The Whirligig of Time Part 13

"It's not merely the different kinds of games," went on Harry; "it's not that they make so much more of athletics, or rather of the public side of athletics, than they do over there, though that comes into it a lot.

It's what people do and think about and talk about and--and are, in short. Last year, I remember, the men I went with, the sixth formers, used to read the papers a lot and follow the debates in Parliament and talk about such things a lot, even among themselves. Some of them used to write Greek and Latin verse just for fun--wonderfully good, too, some of it. And here--well, how many men in our cla.s.s, how many men in the whole college do you suppose could write ten lines of Greek or Latin verse without making a mess of it?"

"Not too many, I'm afraid."

"Then there's debating. We used to have pretty good house debates ourselves at school. I used to look forward to them, I remember, from month to month, as one of the most interesting things that happened. But of course they were nothing to a thing like the Oxford Union. You've heard of that, I suppose? Lord, I wish some of these people here could see one of those meetings! It would be an eye-opener."

"But we have debating here," said Trotwood, doubtfully.

"Yes, but what kind of debating? A few grinds getting up and talking about the Interstate Commerce Commission, or some rotten, technical, dry subject, because they think it will give them good practise in public speaking. Everybody hates it like poison, and they're right, too, for it's all dull, dead; started on the wrong idea. The best men in the cla.s.s won't go out for it. I wouldn't myself, now that I know what it's like; but I thought of doing it in the summer, and spoke to my brother about it. He didn't say anything against it, because he didn't dare; people are always writing to the _News_ and saying what a fine thing debating is. But he let me see pretty clearly that he didn't think much of debating and didn't want me to go out for it, because it didn't get you anywhere in college; _simply wasn't done_. He'd rather see me take a third place in one track meet and never do another thing in college than to be the captain of the debating team."

"Did he tell you that?"

"Lord, no; he wouldn't dare. No one would; technically, debating is supposed to be a fine thing. But it doesn't get you anywhere near a senior society, so there's an end to it.... But perhaps I'd better not get started on that."

"No, I should think not! Heavens, a junior fraternity is about the height of my ambition!"

Harry smiled at his friend and went on: "You see it's this way, Trotty; you are a sensible person, and look at them in the right way. You play about with your mandolin clubs and various other little things because you like them, like a good dutiful boy. When the time comes, you'll be very glad to take a senior society, if it's offered you. If it isn't, you won't care."

"But I will, though. I don't believe I have much chance, but I know I shall be disappointed if I don't make one, just the same."

"For about twenty-four hours, yes. Don't interrupt me, Trotty; this isn't flattery, it's argument. You are a sensible person, as I have said; and don't let such considerations worry you. There are lots of other sensible persons in the cla.s.s, too. Josh Traill, for one, and Manxome, and John Fisher and Shep McGee; they're all sensible people, and don't worry or think much about senior societies, though I suppose they all have a good chance to make one eventually, if any one has. But that isn't true of all the cla.s.s. There is a large and important section of it that now, in the first term of freshman year, is thinking and talking nothing except about who will go to a junior fraternity next year, or a senior society two years hence. It's the one subject of conversation that seriously competes with professional baseball and college football, which is all you hear otherwise."

"Oh, no, Harry, you're hard on us. There's automobiles. And guns. And theaters. But why should you mind if a lot of geesers do talk about societies?"

"Well, it makes me sick, that's all. And when I say sick, I use the word in its British, or most vivid sense. It makes me sick, after England and after Harrow, to see a lot of what ought to be the best fellows in the cla.s.s spending their waking hours in wondering about such rubbishy things.--Do you happen to be aware of an ornament of our cla.s.s called Junius Neville LeGrand?"

"Golden locks and blue eyes? Yes, I know him. Acts rather well, they say."

"Yes; he's the kind I mean. At any rate, I seem to be in his good graces just at present. All sweetness and light; can't be too particular about telling me how good I am at French, and that sort of thing. In fact, he went so far to-day as to suggest that we might go over the French lesson together, and he's coming here presently to do it."

"But what's the matter with poor Junius? I thought he was as decent as such a painfully good-looking person could be."

"I'm not denying he's attractive. But if you'll stay for the French lesson I think I can show you what I'm talking about."

"But I don't take French."

"No, dear boy; you won't have to know French to see what I'm going to show you. Your role will consist of lying on the window-seat and being occupied with day before yesterday's _News_. Now listen; I have an idea that the beautiful Junius has recently made the discovery that I am the brother of James Wimbourne, of the junior cla.s.s, pillar of the Yale football team and more than likely to go Bones, or anything he wants, next May. Hence this access of cordiality to poor little me, the obscure Freshman. I'm going to find out that, first."

"But there's no need of finding out that," said Trotwood navely. "I told him so myself, the other day."

"A week ago Tuesday, to be exact," said Harry reflectively. "I remember he s...o...b..red all over me at the French cla.s.s Wednesday, though he didn't have anything to say to me on Monday. Wasn't that about it?"

"Yes," admitted Trotwood.

"Well, it proves what I was saying, but I'm sorry you did it, for it spoils my little game with the beautiful Junius. The French lesson will be a dull one, I fear. I rather think I shall have to end by being rude to Junius, to keep him from making an infernal little pest of himself."

But the French lesson was not as dull as Harry feared, for the ingratiating Junius played into Harry's hands and incidentally proved himself not so good an actor off the stage as on. His behavior for the first ten or fifteen minutes was all that could be desired; he sat in Harry's Morris chair and waved a cigarette and put his host and Trotwood at their ease with the grace and charm of a George IV. At length he and Harry settled down to their "Notre Dame de Paris," and for a while all went well. Then of a sudden Junius became strangely silent and preoccupied.

"'Then they made him sit down on--' oh, Lord, what's a _brancard bariole_?" said Harry. "You look up _brancard_, Junius, and I'll look up the other.... Oh, yes; speckled. No; motley--that's probably nearer; it depends on what _brancard_ means. What does it mean, anyway? Come on, Junius, do you mean to say you haven't found it yet? What's the matter?"

"I was looking up _a.s.seoir_," said Junius, who had been staring straight in front of him.

"Sit, of course; you knew that. I translated that, anyway. I'll look up _brancard_." Harry's glance, as he turned again to his dictionary, fell upon a letter lying on his desk, waiting to be mailed. It was addressed in Harry's own legible hand to

Lieut.-Gen. Sir Giles Fletcher, M. P. etc., 204 Belgrave Square, London, S. W., England.

It immediately occurred to him that this was the probable cause of his cla.s.smate's preoccupation, and the joy of the chase burned anew in his breast.

"What _are_ you staring at, Junius?" he asked a minute later, with, well simulated unconsciousness.

"Nothing," replied Junius, returning to his book and blus.h.i.+ng. That was bad already, as Harry pointed out later; it would have been so easy, for a person who really knew, to pa.s.s it off with some such remark as "I was overcome by the address on that letter. My, but what swells you do correspond with," etc. But the unfortunate Junius could not even be consistent to the role of affected ignorance that he had a.s.sumed.

"I see you know Sir Giles Fletcher," he said after a while. "I saw that envelope on the table; I couldn't help seeing the address. Is he a friend of yours?"

"Yes," said Harry; "my uncle."

"Oh. Well, I heard a good deal about him last summer from some relations of his ... connections, anyway; the Marquis of Moville ... and his family. We had a shooting-lodge in Scotland, and he had a moor near ours. He came over and shot with us once, and said ours was the best moor in Perths.h.i.+re. His brother came too; Lord Archibald Carson. He's the one that's connected with your uncle, isn't he?"

"Yes. Married his sister."

"The Marquis is rather a decent fellow," continued Junius languidly. "Do you know him?"

"No," said Harry calmly; "no decent person does. Nor Lord Archibald, either. They're the worst pair of rounders in England. My uncle doesn't even speak to them in the street."

"Oh." Junius' face was a study, but Harry was sitting so that he could not see it, and had to be contented with Trotwood's subsequent account of it. There was silence for a few moments, during which Harry waited with perfect certainty for Junius' next remark.

"Well, of course we didn't know them _well_, at all. They just came and shot with us once. That's nothing, in Scotland."

Victor Hugo was resumed after this and the translation finished without further incident. The beautiful Junius, however, needed no urging to "stick around" afterward, and sat for an hour or more smoking cigarettes and chatting pleasantly about his acquaintance, carefully culled from the New York social register and the British peerage.

"Well, Trotty," said Harry after the incubus had departed, dropping a perfect shower of invitations to New York, Newport, Palm Beach, the Adirondacks and the Scottish moors; "what about it? Is the beautiful Junius, friend of dukes and scion of Crusaders, an obnoxious, unhealthy little vermin, or isn't he?"

"I suppose he is. My, but he was fun, though! But he's going to make the Dramatic a.s.sociation after Christmas, for all that."

"Oh, yes. He'll make whatever he sets out to make, straight through.

n.o.body here will ever see through him. He doesn't often give himself away as he did to-night, of course. He talks up to each person on what he thinks they'll like; to Josh Traill, for instance, he'll talk about football, and to an aesthetic type, like Morton Miniver, on j.a.panese prints and Maeterlinck's plays; and to you on the Glee and Mandolin Clubs.... He has already, hasn't he? Don't attempt to deny it; your blush betrays you! That's the way his type gets on here; talk to the right people, and don't talk to any one else, and in addition do a little acting or whatever you can, and it'll go hard if you don't make a senior society before you're through.... He's clever, too; he'll make it, all right. You see, he only gave himself away to me because he talked on a subject where breeding counts, as well as knowledge.... It was rash of him to try the duke and d.u.c.h.ess stuff; he'd much better have stuck to track, or something safe."

"See here, Harry," said Trotwood, rising to go, "I grant you that Junius has given himself away and that he's a repulsive little beast, and all the rest of it, but don't you think that you are taking the incident just a little too seriously? It's an obnoxious type, all right, but it's a common one. There are bound to be a few Juniuses in every bunch of three or four hundred fellows wherever you take them; Oxford, or anywhere else. Why bother about them? Let them blather on; they won't hurt you, as long as you know them for what they are. And if Junius, or one of his kind, gets too aggressive and unpleasant, all you have to do is reach out your foot and stamp on him. But don't let him worry you!"

"How wise, how uplifting, how Browningesque!" breathed Harry in satirical admiration. Trotty winced slightly and made for the door.

"Don't be a fool," Harry added, running after his retreating friend and grabbing him. "You're dead right about all that, of course, as you always are when you take the trouble to use your bean. There's just one thing, though, when all is said and done, that irritates me. Junius at Yale ends by making his senior society, in spite of all. Junius at Oxford doesn't! Do you know why? Because there aren't any senior societies there!"

CHAPTER IX

A LONG CHEER FOR WIMBOURNE