridge."

"Gosh! Well your legs is young and pretty long, but ye must want suthin to do' pretty bad. Be ye broke or anythin'? Want any victuals?"

"No, thanks, I am walking for fun, trying to do it on time, you see."

"Mebbe you're advertisin' suthin'? Oh, I want to know! Be you the winged wonder o' Westchester, or some sech place I hear tell on jest now?"

A light began to glimmer in Hudson's mind. He had been asked several times if he was the "winged wonder," but had paid no attention to the question, supposing that it was merely a form of the great public wit. Now it was asked him in perfect good faith, and the name of his own home was added to the alliteration. He began to connect his persecution with Holworthy and Randolph's failure to row.

"No," he answered his friendly interrogator, "not intentionally, but I am beginning now to suspect that I _am_ occupying some such position. I am much obliged to you for your information. I must move along now."

"Good day, sir; guess ye'll want a heap o' corn-plasters when ye git to Framin'am."

"Not with these stockings," laughed Hudson, glad of an opportunity to justify his clothes, "they're thick and soft, great things to walk in."

"They be, eh? Well, I kinder thought they wasn't just for looks. I don't want none to-day, though, good day."

"Good-by," and Steve went on, feeling sure that the old man still suspected him at least of peddling footgear.

Just before the end of his tramp he sat down for a rest on an inviting fence rail. He had plenty of time to spare, but the grassy bank might have kept him too long and made him stiff. Oh, how pleasant that three-cornered rail did feel! A piece of paper blew across the road and whirled up in his face. It was a hand-bill of some sort; he remembered now having seen several of them along the way, but had picked up none. He caught this one and turned it over. This was what he read:

HE IS COMING!

WAIT FOR HIM! WATCH FOR HIM!

THE WINGED WONDER OF WESTCHESTER!

PEERLESS PEDESTRIAN PRODIGY!

He is matched to walk twenty-four miles to-day for an enormous
purse. He holds world records for pedestrianism. He will wear
one of our custom-made London suitings, unexcelled for natty
outdoor wear and stylish appearance. They are all the rage in
England, and therefore sure to be popular here.

He will also distribute, gratis, tops and marbles to the boys
and chewing-gum to the ladies. Watch for him, everybody; he
will be here soon, and will follow this road.

COME OUT, GIRLS! COME OUT, BOYS!

NOW IS YOUR CHANCE.

WAIT, WATCH FOR THE WINGED WONDER OF WESTCHESTER!

The glimmer dawned to a great light. He jumped down and hurried along the remaining mile or two as fast as his weary legs would go. There was no crowd awaiting him on the out-skirts of Framingham, and for a few minutes he hoped that he was going to at least finish in peace. Vain hope! As he approached the public square he saw it crowded with people and heard the strains of a brass band. On turning the corner he was received with a great shout. Then he saw a sight that explained it all, and caused him to exclaim, "The three-year-old idiots!"

In front of the town-hall was drawn up a barge with four plumed horses. In it were a band of music and a full delegation of Steve's devoted friends. Ned Burleigh was up on the box haranguing the populace.

"What sort of a fool circus are you children trying to make of yourselves," asked Hudson, as he came up.

"A grand one, old man, and you have been the elephant, the shining star of the whole show," replied Burleigh. "You will find beer in the ambulance."

"You have won the money handsomely, Steve," acknowledged Stoughton, "and we all accept with pleasure your kind invitation to dinner."

A RAMBLING DISCUSSION AND AN ADVENTURE, PERHAPS UNCONNECTED.

Dick Stoughton came to lunch that day in a decidedly bad humor, cause unknown. He was late, and all the other members of the club table were there, including the two dogs. A "Gray baiting" was going on. This sport consisted in working up the poetic feelings of Ernest Gray, and then ruthlessly harrowing the same. Gray was a fiery, imaginative little man, whose soul compassed far more than his body. His impulsive nature drove him constantly into the net spread by his friends, but he had become used to the process, and perhaps it did him good. Whether or not he had in him the stuff for a true poet, he was at least in no danger among those men of becoming a false one. He was just then stirred to a fine condition on the subject of Philistinism, was violently supporting the famous professor of the Humanities, and had almost got to the point of quoting poetry.

"It makes me laugh a low, sad laugh," remarked Stoughton, gloomily buttering a muffin, "when I think what Gray will be doing thirty years from now."

"We have arranged all that," said Burleigh. "Ernest is going to marry a strong-minded woman four times as big as himself, who will take him out shopping and make him carry the bundles and the twins."

"No, it will be a greater change than that," continued Dick. "At fifty he will probably be a keen, representative business man. He will be celebrated for being better able than any one in Wall Street to cheat his neighbor, and he will be absorbed in the occupation. He will be a man of strength and stamen, a man of industry, a plain, hard-working man. He will publish Letters of a Parent, in bad English, about the degeneracy of education at Harvard, and will refuse to send his sons here for fear of their becoming dudes and loafers. He won't spoil good paper then with odes and fantasies; he will devote it, instead, to watering stock and foreclosing mortgages. Just see if he doesn't."

"Are you narrow enough to think," asked Gray, defiantly, "that a man cannot work in this world, and work hard, without shutting his mind to everything outside of his tool shop?"

"Perhaps he can," answered Stoughton, "but he never does in this country; he hasn't time. Whatever we take up, we have got to keep at fever heat or else go to the wall. It will be work, work, work until we become utterly uninteresting machines. It can't be helped, we have got to make up our minds to it some day and we had better do so now. We are all wasting four valuable years in this anomalous spot of Cambridge, when we ought to be learning bookkeeping. We are a nation of one-sided workers, and we might just as well accept the situation philosophically. I am sure I for one don't care a cent. Only I wish I had not fooled away my time so long, with a set of men made up of dilettantes and bummers."

Dick emphasized the concluding word by handsomely scooping the last sausage just ahead of Jack Randolph, who with a bow and wave of his hand gracefully acknowledged the defeat. It was a strict rule of etiquette at the club table to take the odd trick of any dish, whether you wanted it or not.

"Hello," exclaimed Burleigh, with a happy light in his face, "Dick has waked up to the seriousness of life again. That is the third time this month." Stoughton's occasional pessimism was as fair game to his friends, as Gray's poetry, so the victim for that day's lunch was promptly changed.

"So he has," added Hudson. "He has a good, old-fashioned attack of remorse. Where were you last night, Dick? Must have been an awful spree."

"Is it a letter from your governor?" queried Rattleton, sympathetically.

"Perhaps it is the letter on your forensic," suggested Randolph. "Jack Rat got an E. on his, but just see how sweetly _he_ takes it."

"A little serious reflection is undoubtedly a good thing for you, my son," observed Hollis Holworthy. "But though I don't want to flatter you, excuse my saying that you talk like an ass. Even if your premises were true your conclusion is false. If we Americans are all such narrow-minded money-makers, that is all the more reason for trying to be something better. But it isn't so. I don't believe work has necessarily any such effect. Gray is right."

"My conclusion is all right. The difference between us is that I am perfectly contented to be as the rest of my countrymen are; you want to be something different, _ergo_, you are a snob. Furthermore my premises _are_ true, and you will find them so, my poor children. I am a few years in advance of you, that's all. Just see how men change after they leave college. Go over to the Law School and look at those grinds, each one working night and day to get ahead of the rest. I met old Dane Austin the other day crossing the Yard, three huge books under each arm, and a pair of spectacles across his nose. He used to be the best built man in the 'Varsity boat, but he doesn't touch an oar now, and won't try for the crew, unless they absolutely need him at the last minute. He is getting red-eyed and pale, and looks almost hollow-chested. A man can't keep up with the law and pay any attention to his physique. He is losing all his strength and good looks."

"You had better hit him once and find out," suggested Holworthy.

"Thanks; I don't care to put my theories to quite such a test," acknowledged Dick, with a grin. "But it is true just the same. It is true of every other occupation. Go down to New York and stand on Wall Street. You will see a dozen men you knew, at least by sight, in college, men who used to be well-dressed and well-bred. Down there they rush by you with a nod, in all sorts of costumes,--dirty, slovenly, nervous. Sometimes they will stop for a moment to shake hands, and make some impertinent remark on your clothes. I don't mind the prospect myself, but I am only laying it fairly before you blissful, careless, conceited youths."

"I rather think you will find that those fellows haven't forgotten how to turn themselves out properly when there is any need for it," said Holworthy. "You don't wear your town togs to recitations here."

"There is no doubt about it, this work and worry does spoil a man's looks," said Burleigh. "Just look at that poor wreck over there," pointing to Rattleton.

That student had finished his lunch (or breakfast) and stretched his legs as usual in the next chair. He was engaged in throwing crackers for his dog Blathers to catch, and was rather out of the conversation. He caught the last remark only.

"You have no idea what a handsome man I'd be if I didn't work so hard," he replied.

"It is all right for you, Jack," Stoughton went on. "A watchful Providence has sent you an income. It is almost a pity, though, for you would make a fascinating tramp. No amount of either starvation or public opinion would ever make you change your calm, philosophical life. But the rest of us must all get into the procession and keep up with the brazen band. No wonder so many of our girls marry Englishmen. They are dead right, too; they don't want to marry worn-out machines, they prefer men."

"Hurray!" shouted Hudson. "The secret is out. Some Englishman has cut him out with his best girl."

"I am not handicapped with any such nonsense, thank Heaven," growled Dick. "But if I was, by Jove, I wouldn't be fool enough to do any work for her sake, as so many misguided men do. No, sir, I'd take life easily and keep my figure, as our trans-Atlantic cousins do. I'd spend my days with the daughter and live on the old man. That is what girls like, and they do have some sense."

"That is perfect rot," exclaimed the poetic Gray, expressing his roused sentiment with more force than grace. "Life to-day is just what it was in the days of chivalry. A true knight must prove his love with his lance, and win his wife like a man."

"There you go, of course," answered Stoughton; "clap your leg over Pegasus, and off across country, regardless of hedges and ditches, or the narrow roads of commerce. Suppose his lance got busted, as was frequently the case?"

"Sic 'im, sic 'im," chuckled Burleigh. "We have got the poet and the cynic by the ears. Oh, this is lovely!"

"Both of 'em amateurs," added Holworthy, "and neither knowing what he is talking about."

"Two to one on the poet, though," said Randolph. "He is always in earnest, anyway."

"Shake hands, gents," said Rattleton, getting interested. "Time."

"Now just listen to me," said Dick, tilting back his chair and waving his fork pedantically. "I'll give you a really accurate picture of your dear days of chivalry, such as you never got out of a romance."

"Silence for Sir Walter Stoughton's account of a tourney," commanded Burleigh. "Steve Hudson, pull that pup of yours off the table; she'll upset the milk pitcher."

"I have just been reading all about that sort of game," interrupted Rattleton. "Seems to me they were a most unsporting lot. They had no classes or handicaps; just lumped 'em all in together, feather-weights and heavy-weights. No idea of a fair thing."

"Shut up your childish prattle, Jack," commanded Burleigh. "If you will push your researches far enough you will find that the little fellows always won. The giants invariably got the heads smote off 'em. We are not on the brutal subject of prize-fighting, we are on chivalry. You know nothing about that, so keep quiet and let Dick go on."

"I suppose you have an idea," Stoughton went on, "that every interesting young gentleman who entered the lists was a sure winner, and then all he had to do was to crown the heroine as Queen of Love and Beauty and live happily ever afterwards. Now of course that wasn't so. Some one had to get thrashed, and most young knights probably occupied that position for the first ten years or so of their career. Take an individual case; Sir Ernest Gray, bent on winning glory for Dulcinea, looks over the sporting calendar and enters himself for every big field-meeting during the season. He bears himself right bravely in them all, but gets stood on his head with great regularity; in fact Dulcinea gets a little tired of watching his performance. Nevertheless she goes to the crack meeting of Ashby de la Zouche, to see Gray try again.

"This tourney is carried off with great ease by an old hand, Sir Thomas de Mainfort, who, having been separated from his third wife on the ground of brutal treatment, is not doing any love-proving with his lance. He is simply a mug hunter; he is in for the white Barbary steed, and the other fellows' armor."

"Gate money?" broke in Rattleton interrogatively.

"Same principle," answered Dick. "He wins the appointment of the Queen of Love and Beauty, and takes d---- good care to choose the king's elderly daughter; thereby putting in good work for a government office. Of course, none of the fair damsels in the ladies' gallery are in the slightest degree interested in _him_, that goes without saying; but do you suppose that they are a bit more interested in the poor youngsters whom he has been knocking about? Not much. The fellow who takes their eyes is a chap in a white satin doublet, cut in the latest French fashion, who has sent flowers to Dulcinea, and is hanging over the rail of the ladies' gallery, talking to her. He is a delightful young man. He can sing the songs of the Troubadours that he has heard in Provence. He knows all the latest gossip about that delicious row between the Pope and the German Emperor. He spends the proper season in each Continental court. He is so different from the homely, insular youths who are pummelling each other down below in the lists. They never can think or talk anything but fight. He says funny things about those youths, and criticizes their armor. Altogether he is charming. Handsome and well preserved, too. Splendid figure, and could undoubtedly fight well if he had to; but he doesn't have to, and isn't fool enough to do it. No bruises on him.

"After the fight is over young Sir Ernest comes along, in a sheepish sort of a way, to see what Dulcinea thinks of his day's work. Sir Ernest was a pretty good-looking boy when he started on the career of arms. Now, however, he is showing marks of wear. The saddle has made him bow-legged, the helmet has worn off much of his hair, and the gauntlet has raised corns on his knuckles. Some of his front teeth have been knocked out. Besides the wear and tear in his personal appearance, his mind runs largely on parries and thrusts, relative advantages of chain-mail and Milan plate, and all that sort of shop talk. He can not sing the new Romance songs, he knows only the old ones that his nurse taught him. Dulcinea used to like him very much, and is still fond of him in a way. If he had accomplished the marvel of winning the whole tournament, of unhorsing the old veteran De Mainfort; if he had won the crown of Love and Beauty, and brought it to her, giving that hideous stuck-up old Princess the go-by, Dulcinea would have loved him fondly, and been ready to marry him then and there. But he has not brought her the crown of Love and Beauty; he has only brought a stove-in helmet and a black eye. True, he has been fighting his level best, but how much good has it done him? He has unhorsed two or three young men of his own weight; he has even put up a stiff set-to against big De Thumper, who won the Templar stakes; but Dulcinea did not see him then, she was talking to the interesting foreigner. Then he ran up against Sir Thomas de Mainfort, and got landed on his back; Dulcinea was looking right at him that time. He got up like a little man, without claiming his ten seconds, and went for the redoubtable Sir Thomas again. Thereupon the big fellow smashed him on the jaw, and put him to sleep, so that it took his squires half an hour to bring him round. Dulcinea took that in, too, and the amusing foreigner remarked on what conceit a youngster must have to go in for this sort of thing against men like De Mainfort. The highest renown that the young knight has so far won may possibly be a line next day in the Ashby _Herald_ and _Tournament Gazette_. It will run something like this: 'Where are we to look for the De Mainforts and Thumpers of the next generation? There is absolutely no new material worth mentioning. Young Gray gives a little glimmer of promise in some of his back-strokes, but his work is eminently crude and boyish. However, if he gets over his swelled head, he may in twenty or thirty years of hard work become a fair lance.' Do you think that helps his chances with Dulcinea? D---- that dog of yours, Hudson, she has stolen my muffin!"

"Are you all through?" demanded Gray, who had been restraining himself with difficulty.

"No; hold on. I haven't shown you half your trouble yet. At the banquet in the evening, Gray sits on one side of Dulcinea and the handsome stranger on the other. Gray is sore and tired and comes near falling asleep at the table, while the other fellow discusses the Italian painters, and tells anecdotes of the Dauphin of France. Gray used to be able to play the harp well, and can still play sometimes in the evenings, when his fingers are not too lame; but they generally are. He can also get into his satin doublet on Sundays and great occasions, and look almost as well as the other chap; but he does so _only_ on occasions, whereas the stranger keeps himself up to the mark all the time. Dulcinea cannot help thinking, therefore, that Gray is a boor and a bore, even though he sometimes shows capabilities other than those of getting his head smashed. On the other hand, Dulcinea's governor is a stout baron of the old school. He looks upon Gray as a dude and aper of foreign customs, for taking a bath after a hard day in the lists and leaving off his breastplate at dinner. The old man's chief boast is that with his own good sword he has carved out all his fat lands and broad baronies, and he asks, as he proudly thumps his chest, how he could ever have done all that if he had put on effeminate airs and fooled away ten minutes every week in a bath-tub. Now I ask you to drop your poetry for a minute, substitute reason for imagination, and confess that this is really what a young knight had to take. Dixi, let's hear what you have got to say."

"Just this," answered Gray, "that your Dulcinea is a fool. Any true woman would appreciate a man's best efforts, even if unsuccessful. I claim that such Dulcineas are the exception and not the rule. Point two. Your young knight is also a fool if he allows himself to become nothing but a mere bruiser and cut-throat. He ought not to forget that he is a gentleman as well as a fighting man. He can pay some attention to the graces of life and fight none the worse for it. You say he knows the old songs,--those are the best always--and he can pick up the new ones in spare moments. It makes no difference how he dresses, so long as he has a good excuse for dressing badly, and doesn't forget how to dress well. As for your point about his personal appearance, that doesn't amount to a row of pins. It certainly can't trouble him, and it wouldn't trouble Dulcinea if she had any sense. I don't believe any woman objects to honorable scars in a man."

"Every woman doesn't throw poetry around them as you do. Honorable scars received in commonplace everyday scrapping don't count."

"This has not been a fair fight," declared Holworthy. "I can see through this man Stoughton, now, and understand it all. He has prepared all this harangue, and is trying to pass it off here as impromptu. Now, I am going to give him away. I was with him the other evening at a dinner. There was a girl there who had been abroad for the first time. She had spent the last season in London, for the expenses of which her governor probably had to do double work at home. She had quite naturally, fallen completely in love with all those great big, splendid-looking chaps who float about London in long coats all day during the season. A handsome leisure class. Some of the biggest and best dressed of them, by-the-way, are quite apt to be her own humdrum countrymen on a vacation, but she hadn't found that out yet, and it has nothing to do with the present discussion, anyway. I heard her remark to Dick during dinner that Englishmen were so much better looking and more agreeable than American men. That is an undeniable fact, in daily life, but Dick was fool enough to get a little mad over the observation. He couldn't think of any brilliant repartee at the time, but came home and slept over it. Next time he meets that girl, or one like her, he will be loaded for bear, but he wants to rehearse a little, first, so he has brought his mediaeval metaphor here to try it on the dog. He knew that our hair-trigger poet, with a little joggling, would be morally certain to shoot off something about love and lances; that was just the opening he wanted. Keep it for your next dinner-party, Dick. It doesn't mean anything but it may make you feel clever and entertaining. I hold that Brother Gray has thrown you and your Dulcinea down hard."

"It is perfectly true to life, anyway," said Dick, with a conscious grin; "but you are wrong in accusing me of worrying about it. I don't mind the prospect in the least, as I said before, and am only warning you snobs who think you are something pretty nice. You can't carry your poetry out of college. Your 'graces of life' as you call 'em, either mental or physical, won't raise your salary in an office, and your hard work in the office won't help you to figure in a ballroom. If you get to the top before you are thirty, Dulcinea may smile on you; but you are not likely to do anything of the kind. You will probably spoil all your other chances with her in the attempt."

"Listen to our man of the world, you fellows," said Burleigh. "Jack Rattleton, stop playing with that ugly pup and improve your advantages. Uncle Richard, here, aged two and twenty, has upon half a dozen occasions made the exertion of going to a party in Boston, where he has talked foot-ball with some _debutante_ and been floored on Esoteric Buddhism by an elderly lady who had it. He has spent all the rest of his time smoking a villanous pipe in Cambridge. He is now giving us, from his wealth of experience, a few opinions and straight tips on the nature of woman."

"I don't pretend to know anything about 'em," protested Dick, stoutly, "and care less. But this I do know, that, among most men, success counts for more than endeavor, and I am willing to bet that it is four times as much so with women."

"And I know this," said Hudson, "that you, on your own confession, don't know what you are talking about, and are in a beastly humor. You need exercise; come on over to Fresh Pond and go skating."

"Yes, do take him off," sighed Rattleton; "when he and Hol and Gray get theorizing it gives everybody a headache. They'll go around to the Pud. and keep it up there if you don't take them skating."

Stoughton replied to this by kicking the hind legs of Rattleton's carefully balanced chair, and upsetting him on top of the dog Blathers. After which exchange of courtesies the party adjourned, arranging to meet and go to Fresh Pond at three.

Holworthy did not join the skating party; he had promised to go for a walk with his chum Rivers. Gray also had some engagement. As the others were starting out with their skates, they met the latter little gentleman arrayed in his best. He tried to pretend that he didn't see them. They promptly set up a cheer and began ostentatiously making snow-balls.

"Didn't you say something at lunch about men in New York who made impertinent remarks about your clothes," demanded Gray of Stoughton.

"This isn't New York," answered Stoughton. "When a man puts on all his feathers and paint on a week day in Cambridge, we know he is on the war-path."

"Dog his trail, dog his trail," yelled Hudson. "Let's see what wigwam it leads to."

"Doesn't he look pretty?" shouted Burleigh. "Only his coat doesn't fit in the back."

"Look at that smooch on his collar," exclaimed Randolph.

"I hope you children will grow up sometime," grumbled Gray, as he hurried on.

An hour or two afterwards Gray was walking into Boston in very good company. The new Harvard Bridge was not then built, and the two (yes, only one other) were passing through one of the more lonely streets of Cambridgeport that lead to the Cottage Farms bridge. A hard-looking citizen turned a corner ahead of them, and on catching sight of the pair stopped with some insulting remark. Gray's blood boiled into his face, but he had sense enough to cross to the other side of the street with his convoy. The man, evidently in liquor, promptly did the same, and showed that he meant to give trouble.

"Run back as fast as you can to Main Street," said Gray to his companion, upon which advice she wisely and quickly acted.

The rough started forward, and Gray placed himself in the middle of the path.

"Hold on," he commanded. "Don't come a step nearer."

"Get out of my way, you little dude, before I eat you up," answered the other.

The little dude naturally did not get out of the way. He dropped his stick and squared himself for the enemy. Then, contrary to the generally accepted pleasant idea, the burly ruffian proceeded to "eat up" the slender thoroughbred.

The light-weight met his adversary's rush handsomely, but utterly failed to stop it. The tough closed, "back-heeling," and at the same time landing his right with a door key in it, used as brass knuckles, thereby cutting Gray's face open. As the latter tripped and went down under the blow, the tough kicked him. Gray jumped to his feet again, however, and managed to fasten on the rough's back as he went by. They went down together, the rough on top with his knee on Gray's stomach. This knocked the wind out of the little fellow terribly, still he clung to his adversary. The latter struggled to free one of his hands, with the amiable purpose of choking, or of gouging the eye of the youth under him, when a shout made him look up. He managed to tear himself away, and sprang to his feet. Holworthy and his chum, Charles Rivers, who was No. 4 in the 'Varsity crew, were tearing down the street.

The second battle was quite as unequal as the first, for there was as much difference between the big college oarsman in the pink of condition, and the rum-soaked Port tough, as there had been between the latter and the plucky little stripling. It is only justice to the tough, however, to say that no idea of flight entered his mind; he was quite as ready to fight the big dude as the little one.

His hand went to his hip-pocket, but evidently the weapon was not there. Then he gathered himself and made a spring at the new-comer. As a result he ran his face into a big fist at the end of a long, straight, stiffened left-arm. At the other end of that arm were a hundred and ninety pounds of hard-trained muscle. As he staggered back from this concussion, he got the hundred and ninety pounds again, concentrated in a right hander on his fifth rib. That doubled him up, and then it was River's turn to rush. He knew enough not to close, for the brute, though practically knocked out, could still use his teeth if he got a chance. Holding him up by the throat with his left hand, with his right Rivers pounded the ruffian on the jaw, then threw him senseless on the ground.