“Whew!” said Hungerford, with a comical rubbing of his head. “What struck me?”
“And I expect to make Phi Beta Kappa,” said Swazey, with an apologetic laugh.
“What a dreadfully disconcerting person,” said Bob Story.
“By George, it takes the conceit out of you,” said Stover ruthfully. “Shall we all start in and learn something? What’s the answer?”
At this moment a familiar slogan was heard below, increasing in riotous, pagan violence with the approach of boisterous feet.
“Oh, father and mother
Pay all the bills,
And we have all the fun.
Hooray!
That’s the way we do in college life—
In college life.”
The room burst into a roar of laughter.
“There’s one answer,” said Regan rising.
The door slammed open, and McNab and Buck Waters reeled in arm in arm.
“I say, fellows, we’ve cornered the sleigh market,” said Dopey uproariously. “We’re all going to beat it to the Cheshire Inn, a bottle of champagne to the first to arrive. Are you on?”
Half an hour later, Stover at the reins was whirling madly along the crusty roads, in imminent danger of collision with three other rollicking parties, who packed the sleighs and cheered on the galloping horses, singing joyfully the battle hymn of the pagans:
“Oh, father and mother
Pay all the bills,
And we have all the fun.
Hooray!
That’s the way we do
In college life.”
XXIV
Once Stover had reconciled himself to the loss of a senior society election, he found ample compensation in the absolute liberty of action that came to him. It was not that he condemned this parent system; he believed in it as an honest attempt to reward the best in the college life, a sort of academic legion of honor, formed not on social cleavage, but given as a reward of merit. In his own case, he believed his own personal offending in the matter of Le Baron and Reynolds had been so extreme that nothing could counteract it.
So he gave himself up to the free and untrammelled delights of living his own life. His fierce stand for absolute democracy made of his rooms the anteroom of the class, through which all crowds seemed to pass, men of his own kind, socially calculating, glad to be known as the friends of Regan, Hungerford and Story, all rated sure men, and Stover, about whom they began to wonder more and more, as a unique and rebellious personality, which, contrary to precedent, had come to bear down all opposition. Gimbel and Hicks, elected managers for the coming year, came often, willing to conciliate the element they had fought, in the hopes of a favorable outcome on Tap Day. Men who worked their way dropped in often on Regan; Ricketts, with his drawling Yankee astuteness, always laughing up his sleeve; twenty odd, lonely characters, glad to sink into a quiet corner and listen to the furious discussions that raged about Brockhurst, Story and Regan.
It was seldom that Stover talked. He learned more by listening, by careful weighing of others’ opinions, than in the attempt to classify his own thoughts through the medium of debate. At times when the discussion wandered from vital sources, he would ask a question, and these sharp, direct remarks had a pertinency and a searching trenchancy that sometimes upset an elaborate argument.
Regan brought him to the romance of commonplace things, to a genuine interest and study of political conditions; Brockhurst irritated and dissatisfied him, and so stimulated him to reading and self-analysis; Story, with his seriousness and fairness, recalled him always to a judicial point of view and an understanding of others; Hungerford, with his big, effusive nature, always dissatisfied and eager for realities, was akin to his own nature, and they grew into a confidential intimacy. In a community of splendid barbarians, their circle was exceptional, due to the pronounced individuality of their several rebellious minds.
Despite the abolition of the sophomore societies, other groups still maintained their exclusiveness, and kept alive the old antagonism, as the approach of Tap Day intensified the struggle for election and the natural campaigning of friend for friend.
As Brockhurst had prophesied, the chairmanship of the Lit Board went to Wiggin, a conscientious, thorough little plodder, who had never failed to hand in to each number his numerically correct quota of essays, two stories, a hammered-out poem and two painful portfolios.
On the night of the election, Stover heard from his room in Lyceum the familiar:
“Oh, you Dink Stover—stick out your head.”
“Hello there, Brocky; come up,” he said anxiously. “Who got it?”
“Wiggin, of course. Come on down, I want a ramble.”
It was the first time that Brockhurst had shown a longing for companionship. Stover returned into the room, announcing:
“Poor old chap. Wiggin got it. Isn’t it the devil?”
“Wiggin—oh, Lord!” said Regan.
“Why, he’s not fit to tie Brocky’s shoestrings,” said Hungerford, who fired a volley of soul-relieving oaths.
“I’m going down to bum around a bit with him,” said Stover, slipping on his coat, “cheer the old boy up.”
“Well, he knew it.”
“Lots of difference that makes!”
Below Brocky, muffled to the ears, brim down, was whistling in unmusical enthusiasm.
“ ’Tis a jolly life we lead,
Care and sorrow we defy—”
“Hello, that you, Dink?” he said, breaking off. “Come on for a tramp.”
At that age, being inexperienced, the undergraduate in questions of sympathy wisely returns to the instincts of the canine. Stover, without speaking, fell into his stride, and they swung off towards West Rock.
“Wiggin is the type of man,” said Brockhurst, meditatively puffing his pipe, “that is the glorification of the commonplace. He is a sort of sublime earthworm, plodding along and claiming acquaintance with the rose because he travels around the roots. He is really by instinct a bricklayer, and the danger is that he may continue either in literature or some profession where the cry is for imagination.”
“You could have beaten him out,” said Stover, as a solace.
“And become an earthworm?” said Brockhurst. “The luck of it is, he made up his mind to heel
