“Though father, at best, will do very little, and though I have just now little enough of my own, there may be somebody or other among your faculty or trustees who could find me a niche in the college library or in the registrar’s office. Or have all such posts been snapped up by Johnnys-on-the-spot? A small weekly stipend would rather help our ménage—hein?”
This definite inquiry (which carried its own answer) seemed to drive one or two brass tacks with some definiteness. Cope himself was eking out his small salary with a small allowance from home; next year, with the thesis accomplished, better pay in some better place. A present partner and pal ought to be a prop rather than a drag: however welcome his company, he must bear his share.
“Look about a bit for quarters,” Lemoyne went on, drawing toward his conclusion. “I presume room-rent is little more for two than for one. Possibly,” he put down in an afterthought, “I might get a job in the city;” and then, “with warm regards,” he came to a close as “Art.”
Cope finished his lunch and walked out. If Arthur could do one thing better than another, it was to make coffee; his product was assuredly better than the Greek’s. The two had camped out more than once on the shores of Lake Winnebago, and Arthur had deftly managed the commissariat. They had had good times together and had needed no other company. How had it been on Green Bay—at Eagle Cliff and Apron Bluff and all the other places lately celebrated in lithographed “folders” and lately popularized by motorists? And who was the particular “fellow” who ran the roadster?
Late that afternoon Cope chanced upon Randolph among the fantastic basins and floral parterres of the court in front of the Botany building: Randolph had had a small matter for one of the deans. Together they sauntered over to the lake. From the edge of the bluff they walked out upon the concrete terrace above the general boiler-room and its dynamos. Alongside this, the vast tonnage of coal required for the coming winter was beginning to pile up. The weather was still mild and sunny and the lake was as valiantly blue as ever.
“It doesn’t look like the same body of water, does it?” said Cope.
“It might be just as beautiful in its own way, here, as we found it yesterday, out there,” returned Randolph. “I’ve asked my brother-in-law, I don’t know how many times, why they can’t do better by this unfortunate campus and bring it all up to a reasonable level of seemliness. But—”
“You have a relative among the—?”
“Yes, my sister’s husband is one of the University trustees. But he lives miles from this spot and hardly ever sees it. Besides, his aesthetic endowments are not beyond those of the average university trustee. Sometimes they’re as hard on Beauty as they are on Free Speech.”
“I see they’re hard on beauty; and I may live to find free speech mauled, too.”
“Well, you’re not in Sociology or Economics. Still, don’t trifle with a long-established aesthetic idol either. Trustees—and department heads—are conservative.”
“Oh, you mean about—?”
“About your immortal William. He wrote them. Don’t try to rob him. Don’t try to knock him off his pedestal.”
“Oh, you’re thinking about my thesis. What I said about Warwickshire was just a little flight of fancy, I guess—a bit of doorstep travel. I’m likely enough to stay where I am.”
“Well, how about the thesis, really?”
“I think I shall end by digging something out of Here and Now. ‘Our Middle-West School of Fiction,’—what would you think of that?”
“H’m! If you can make it seem worth while. …”
“Well, can’t I?”
“Your work, from the very nature of it, must be critical. Now the critic, nine times out of ten, takes down a volume from its established shelf, dusts it off, ruffles the leaves a bit, and then puts it back where it was. The ruffling is sometimes very nice and interesting and often gives the ruffler a good position in the glorious company of earlier rufflers—”
“I shouldn’t be satisfied with anything like that. Things have got to move. I want to take some recent, less-known men and put them on the shelves.”
“Yet you don’t want to waste work on material which time may show as of transient value, or of none.”
“A fellow must chance it. Who gives quickly gives twice;—I suppose that applies to praise as well as to money. It irks me to find more praise bestowed on the praised-enough—even on groups of secondary importance, sometimes just because they are remote (in England, perhaps), and so can be treated with an easy objectivity. To dig in your own day and your own community is harder, but I should feel it more rewarding.”
“But aren’t the English books really better? Haven’t they more depth, substance and background?”
“Possibly—according to the conventions they themselves have established—and according to the society they depict.”
“Well, Academe hasn’t nailed you yet!”
“No; and I hope it won’t. I should like to write a whole book about our new men.”
“But don’t write a thesis and then expect to publish it with profit as a book. That’s a common enough expectation—or temptation.”
They turned away from the lake terrace and the imposing coal-pile. Cope, Randolph saw, was in quite a glow; a generous interest had touched him, putting fresh light into his eyes and a new vigor into his step. He had displayed a charming enthusiasm, and a pure, disinterested one. Randolph, under a quiet exterior, was delighted. He liked the boy better than ever, and felt more than ever prompted to attach him to himself.
“How are you pleased with your present quarters?” he asked, as they returned through the Botany court. He thought of the narrow couch, the ink-spotted cover on the deal table, the few coats and shoes (they couldn’t
