_Mrs. H._ Will you come with us, Mr. Burleigh?
_Burl._ I will follow you in later. I will go down with you to the carriage.
_Hud._ Well, come along.
_Rand._ [_over the screen_]. That is a low trick. [_Reaches for Burl.
with handle of umbrella three times; at third attempt screen falls over and Rand. flat on top of it--in short ballet dress and pink tights. His moustache, rubber boots, and decidedly masculine arms and legs make an excellent effect with the garb of a premiere danseuse. Ladies shriek._]
_Mrs. and_} _Miss H._ } Mr. Randolph!
_Steve._ Jack!
_Rand._ [_nervously spreading umbrella in front of his legs_]. I--I _beg_ your pardon. Please excuse my--my _deshabille_. [_To Hud., savagely_] I told you I was going to the dress rehearsal. [_Kicks Burleigh aside_] I"ll get even with you, Ned.
_Mrs. H._ Well, Steve, this has been an exciting visit. Does a college room often furnish such incidents?
_Hud._ Well, it"s all the fault of----
_Hud._ } _Burl._ } My awful chum!
A HARVARD-YALE EPISODE.
"I"m off for New Haven to-morrow," Rattleton announced as he dropped into Holworthy"s room, where several of the "gang" were sitting. "Going to sojourn two days in the Land of Eli."
"You are, eh?" said Burleigh. "Well, you"ll have a rattling good time down there."
"A "_smooth_" time, you mean," corrected Rattleton. "Don"t you know how to talk Elic yet?"
"I beg pardon," said Burleigh. "When you get back I suppose you will refer to the Porc as your "spot," and if any of us who are not members asks you anything about it you will cut him dead."
"Don"t make any breaks down there about queer pins and extraordinary buildings," said Stoughton.
"They _are_ funny about those things, aren"t they?" replied Rattleton.
"But I have no doubt they can laugh just as much at us about lots of things."
"Of course they can," a.s.serted Holworthy. "_Vide_ the d.i.c.key. That inst.i.tution is quite as absurd as anything they do down there."
"Nonsense, Hol," protested Stoughton; "whoever thinks up here of taking the d.i.c.key seriously,--except, perhaps, a few Soph.o.m.ores who are fools and sn.o.bs enough to be either c.o.c.ky about getting on it or sore about being left off. And as for awe and reverence, if there is any such feeling at all towards the d.i.c.key, it is confined to less than a tenth of the Freshman cla.s.s. What Senior ever cares two snaps about it one way or the other?"
"That may be known well enough to us," answered Holworthy, "but what does an outsider think when he sees Harvard men making such a.s.ses of themselves, as those do who are running for the d.i.c.key. Don"t you suppose it looks pretty childish."
"For instance," asked Hudson, "if he saw a handsome and accomplished gentleman holding a horse and dog-cart--as I did for you--while a low-down mucker goes in to call on the handsome gentleman"s best girl--as you did for me?"
"That was good for you," laughed Holworthy.
"Or if he saw as I did," added Burleigh, "a dignified swell, named Hollis Holworthy, kissing all the babies he met on the street."
"Or a large and portly person," rejoined Hollis, "lying on his back in the public square at Concord, and telling sympathetic citizens that he was pierced by a British musket-ball. And then running in the dead of night from Concord to Lexington, dressed in a continental uniform, banging on the door of every farm-house with the b.u.t.t of a musket until he brought out the alarmed householder and told him that the regulars were coming."
"Who made me do it?" retorted Burleigh.
"I acknowledge I had a hand in it," answered Holworthy. "I am confessing, not defending. _De gustibus Soph.o.m.oris non est disputandum._ But that is no excuse. At Yale they don"t disgrace their college that way at any rate."
"They may have a lot of poppyc.o.c.k about their mysterious societies that seems ridiculous to us," said Rattleton, "but they don"t trouble anybody else with it. Any way, they are good fellows, and they always give you a royal time when you visit down there."
"Yes, they do, my child," Burleigh a.s.sented in a serious tone. "Remember that you represent the dignity of the "Oldest and Greatest." Take care that they do not make a painful exhibition of our boy."
"Ned knows," chuckled Hudson. "No one has ever been able to find out exactly what happened to him when he stayed down there after the ball-game last year. He came back, looking like the last hours of an ill-spent life, with a confused story about some Yale beverage named "Velvet" and a wonderful loving cup with no bottom, and a great many handles."
"Hush your idle scandal," said Burleigh. "Who are you going to stay with, Jack?"
"A first-rate fellow named Sheffield," answered Rattleton.
"What!" exclaimed Hudson, "Joe Sheffield?"
"Yes, do you know him?"
"Wow!" yelled Stoughton. "Does Steve know him! Mr. Hudson, do you know Mr. Sheffield?"
"Shut up, d.i.c.k," said Hudson; "you promised not to tell that."
"I never promised anything of the kind," declared d.i.c.k. "I had almost forgotten it, but I am glad I am reminded. All your friends ought to know about it, Steve. I am sure they would be pleased."
"Hold on!" said Hudson, "if that yarn is going to be told, I prefer to tell it myself. There is no sting in a clean breast."
"Go ahead then," said Stoughton. "I"ll see that you tell it straight.
Tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."
"It was down at Bar Harbor, last summer," Hudson began. "I was spending two weeks with this man, Stoughton, who lives there in summer. Next to his place there was, er--there was--er----"
"A girl," interjected d.i.c.k, putting in the spur.
"Yes, there was, and an awfully pretty one, too," declared Hudson, defiantly. "If you will kindly refrain from interrupting, I can do this thing myself. What I was going to say was this: alongside of d.i.c.k"s place, there was another place, and a most attractive one. There was a beautiful view from the piazza of this house----"
"_On_ the piazza," corrected Stoughton.
"Who is telling this story?" demanded Hudson. "Shut up and let me tell it my own way. I used to go over to look at this view every day," he continued; "so did this Yale man, Joe Sheffield. I used to know Joe at St. Mark"s, and liked him very well, but it was rather a nuisance to see him at that house so much. Really he overdid it; why, I used to find him every time I went there. Finally I made up my mind that the duel was on, and I"d see who was the better man. Of course this was purely in a sporting spirit, you understand; I only felt it my duty to beat Yale, that was all."
"Careful, careful," murmured d.i.c.k, warningly. "Remember,--the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."
"At first I tried sitting him out by fair means," Hudson went on, paying no attention to Stoughton"s side remark; "but the persistent bore outsat me every time. He"d let me set the pace and do all the talking, and then come in with a fresh wind on the finish and do me up. But early in the struggle a powerful ally presented himself, the girl"s small brother, Freddy. He asked me one day why Sheffield wore that funny little pin all the time. I have forgotten now which pin it was; but it was the symbol of some particularly "smooth" and secret band of brothers, and of course Sheffield was never without it. I had been yearning to jab him on his pin; but I knew I couldn"t pretend to be innocent about it, and it would have been a little too rude to deliberately and openly make him uncomfortable. I told Freddy that I thought the pin had something to do with a club at Yale, but I had no idea why Mr. Sheffield always wore it.
I suggested that he might ask Mr. Sheffield himself. It was a mean trick, but I couldn"t resist it. Freddy said he would, and I knew he was just the boy to do it too. Freddy was of an inquiring and tenacious turn of mind, and never dropped a research on any subject until he had found out all there was to be learned,--he was a very fine little fellow.
"A little while after that, we three were sitting as usual on the piazza, when my young ally came running up; as soon as he saw us he sang out in his delightful, eager, childish way, "Oh, Mr. Sheffield, I want you to tell me something." Sheffield, pleasant as punch, said, "What is it Freddy?" You ought to have seen him when Freddy said, "I want to know why you always wear that funny little pin?"