It was a time of depression and bitter revolt at what he knew was the injustice of his ostracism, forgetting how much was of his own proud choosing.
He wandered from crowd to crowd, rather taciturn and restless, seeking diversion with a consuming nervousness. The new restlessness of spirit drove him away from the conferences in Regan’s and Swazey’s rooms to the company of idlers. For a period, in his pride and bitterness, he let go of himself, flung the reins to the wind, and started down hill with a gallop.
In pursuance of his policy of open defiance, he chose to appear at Mory’s with the wildest element of the class. His companions were a little in awe of his grim, concentrated figure; when he sat into a game of poker or joined a table of revelers, he did it with no zest. He never joined in the chorus, and if he occasionally broke out into a boisterous laugh, there was always a jarring note to it, that caused his companions to glance at him uneasily. With the impetuousness of his nature, he outstripped his associates, plunging deeper and deeper, obstinately resolved, into the black gulf of his cynicism. In a week his excesses became college gossip, and, unknown to Stover, the subject of many long conferences among his friends.
One Friday night, as, straying aimlessly from room to room, he set out for Mory’s in quest of Tom Kelly and a group of Sheff pagans, he was trudging along the hard ways in front of Welch Hall, fists sunk in his pockets, head down under a slouch hat, when he chanced on Tom Regan coming out of the Brick Row.
“Hello there, bantam,” said Regan, with the prerogative of his size.
“Hello, Tom,” he said, but without enthusiasm, for he had rather avoided him in company with the rest of his old friends.
“That’s a deuced cordial greeting! Where are you bound, stranger?”
“Mory’s.”
“Mory’s,” said Regan, appearing to consider. “Good idea. I’ve got a hankering after a toby of musty ale and a rabbit myself. Wait till I stow these books and I’ll join you.”
Stover stood frowning, suspicious and rebelling, for at that age it is a point of honor, when a man of the world resolves to run his head against a stone wall, that any interference from a friend is regarded as an unwarranted insult.
“He thinks he’ll try the big brother act on me,” he said, scowling. He was not in a particularly good humor, nor was his head clear from several nights that had gone their reeling way.
When they entered Mory’s, Tom Kelly, Dopey McNab, and Buck Waters were already grouped in the inner room.
“Well, old flinthead, how do you feel after last night?” said Kelly, making room for them.
“Fine,” said Dink mendaciously, secretly pleased at the tribute to his sporting talents before Regan.
“More’n I can say,” said Dopey, affectionately feeling of his head. “Curse the man who invented fish-house punch.”
“Get home all right?” continued Kelly.
“Sure.”
“I had a little tiff with a cop. If he’d been smaller, I’d have taken his shield away. He was most impudent. Never mind, I beat him in a foot race.”
“Cocktails,” said Stover, resolved that Regan should be well punished. “Make it two for me, Louis, I’ll have to catch up.”
“I’ll stick to a toby and a rabbit,” said Regan, without a change of expression.
“Cocktail, Dopey?” continued Stover, with a millionaire gesture.
“I never refuse,” said Dopey, who planned to go through life on that virtuous method.
With such a beginning, matters progressed with remarkable facility. Stover, taciturn and in an ugly mood, constantly hurried the rounds, matching drink for drink, secretly resolved to prove his supremacy here as elsewhere. Regan, after two tobies, withdrew from the contest, sitting silently puffing on his huge pipe, but without attempt at interference. Bob Story and Hungerford came in, and went away with a glance at Stover’s clouded face and Regan’s stolid, unfathomable expression. When midnight arrived, and Louis came in with apologies to announce the closing, there was quite a reckoning to be paid.
Stover was the best of the lot, doggedly resolved to show no effects of what he had taken. He felt a haziness in his vision, and words that were spoken seemed to be whirled away without record, but his legs stood firm, and his head was still under control. Buck Waters and a Sheff man took Tom Kelly home by a circuitous route to avoid either a wrestling match or a foot race with too zealous members of the New Haven police force; and Stover had the fierce pride of showing Regan that he could take charge of the hilarious but wabbly Dopey McNab, who, moved by the finest feelings of the brotherhood of man, was determined to scatter his superfluous change among his brother beings.
With great dignity and impressiveness, Stover, supporting one side, continued to give foggy directions to Regan on the other, until, come to McNab’s quarters, they delivered that joyously exuberant person into his bed, propped up his head, opened the window, locked the door and left the key outside, to insure the termination of the night’s adventure.
Stover went down the steep, endless stairs with great deliberation and minute pains.
“Dopey’s got weak head—no good—stand nothing,” he said seriously to Regan.
“Well, we’ve fixed him up for the night,” said Regan cheerily. “You’ve got a wonderful top, old sport.”
“I’m pretty good—Dopey’s got the weak head,” said Stover, taking his arm. “I’m good, I can put ’em under the table—all under the table.”
“Good for you.”
“Tom, you aren’t—aren’t in critical at‑attochood, are you?” said Dink, with all feeling of resentment gone.
“Lord, no, boy.”
“ ’Cause it does me good—this does me good. I feel bad—pretty bad, Tom, about some things. You don’t know—can’t tell—but I feel bad—this does me good—forget—you understand.”
“I understand.”
“You’re a good
