Nolan shook his head. "You"re stuck on your ability to size people up, but I don"t believe Young"s that sort of a fool."
"No, and he doesn"t, either. That"s just the trouble. It"s coming on him unconsciously. You see he"s heard his table-mates talk so much about things he used to abhor that he"s got accustomed to them, and he"s ceased to abhor them. But he doesn"t stop there; they seldom do, you know. You can tell by his walk that his way of looking at things has changed."
"But, Jim, Young"s not such a kid."
"He wouldn"t be, but, you see, he"s had too much success in too many ways--it has dazzled and rattled the young man from the country. Success has turned his head. He"s flattered at being taken up by these prominent young sporty Freshmen, and he doesn"t know how to let well enough alone."
"You mean----"
"I mean that he wants to get clear "in it." He doesn"t want to be considered a big, green giant. He wants to make himself like the rest of the--Invincibles, I think they call themselves. That is the way to be a college man, he thinks."
"Well," said Nolan, "can you account for the way people in general, not only here in college, but in the big, outside world--people that ought to know better, people you"d never expect it of--can you account for their making fools of "emselves to stand in with the crowd? a.s.ses!"
Then these two moralizers changed the subject to baseball. Both thought of taking an early opportunity of giving the big Freshman a friendly tip, for they knew him well enough by this time. And both went off and forgot; and if it recurred to them, they put it off till they "felt more like it."
What had Deacon Young actually done? Oh, nothing at all, or next to nothing. Billy Drew one morning at breakfast was telling about his experience of the night before, and then stopped suddenly when Young entered the room.
"Go on, I want to hear the rest of it," said the Deacon, smiling broadly. "I heard the first part while I was taking off my coat in the hall. Go on." So Drew went on in the grinning, boastful way of a certain sort of Freshman, with his account of how he fell upstairs, and how he tried to catch the bed as it whirled around.
Some of them began to chuckle. Lucky Lee looked at Young; so did one or two of the others. Young knew they were looking at him. Here was his chance to show them he was not so stiff and sober and green as they imagined. He leaned back in his chair and laughed heartily. Then Lucky Lee and the rest of the table laughed heartily.
And after that no one took pains to keep things away from the Deacon again. That seems a very little thing, but, as Linton said, he was not very likely to stop there.
CHAPTER XI
THE TROUBLE WITH BEING A HERO
The winter, with its jolly long evenings about cosey fire-places, was over, and the Freshman-Soph.o.m.ore s...o...b..ll fight was almost forgotten.
The University baseball candidates had left the "Cage" and were practising outdoors on the diamond. The glorious spring term had come, and the Seniors had begun twilight singing on the steps of Old North.
The elms were putting on their new leaves; the undergraduates their new flannel trousers.
The Invincibles were on their way from the club, to stretch out under the old elms and hear the Seniors sing the old songs.
Powelton was saying: "I don"t see why you are so anxious to put him up for any office. To tell the truth, the old chump has been disgusting me lately."
"I"m not anxious," returned Todd, "but you see, he"ll take with the poling element."
"But will he, _now_? He isn"t such a gospel shark as we all thought at first."
"Of course, he"s no saint, but they don"t know anything about the Deacon, except his high stand and his serious-looking face, and the reputation he made with that C. C. business. Now, as we"re running you and Ashley for president and vice-president, I think it would be foxy to put up somebody like the old Deacon for the secretary-treasurership." It was drawing near the time for the election of cla.s.s officers for the next year, and Todd was somewhat of a politician.
"Maybe you"re right, but I don"t care to serve with him. He"s so uncouth."
Powelton need not have worried about that; he did not have to serve with Young. Powelton was not elected; Young was the only nominee of the Invincibles that was.
The club had gained a reputation, not altogether deserved, for sn.o.bbishness. They were also considered, rightly perhaps, the sportiest crowd in the cla.s.s; and either of these is dangerous, and the two together are fatal to a crowd"s chances when it comes to cla.s.s elections. Besides, the Invincibles had been running cla.s.s affairs long enough, and the cla.s.s thought it would be just as well to distribute authority and prominence.
The Invincibles had made the error of taking it for granted that they would continue to run the cla.s.s, and bitter was their chagrin when they found how very mistaken they were. They did not know how to take it; for several days n.o.body said very much at the table; they only looked glum and sour--except Deacon Young.
"Oh, cork up that tuneless whistle," growled Minerva Powelton; "you make too much noise." They were familiar with him now.
Young laughed noisily, but kept on whistling and looked about the table, as he had seen the others do. Then lighting a cigar, he arose, said, "So long, fellows--see you later," and walked up the street with his hands deep in his pockets, his body inclined forward in a kind of slouch, like a certain upper-cla.s.sman he admired.
"Look at him," said Powelton from the window. "My, but he makes me tired when he tries to do the dead-game act."
He made them all more or less tired, though most of them liked him somewhat still, but in a very different way now. He was not a hero any more.
He tried to make himself as much like them as he could, but he had only succeeded in seeming unlike himself. They had not expected or wanted him to be like them.
They laughed at him, behind his back and to his face.
He tried harder.
They laughed more. He did not realize why.
There were a great many things that he did not realize. When he was nominated for the secretary-treasurership, as Powelton now felt like telling him, it was not because they wanted him, but because the club wanted the office. And neither did he realize that he was elected chiefly because of his good reputation, now undeserved, with the despised quiet fellows of the cla.s.s.
All he realized was that he, William Young, who had started out a poor, ridiculed nonent.i.ty from the country, had conquered the famous bully of the Soph.o.m.ore cla.s.s, had won a place as right guard of the Freshman team, had been sought out by the Invincibles, had earned enough money to take him through the year, and, finally, had been elected the secretary and treasurer of the great cla.s.s of Ninety-blank by popular vote. It was the very office formerly held by the admired Lucky Lee. It was ill that was needed to turn his head.
So he strutted about and looked patronizingly down on his old friends Barrows and Wilson, and blew smoke in their faces, telling himself how narrow-minded they were.
You see, he came to the Invincibles a hero dizzy with success. It is hard on anyone to be a hero, and success had proved too much for him.
Instead of doing the Invincibles good, as he had intended, they had done him harm, as they surely never intended. It was such a pity. He could have made a very different thing of the whole club if he had only used his influence in the right way.
But this was another thing he did not realize; at least not until a little later. And then he did not have the influence.
CHAPTER XII
SERVING TWO MASTERS
Although Deacon Young was trying so hard to do the "dead-game act," the Freshman First Honor prize was still a matter of daily effort with him.
He was really working exceedingly hard for it. He pretended that he was not working at all.
He was nearly always with the "crowd" in the evenings and was frequently seen wandering around as aimlessly as the rest of them during the day.
That was the way he kept from being called a poler.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 2 A.M.
However, after saying good night ... he would sneak off to his room, tie a wet towel around his head, and pole....]
However, after saying good-night yawningly to the other fellows, he would sneak off to his room, tie a wet towel around his head, and pole until 2 a.m. He utilized half-holidays when the others were reading or were off running hare and hounds, or taking long rambles across country, or canoeing up the Millstone, or shooting with the gun club, or paying visits to the neighboring cities; also he had dropped out of literary Hall work entirely, took little exercise, and devoted to his curriculum studies even the spare time he had formerly put in at miscellaneous reading. That was the way he kept up his high stand in cla.s.s.