But somewhere, in the cabinet, perhaps, there was left a trace of intelligence, with which to realize the mounting dangers abroad and at home. At Christmas time, while Bunny was up at Paradise, hunting quail and watching the progress of Ross Consolidated, he went out one morning to meet the Ford car which brought the mail to the tract. He got his morning paper and opened it, and there on the front page was a despatch from Washington, announcing that the army authorities had decided it was no longer necessary for them to police the Trans-Siberian Railway; we were going to leave the Japanese in charge, and come home. Bunny gave a shout, and rushed into the house, calling for Ruth. “Paul is coming back! Paul is coming back!” And then he had to run quick and catch her by the arm and help her to a chair!
XI
The Rebel
I
At Southern Pacific University the class lines were tacitly but effectively drawn, and in the ordinary course of events a man of Bunny’s wealth, good looks and good manners, would have associated only with the members of fraternities and sororities. If some Negro boy were to develop eloquence as a debater, or if someone taking a course in millinery or plumbing were to display fleetness as a hurdler, the hurdler might hurdle and the debater might debate, but they would not be invited to tea-parties or dances, nor be elected to prominence in the student organizations; such honors were reserved for tall Anglo-Saxons having regular features, and hair plastered straight back from their foreheads, and trousers pressed to a knife edge and never worn two days in succession.
But here was Bunny Ross, persisting in fooling with “dangerous thoughts,” that made his friends angry. Of course, as anyone would have foreseen, there were “barbs” and “goats,” anxious to break in where they were not wanted, and perfectly willing to pretend to think that our country ought not to intervene in Russia, if by so professing they could get to know one of the socially elite. So Bunny found himself on talking terms with various queer fish. For example, there was Peter Nagle, whose father was president of a “rationalist society,” and who seemed to have one dominating desire in life—to blurt out in class that what was the matter with the world was superstition, and that mankind could never progress until they stopped believing in God. In a university all of whose faculty were required to be devout Methodists, you can imagine how popular this made him. Peter looked just as you would expect such a boor to look, with a large square head and a wide mouth full of teeth, and a shock of yellow hair which he allowed to straggle round his ears and drop white specks onto his coat collar—his coat did not match his trousers, and he brought his lunch to the university tied with a strap!
And then there was Gregor Nikolaieff. Gregor was all right, when you got to know him, but the trouble was, it was hard to know him, because his accent was peculiar, and at critical moments in his talk he would forget the English word. He had jet black hair, and black eyes with a sombre frown above them—in short, he was the very picture of what the students called a “Bolsheviki.” As it happened, Gregor’s father had belonged to one of the revolutionary parties whom the Bolsheviks were now sending to jail; but how could you explain that to a student body which dumped into one common garbage-can Socialists and Communists and Syndicalists and Anarchists, Communist-Anarchists and Anarchist-Syndicalists, Social Revolutionaries and Social-Democrats, Populists, Progressives, Single-taxers, Nonpartisan Leaguers, Pacifists, Pragmatists, Altruists, Vegetarians, Anti-vivisectionists and opponents of capital punishment.
Also there was Rachel Menzies, who belonged to a people that had been chosen by the Lord, but not by the aforesaid student body. Rachel was rather good-looking, though in a dark, foreign way; she was short—what feminine enemies would have called “dumpy”—and made no pretense at finery, but came to the university in black cotton stockings and a shirtwaist that did not match her skirt. There was a rumor that her father worked in a clothing factory, and her brother was pressing students’ pants for an education.
And here was the discoverer and heir-apparent of the Ross Junior oil field, letting himself be seen in public with these people, and even trying to introduce them to his fraternity brothers; excusing himself by saying that they believed in “free speech.” As if it were not obvious that they would, having everything to gain and nothing to lose! Proletarians of all universities unite!
Poor Bunny got it from both sides. “Look here,” said Donald Burns, president of the sophomore class, “don’t you introduce me to any more of your Yid fairies.” And then, “Look here,” said Rachel Menzies, “don’t you introduce me to any more of your male fashion-plates.” Bunny protested, he had the idea that all kinds of people ought to know one another; but Rachel informed him that she thought too much of herself. “Probably you’ve never been snubbed in your life, Mr. Ross, but we Jews learn the lesson early in our lives—not to go where we aren’t wanted.”
Said Bunny, “But Miss Menzies, if you believe in ideas, you’ve got to teach people—”
“Thank you,” she said; “I believe in my ideas, but not enough to teach Donald Burns.”
“But how can you tell?” Bunny protested. “You’re teaching me, and I don’t belong to the working-class.” He had learned that this girl was a member of the
