Pepper/Social Service
X
SOCIAL SERVICE
WHEN Sam Whittemore kicked open the door of Pepper McHenry's study at a quarter-past six, and pausing only long enough to accumulate a cigarette and a match, fell upon the divan with every symptom of complete exhaustion, he received the undivided but unflattering attention of Phillips and Sewall and McHenry, who had been watching the clock against the earliest possible moment when they could go to dinner. Whittemore was so conscious of the interest of his audience that he continued to pant somewhat longer than was entirely necessary.
"Good lungs—bully lungs," remarked Sewall, addressing the ceiling. "He hasn't the heaves—that's a fact! Now if you're positive he hasn't either the botts or the blind staggers—"
"Demonstrating the horrible effects of dissipation on the nervous system," suggested McHenry cheerfully. "It sure does ruin a man's wind for him."
"My own guess," hazarded Phillips, "is that he was just getting off a car in the Square when he saw somebody he owes a dollar, so naturally he sprinted all the way—"
"Oh, you all think you're very smart!" retorted Whittemore, sitting upright and lighting the cigarette. "It's very humorous, of course! Well—if any of you frantic hyenas want to know my idea of nothing ladylike to do, you'll volunteer for one of those social-service committees over at Brooks House—"
"There's nothing in that," said Phillips. "I did it myself freshman year. I was in a musical gang. We went out and gave putrid entertainments. One was at the Charlestown jail, and one was at the State Farm, and one at the Orphans' Home—"
"Piffle!" ejaculated Sewall. "That wasn't Social service, John! That was just plain practice for the musical clubs—to get you novices used to playing in public—and to fix it up so the audience couldn't get away! Now in freshman year I did some valuable work. I signed on for the Prospect Union—went down there twice a week and taught Latin to three stenographers and a nigger and a truck driver—"
"Mere grand stand!" interrupted McHenry lazily. "That was simply to get a drag with your Latin prof. I know, because I did the same thing myself in history. But the real social-service job was collecting old clothes around the dormitories to send to these mission joints! Holy mackerel! You wouldn't believe how fellows fight to hang on to their old clothes! Why, to make any showing at all I had to sneak into Monk Spinden's room when he was in the shower, and pick out his oldest stuff—"
"Oh, cut the comedy!" begged Whittemore. "Do you realize what I've been doing? Well, when I got on prob I couldn't play football any more, so I told those sharks over at Brooks House I'd coach some settlement football teams for 'em. I've been doing it this afternoon. The first two minutes I was explaining how to line up, and the next two hours I was stopping fights. There's one little demon," he said reminiscently, "who ought to make a wonder! Every time they lined up he bit off an ear or handed somebody a black eye—and I never saw him once! And when I tried to use moral suasion on the little brutes—well, they all sailed into me! And I want to tell you that twenty or thirty little twelve-year-old muckers provide some entertainment!"
"It's a wonder they didn't massacre you!" apprehended Phillips, who had once taught a Sunday-school class in East Boston to please his mother and the Brooks House organization.
"Fortunately," said Whittemore, "we were in a yard where there was a hydrant with hose attached. I suppose the inference is obvious even to your feeble intellects. Anyway—I'm through! No more social service for S. W. Whittemore, junior, except for cripples—"
"As a matter of fact," preached Phillips, "this whole Brooks House idea makes me rather tired. I can't see why in thunder we ought to beat it around town coaching little muckers to play football, and playing the dog-house to men's clubs, and all that sort of rot, when there's so much we could do right in the university. I think we could do a lot for some of the poor boobs right in our own class if we really wanted to help."
"Oh, you traitor I There aren't any boobs in our class!"
"Ridiculous," scoffed McHenry.
"Darn you," said Whittemore, "I'd like to see you trying to pick eighty-seven little villains off each other's necks—"
McHenry laughed, and hummed the refrain of his own football medley:
"We'll sponge off the mud and the gore, boys.
Is he looking a little pale?
Well, we'll do the rest with a vim and a zest—
Twenty-one men on the other man's chest—
Mother of men—oh, Yale!"
Phillips shrugged his shoulders.
"The whole thing is more or less bunk," he went on dreamily. "Reminds me of the rows back home—same old idea of working like blazes for foreign missions, and letting your neighbors starve to death. For instance, think of the idiocy of sending troupes out to entertain men's clubs in Boston, when right in our own class there must be a couple of hundred men who haven't made clubs, or even friends, and would have one whale of a time if we got 'em together for a beer night and vaudeville, or something like that."
"Fine stunt," praised Whittemore with deep sarcasm. "Send out bids something like this: 'Dear old squirrel, we know you're a mutt, and haven't any friends, and didn't make the Institute, so we're going to give you a scuttle of suds and a bum mandolin quartet, and hope you'll kid yourself into thinking it's a party!'"
"With a hundred per cent off for common sense," agreed Phillips, "that's exactly what I do mean!"
"The sophomore beer nights didn't work," said McHenry.
"Well, why not? Simply because the whole class was there! And when the whole class got together, and the boobs saw that the same old crowd was running the affair, they all got cold feet! Why, just think of the number of men who come up here from country schools—without friends or money. They don't make clubs, they haven't a chance for teams, there's nothing for 'em to do but grind, and after a month or two they get sour! Now all four of us have tried this fool social-service work—why don't we begin at home for a change? Why don't we pick out some of the unhappy ducks, and go at 'em the way Brooks House goes at the charities?"
"I get you," cried McHenry excitedly. "You mean—Brooks House doesn't send guys in to teach Latin to these settlement lads—it sends Sam in to teach 'em football! It finds out what they want to cheer 'em up, and then gives it to 'em!"
"These boobs in college can't be made happy with one stein of beer and a nickel's worth of cheese at a class smoker," said Sewall. "By gosh! John's right! We ought to take some of the most godforsaken of the lot, and sling some sunshine into their cosmos! It's a darned sight more sensible than collecting old clothes for the sailors!"
"I did try it once," narrated Phillips. "I was so sorry for the man I couldn't help it. Kendall—lives over in College House. Lanky cuss with a face like a dried prune. Most melancholy man I ever hope to see. I don't believe he knows ten men in the university by sight—too shy. He's having a perfectly rotten time, so I tried to brace him up a bit." He sighed regretfully. "Absolutely nothing doing—he thought I was patronizing him, and he turned me down cold!"
"I know the man," said Sewall. "I tried to talk to him once. Bitterest man you ever heard. Said a poor boy hasn't a chance—he had a wonderful line of adjectives about Mount Auburn Street—it was fierce!"
"The trouble with you fellows," explained McHenry, "is that you don't analyze things. You can get at anybody if you go about it the right way."
"If we go into this thing seriously," declared Phillips, "Kendall's your meat, Pepper. Personally, I think it's up to us to get busy. Why don't we each pick out one or two of the worst specimens we know, and nurse 'em a bit! Instead of trying to teach brick-layers how to appreciate the beautiful odes of Horace at the Prospect Union, let's hunt out some fellows whose souls hurt 'em, and cheer 'em up! I can think of two men in Grays—"
"I'm game," said Sewall. "Anybody but Kendall. He's hopeless!"
"Wrong again," snapped McHenry. "I'll bet you anything you care to name that you can civilize anybody—"
"Let's not fake anything," interposed Whittemore, "and for Pete's sake, let's not be cocky about it! We'll have our troubles, because most of the boobs will think we're simply out to patronize 'em! The idea, as I take it, is just to pump a little college spirit into some fellows who haven't any. Well—I'll take a shot at anybody but this Kendall microbe. He's absolutely out of the question. The only way to civilize him is with a meat-ax!"
"You pick the poorest prunes you possibly can," said McHenry deliberately, "and inside of six months I'll guarantee to have Kendall so civilized that your protégés will think he's a snob!"
"He's a long-eared, slab-sided, shaggy farmer! You can't do it! Besides, he's the original sorehead!"
"He'll insult you if you speak to him, Pepper! He's an anarchist and a socialist, and he thinks we all ought to be in the cooler! You'd better let him alone!"
"He's probably the poorest man in the class, Pep. And then, he's so blamed proud! And he's shy as they grow! You'd better take somebody else—"
"The worse they are, the more they need help!" stated McHenry. "Well, it's a bargain! We'll try to do some good for once in our lives. I think—I think the best thing to do for a guy like that is to make him a class officer!"
They were still staring speechlessly at him when the mantel clock pealed the summons to dinner.
II
McHenry was a firm believer in strategy rather than brute force. Knowing that the impossible Mr. Kendall was also registered in one of his history courses, he found an early opportunity to climb five flights of stairs in College House for the purpose of an interview with the man he had contracted to humanize. His first impressions were productive of some amusement and a great deal of sympathy; for his classmate was a cadaverous individual who would have made an excellent model for a comic valentine, and even at their first meeting he orated bitterly on the subject of aristocracy at Harvard, the lack of a fair chance, and the snobbishness of practically everybody. McHenry admitted it.
Standing in the middle of his cold room, decorated only with the barest necessities of bed, wash-stand, and writing table, Kendall called attention to his shabby clothes, and declared that because they were shabby, Harvard had no use for him.
Pepper was afraid it might be true, and said that it was a howling shame.
Kendall alleged that at school he had run a half mile in two-fourteen, but when he had reported for practice with the track squad, the trainer dismissed him because he wasn't a Groton graduate.
McHenry feared that the allegation was founded on fact.
Kendall pounded on the table as he made the unequivocal declaration that even in his classes, which were presided over by aristocratic professors, he hadn't as much chance of high grades as stupid men from well-known Boston families.
Pepper said that he'd noticed the discrimination, and shuddered to think of it.
Then, when Kendall was swinging into his pet denunciation of the entire rotten system of university education, Pepper remarked very mildly that he needed some tutoring in history, and had been advised that Kendall was a crack man in the subject. Duration of the engagement, six evenings. Compensation, three dollars an hour. And Pepper, who didn't really need tutoring at all, but could always brace up his class standing and please his father by taking a dose of it, had all he could do to prevent the man from putting on his hat, and accompanying him back to Mount Auburn Street that very minute.
Instead, Pepper made an appointment for the following evening, and the prospective tutor wasn't behind time. He arrived in a hideously checked suit which looked as though it had been built to Weber's measurements to accommodate Fields' taste, and the very appearance of Pepper's rooms made him mad. He knew that he must seem like a scarecrow in comparison with the immaculate McHenry; and because McHenry had visited his own bare shell of a study in College House, he was all the more enraged to contemplate McHenry's possessions. His gorge rose in bitter resentment; he hated Pepper, he loathed Mount Auburn Street—and just then Ted Sewall came in.
"Hello, boy," McHenry greeted him. "Know Kendall?"
"Yes—we've met before," said the tutor shortly.
"I was just telling Kendall," said Pepper mendaciously, "that he's a blamed idiot not to go out and run."
Sewall tried to look politely interested, and succeeded in producing a grotesque smirk. It was really very funny, but he didn't dare to laugh.
"You run, do you?" he asked.
"A little," returned Kendall, very gruffly. "Back at school I did a half in two-fourteen. I never tried to run here. What's the use? There's too many Groton and St. Mark's candidates!"
After Sewall had gone, Pepper turned to the man—consternation writ large upon his countenance.
"My dear fellow," he said, "of course it's all right if you want to prejudice these people against you—"
"Prejudice them against me! Don't make me laugh, McHenry! The idea of a self-satisfied, purse-proud gang—acting like cosmopolitan men when we ought to be boys—"
"Hold on, there! Hold on!"
"Look at it! Just look at it! You fellows over here wear out leather on club chairs, and loaf through four years, and hog all the class offices, and sport all the pretty hatbands—and you call yourselves the college! And what chance does a poor man have? What chance has a man like me—Gad, McHenry! I lived through my freshman year on three hundred dollars—for everything! And tuition is half of that! I don't know anybody—nobody's ever taken the trouble to climb up to my room to see me! And men like that cad who was just in here call me a greasy grind! Grind! What is there left for me to do? Does anybody want me on one of the papers—even supposing I could make Mark Twain look like a newspaper reporter? Does anybody want me in one of your swell clubs? No—I came from a high school in Maine you never heard of. Do they want me on the track team? No—they'd have to eat at training table with me! Do they—"
"Back up!" said McHenry flatly. "You're wasting your breath, Kendall. See here—just think this over a minute. I wouldn't ordinarily tell you, but this is different. You've tutored before, of course. Did the fellow you were tutoring leave his door on the latch?"
"Why, no—of course not. We'd be interrupted—"
"Two or three men are likely to drop in here this evening," said Pepper, with great carelessness. "As a personal favor to me I wish you'd sort of lay yourself out on 'em."
"I was under the impression that I came here to tutor you—"
"As far as the general public is concerned, you did."
"The general public—I don't understand you—"
"There are dozens of men I might have got to tutor me. Hasn't it occurred to you that there might have been some reason for my picking you out?"
"Why no. You've always been fairly decent to me, McHenry."
"What we want is men of individuality—and you're one of 'em. Money doesn't count a hang. Neither do the clubs a man happens to be in. Of course, there are a few requirements you haven't yet met—"
"What in thunder are you talking about?"
"You'll have to report for the track squad," continued Pepper imperturbably, "and you'd better go out for one of the papers, anyway. That's essential. I'll guarantee you'll have a fair chance. Then it's most important that you get in touch with the Yard crowd. You're interested in debating, aren't you? Well—stir up the debaters! Get a reputation for starting things. You see, Kendall, we've spotted you for a coming man, in spite of the way you've behaved these two years or so—by gosh! Here's John Phillips coming in! For the love of Mike, shine up to him!"
"Hello, Kendall, old squirrel!" said the incoming Phillips most amicably.
"Hello, Phillips, how's yourself?" returned the cadaverous man, forcing a smile to his thin lips. He hadn't the faintest idea where he was going, but Pepper McHenry had assured him that he was en route, and he didn't like to overlook a chance.
Then when Phillips had retired, McHenry pulled down all the curtains, locked the doors, and whispered the words that made a man of Kendall.
III
Sewall and Phillips and McHenry and Whittemore sat in solemn conclave, and voted, in the ratio of three to one, that the boobs couldn't be civilized.
"I didn't even get a rise out of mine," sighed Whittemore.
"I took my two specimens to dinner in town," said Sewall, "and they never even called on me afterward! And our conversation gave me the willies! They gabbled about Aristotelian philosophy, and when I tried to butt in with some human talk, one of 'em said, 'Confound it, don't interrupt! You broke my train of thought!'"
"All through," admitted Phillips. "I give it up! It can't be done. I guess the mutts want to stay mutts. Only—your guy Kendall seems to be sort of tearing things up, Pepper."
"I told you," McHenry reminded them, "you don't know how to go at the birds!"
"Darn him!" said Whittemore, "when I see him on the street he nods to me as chipper as you please! The poor prune acts as though he's condescending to bow to me! What kind of dope did you use, Pep?"
"They say he's almost sure to make the Monthly next election. I don't see how such a sorehead even went out for it."
"I can tell you," said McHenry smoothly. "He tutored me eighteen dollars' worth in history 3, and then I sicked him on George Young. George makes a good Monthly president, but he's a pretty feeble history shark—and after they'd had a couple of good scraps about some defunct old genius, George asked Kendall to write 'em an article. Answer."
"You've sure made your point, Pep. It can be done."
"Oh, Lord! I'm not half through yet," said McHenry modestly. "Anybody coming down to the stadium this afternoon?"
They were all going; Phillips and Sewall for baseball practice, and Whittemore and Pepper to watch. The two latter, however, lingered for a moment to watch the track candidates, who were disporting themselves within the confines of the great amphitheater.
"Why—I 'II be darned!" exclaimed Whittemore. "Why—why, Pep! Look at that long-legged giraffe! Why, it's Kendall!"
"Certainly looks like him. Holy mackerel! Look at his stride!"
"Gosh! He does look sort of hasty!"
"I wonder if he can really run?"
"Shouldn't be astonished. He's a touchy boy. His freshman year he reported to the varsity squad by mistake—he thought it was the freshman—and because the trainer told him to get the mischief out of there, he went home and sulked, and persuaded himself it was all a deal! Never bothered to get it straightened out—simply sat back and said they weren't giving him a show!"
"Looks like a time trial!" said Whittemore, as a handful of men lined up across the track. "Let's hang around a while."
"I'm with you. What is it, I wonder? A half?"
"Not at that pace. Must be at least the mile. Maybe two miles."
"Two miles! There's Hutchinson. He's no miler."
They found seats in the lowest row of the stadium, and watched the runners slowly circling the quarter-mile cinder path. Kendall, a ludicrous spectacle with his skinny legs, flat chest, and large head, ran last, swinging his prehensile arms awkwardly.
"Doesn't seem to blow up, though," criticized Whittemore. "That's a mile, isn't it? I wonder what time—"
"Thirty-six!" bawled the trainer to the man in the lead. "Thirty-seven—thirty-eight three—thirty-nine two—forty—forty and three!"
"Forty and three for the Kangaroo!" murmured McHenry. "Well—it isn't exactly rotten—"
"Darned good! And—by gosh! He's picking up a bit!"
The elongated sophomore, waving his ridiculously skinny arms like flails, and wabbling from side to side, passed a man, and finished the fifth lap, running ninth out of ten. During the next lap he picked up two more places. Several of the leaders were in distress, but Kendall appeared as fresh as when he started. As the trainer's revolver sounded for the last lap, he was running third, and his giraffelike stride seemed to carry him a dozen yards at each lunge. Whittemore and McHenry were on their feet, screaming encouragement—out on the track a despised, embittered sophomore was rounding the last turn hardly behind the cinders cast by the spikes of an H man! They leaned far over the parapet, and howled for the sprint!
"Run, you ice wagon!" bellowed Whittemore. "Run, you poor prune! Dig your spikes in it! You've got him! You've got him!"
"Come on, you Kendall!" shrieked McHenry. "Come on, you yellow dog! Come on, you quitter!"
They paused abruptly, and sat down. The H man, first across the line by a matter of inches, collapsed on the grass and choked stertorously. Kendall breathed hard for a moment, then trotted away across the grass to the Locker Building.
"Christmas!" said Whittemore hoarsely. "I'll bet that was nine-forty or better, Pep!"
"Come on! Now's the time to clinch it, Whit! Come on—don't ask any questions!"
"Where? What's the matter?"
"Over to the Locker Building," panted McHenry, dragging him down the stairs. "Here! You take this thing, and when you see Kendall, you drop it on the floor and look as fussed as you possibly can!"
Whittemore fumbled the little black pin which Pepper handed him.
"What in time—is this? What's the story? What's—"
"As a personal favor," gasped McHenry. "You do it, Whit!"
"Oh, some more of your deep stuff, Pep? All right—I'll fall!" He examined the little pin as well as he could for the rapid pace they were making. "Why, it's a coffin!" he cried.
"Oh, shut up!" pleaded McHenry. "Shut up! And—I'm winded—you go in and—pretend you're looking for somebody—and drop that thing—and let Kendall see it and—then get it out of sight quick!"
Obediently, but uncomprehendingly, scenting some more of Pepper's effective nonsense, Whittemore went in and dropped it. It fell at the very feet of Kendall, who was making for the showers, and, when he saw it, he turned what Whittemore afterward said was absolutely green. Not vivid, you know—just olive.
IV
A half dozen of Kendall's new friends, politicians of the Yard, sat in his room and discussed what everybody else in the university was talking about at that particular moment.
"There's no question about it," insisted one of them, "the Med. Fac.'s working again!"
"What's the Med. Fac.?" demanded the least sophisticated of the group.
"The Med. Fac.?" The raconteur smiled significantly. "It stands for medical faculty, but of course that's a joke. Why, it's a sort of club—supposed to be some of the big men—no one knows who they are—it's something like the hushes at New Haven. And the initiation is something for which the neophyte would get fired out of college if they caught him at it. For instance, it was the Med. Fac's stunt to paint the statue of John Harvard in the Delta crimson ten years ago, and fool tricks like that. Blamed childish, I call it!"
"Well, the regular initiation stunts are pretty stale by this time," said another man. "I suppose they want to be original—"
"It was original all right! That is, if you see any originality in swiping the big Bible out of chapel and sending it down to Yale—and the letter that went with it was a scream! It said it hoped to bring righteousness to the heathen—"
"I liked the inscription," put in a third man. "Rotten Latin, but they'd understand it, all right! The covers were ripped off, you know, and on the title-page it said:
"COVERES SERVAMUS IN USUM CHESSBOARDII PRO MED. FAC."
"Would a man get fired out of college for swiping a book out of chapel?"
"You bet he would," said Kendall. "That is, if he got caught at it."
"Some club—if you have to take a chance like that! Only, I thought the Med. Fac. was extinct?"
"Well, it was supposed to be, but I'd heard a rumor it was started up again. A lot of wild Mount Auburn Street men like McHenry and his gang, I imagine."
"And it's supposed to have big men in it?"
"Biggest in college. Funny, isn't it? It only goes to show that we're all children, after all."
"Oh, tommyrot!"
"Well, look at it this way! We're none of us clubmen here. Suppose we all had a chance to go into a crack Mount Auburn Street club—provided we'd pull off some stunt like this one? What about it?"
They all looked at each other, and laughed sheepishly.
"I guess we're all in the same boat," conceded the best politician dryly. "I'm not afraid to admit it—I'd pinch Prexy's bicycle if they told me to. Well, let's get down to business. The point is that Mount Auburn Street has run this class for two years, and we're sick of it. We've got to begin right now to make up a slate for junior officers, and work all summer and next fall for it. The big trouble is that we haven't any athletes in the Yard. Just the same, I think we can make it if we work hard enough. Kendall, how do you stand with McHenry's crowd?"
"Why, pretty well. I've seen a good deal of them lately, tutoring, and all that."
"Think you could poll fifty votes over there?"
"Why—I think so."
"Well, you're in a mighty strategic position, old top! You weren't very well known until this spring. You don't have a chance to make enemies. This Monthly business and the track work is great! And you're one of us, too. You'd have the Yard solid! That is, if you weren't so disgustingly retiring—"
"What do you mean—retiring?" demanded Kendall belligerently.
"Well, you wouldn't speak up—"
"How?"
"How? Why, if you'd start in with the debating crowd, and then make a regular stump speaker out of yourself, roar about the street, and boom the Yard, you'd be absolutely sure! And what we want is a man who'd pull the rest of the ticket along with him. Sort of Jackson Democrat. Do you see?"
"You mean you want to run me for—something—"
"Secretary of the class. That snob Phillips is sure of the presidency, but if we can get the secretaryship and the treasurership, that'll give us two to one in appointing the class committees, and we can squelch Phillips every time he tried to open his mouth, and we can boom you as a man of the people, you see—Abe Lincoln idea—one of the masses! Gosh! It always gets 'em!"
"I'll—I'll have to think it over," he stammered. "It's rather sudden, you know—I hadn't thought of it—"
He was quite honest; he hadn't. He couldn't realize that he had altered almost overnight from a man with a perpetual grievance to one who held his head high and exuded an atmosphere of calm assurance as he walked; so that he was glad when these Yard politicians withdrew and gave him time to think it over. Neither did he realize that it was indirectly, but no less certainly, due to the machinations of Pepper McHenry that a second delegation of his classmates tramped up the cold stairways of College House that night to inform him of his election to one of the minor fraternities which habitually takes in poor men who are making their mark in college life.
V
Around the turn into the back stretch raced five white-faced runners and one whose expression was as placid as though he were out for an afternoon stroll around the Reservoir. Moving as gracelessly as the kangaroo, which had given him his nickname, he pulled out from the pole and struck out for home with those laughable strides, which wouldn't seem so laughable in anything but the fall handicap meet. Against Yale, for instance, they were epoch making. And the crowd massed at the finish line, although they laughed and cheered as enthusiastically as they always did when Kendall ran, felt none of the excitement that usually applies to a well-contested two-mile race; for when Kangaroo Kendall took the lead in the back stretch, it was a foregone conclusion that they could write down on their programs:
Two-mile Run: Won by Kendall, scratch. Time—.
He finished according to form, arms waving like windmills, face disfigured with a mighty grin, and a hand ready to support the runner-up, who generally needed it; and as Whittemore and McHenry, who had coached him with well-meaning inanities for the last lap, saw him trotting angularly across to the Locker Building, they remembered their more serious duties back in the Square, and hurried to assume them.
"Curious thing about that chap," remarked Whittemore. "I never saw anything like it. I thought he was the man who invented the grouch—and now look at him!"
"'Look at him' is right!" agreed McHenry. "Well, I told you I'd do it, didn't I?"
"You certainly did, but you didn't promise to make a hero out of him."
"I didn't know I had."
"Any man with nerve enough to run against you for class secretary is something like a hero," said Whittemore sententiously. "I wonder if the poor prune thinks he has any chance?"
"I don't know why not. See what he's done! On the Monthly, on the track team, absolute boss of the Yard—he's gone in for this blood-and-thunder oratory lately—those greasy grinds lick the dust if he tells 'em to—"
"Well, there's no question about his nerve, anyway. Remember the meet last spring when he got spiked in the first ten yards and won out just the same?"
"Oh, he has plenty of nerve!"
Whittemore sniffed.
"It shows plenty of nerve to run against you when you pulled him out of the mud yourself!"
They came to the Union, and insinuated themselves among the watchers at the polls, where the class elections were being fought. The distant chimes announced the hour of six before they had an opportunity of making inquiries, but as some of the less tactful watchers told them immediately afterward, there was hardly any use in counting the ballots. It was a landslide for the Yard. John Phillips, whose presidency had been assured, was snowed under by a spectacled Crimson editor; Titherington, the Mount Auburn Street choice for treasurer, was defeated by a strict geographical vote, and Pepper McHenry, supposedly the most liked man in his class, was a hundred votes behind a cadaverous man named Kendall, whose name hadn't been known to more than a handful until last February.
An additional miracle was that the Yard, which customarily turns out only a small representation—for most of its representatives are confident that Mount Auburn Street will win anyway, so why waste time going over to cast a ballot—had turned out to a man—and it was these unexpected citizens who had beaten McHenry.
He and Whittemore were talking it over quietly in McHenry's room that night when Kendall came in—Kendall, dressed neatly enough, suave, and self-assured. His manner was so impressive that Whittemore instinctively rose to leave.
"No—sit down!" Kendall told him. "I'm not afraid to have you hear what I've got to say—Pep, old man, I'm sorry!"
"Why, I'm not sorry," said McHenry heartily, as they shook hands. "I believe in giving the people what they want, old top—and they evidently wanted you instead of me. Let it go at that!"
"No—there's more than that to it. This man McHenry," he said to Whittemore, "is a wizard!"
"You're on!" granted Whittemore.
"No, you don't know—you can't know! Only, I want somebody to know—I don't exactly want to publish it in the Crime—but I've got to tell somebody! This man McHenry is a wonder! Whittemore, you're another!"
"I?" faltered Whittemore.
"You certainly are! Pepper put me in the way of making a lot of money—that is, a lot for me. I've made a wad tutoring this last year—all Pep's friends, and I know darned well he was responsible for it. And then it was the—you know—that made me get out and mix with the fellows. The track work helped, but that wasn't all. When Pep told me that leadership was one of the requirements, I hustled! I said to myself that it didn't make a darned bit of difference whether men liked my clothes or not—I'd make 'em listen to me! I must have been a whale of a sorehead! Well, then, when I was beginning to think it was a put-up job, you dropped that pin in front of me at the Locker Building, and it was mighty clever the way you did it, too—and I knew then just what it meant! That was a trick of Pep's to show me that it was a real club—and inside of two weeks I got my election notice, and—and made good!"
"What in thunder are you talking about?" gasped Whittemore, but Kendall didn't pause.
"I know we shouldn't speak about it until senior year," he hesitated, lowering his voice, "but I had to tell you fellows that it wasn't the money I got from tutoring that did it—it was getting out and meeting the fellows! And nothing under Heaven could have started me to doing that but—this!"
"Is he bugs?" whispered Whittemore to McHenry.
"You see—up where I come from there's a lot of little colleges, and the men run pretty wild. So when I came down here, and found everybody so sort of—mature, I couldn't understand it. I'm a kid at heart, I guess—and this—this rah-rah stuff tickled me to pieces! And so did the idea of men like you—big men here—wanting me!"
"For the love of Mike, call an ambulance!" hissed Whittemore.
"And that makes it all the harder—but somehow, now that I'm a class officer—although you should have had it, Pep—I—I can't stay in. I must have collected some ideals somehow. I—I hope you'll let me resign!"
Before McHenry could stop him, he reached inside his waistcoat, detached a little black pin, and laid it on the table. McHenry, using admirable presence of mind, kicked Whittemore violently on the shins.
"This is pretty serious, old top!" he said. "You're sure you mean it?"
"Yes, I'm sure."
"You understand the necessity of secrecy—"
"Good Lord, Pepper! You don't think I'd give away my friends, do you?"
"Do we accept his resignation?" demanded Pepper of Whittemore.
"We do," agreed the man who was still nursing his injured shins.
The door hadn't closed before Pepper grabbed for the pin, but Whittemore was too quick for him.
"For Pete's sake," he gurgled, "what is it—my head feels funny—"
"Oh, nothing!" McHenry rose and inspected the scenery of his best engraving. "I suppose you have to know, though—only if you ever mention it, I'll slay you—you're present, dear man, at the final crash of the Med. Fac.—"
"The what?" howled Whittemore, forgetting his shins at the magic name.
Pepper sat down suddenly, and laughed until the tears came.
"It's—it's a scream!" he bubbled. "It's—it's a positive scream!"
His friend leaped upon him and executed a very good imitation of the strangle hold.
"Let go! Let go! I'll tell you! Ouch!"
"You tell me, and be darned quick about it!"
"Why," said McHenry, snickering loudly, "I told you the way to reform the boobs is to find what they want and give it to 'em. This man Kendall was absolutely homesick for some of the rah-rah stuff, so I got some for him—"
"You did!"
"Yes, I did!" gulped the reformer. "He was so homesick—and soreheaded—he was going to quit college! So I pumped him a while—and then I filled him full of rah-rah! I told him we were the old Med. Fac.—"
"Me!" bawled Whittemore, aghast.
"Y-yes. And I told him a lot of fool stuff I didn't think he'd believe, but he swallowed every bit of it! And I told him we picked men of—of individuality—and you never in your life saw a guy who didn't think he had individuality! And I said we wanted men who were active in college—and I made him go out for the Monthly and track work—but of course I didn't know he'd make good at either—and then I gave him his initiation stunt!"
"Pepper—that guy—swiped the Bible out of chapel!"
"He did!" quavered McHenry, weeping with joy. "And—oh, Samuel, Samuel! It was just the thing! He was so proud of being a devil—he braced right up—it was wonderful!"
"But—but about the other members—"
"I told him we didn't recognize each other until senior year," gasped Pepper, shaking pitiably. "Only the man who gave him his stunt! That's all r-right—that's the t-tradition—"
"And that crazy game at the Locker Building—"
"T-that was to persuade him there really was a Med. Fac."
"Whew!" said Whittemore weakly.
"Oh, it was wonderful—wonderful! He was so proud of being a devil! He could walk along Mount Auburn Street and look into everybody's eye—and wonder who the other devils were!"
"And you," said Whittemore, "you've handed the class offices over to the Yard—and the man you fooled took your secretary's job away from you!"
"Well—he'll make a peach of a secretary," declared Pepper, wiping his eyes. "And he's still fooled—and he's got to stay fooled! All his blamed life! Don't you see? He'll never mention it—but even if he gets to be a mighty big man—he'll always remember—"
" I'll be darned if I see how you had the nerve—"
"It was what he wanted!"
"But if he'd been caught he'd have been fired!"
"There wasn't much chance of that," laughed Pepper helplessly. "He was so disgusted he was going to leave college, anyway—and the door of the chapel wasn't even locked—"
"How do you know—"
"I unlocked it myself with a skeleton key—half an hour beforehand—"
Whittemore sat dazed with the consummate daring of it, and only blinked at the still quivering McHenry.
"I said I'd do it, and I did. I made a man out of a mutt and a class secretary out of a sorehead—and if we're good, he may put us on the finance committee, and make us beat it around collecting dues—but, oh, Samuel! This social service is too rich for my blood! Let's register over at Brooks House again—and teach the little muckers how to play football!"
"The Med. Fac.!" breathed Whittemore. "And he swallowed it! Oh, Lord! And you unlocked the door!"
"Of course I did! If I hadn't, it would have been breaking and entering," said McHenry virtuously. He smiled with angelic mildness, and leaned back comfortably in his morris chair. "Gee! but I'm strong for my fellow men!" said McHenry. "You didn't think I'd let him get caught, did you? What kind of idiot do you think I am, anyway?"