Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 313
“Thanks,” called Ned, and came in with the book.
“Now,” he said, “here they are, the whole lot of them — they’re in alphabetically.” He began to read:
Abbott, A. A. Professor Abbott during the present session has been granted leave of absence to spend a year in Kurdistan where he will look for Dinosaurus eggs. The egg which he found last year turned out to be a wild turkey’s egg.
Bonehead. Professor McBean Bonehead is absent on leave in Scotland making researches on the distillation of alcohol from barley malt. The professor reports that he is getting results already.
“They’re all working like that,” Ned explained, turning over the leaves of the directory. “ ’Professor Loafer has just been awarded two years’ leave for making sociological investigations in England. He will do this in London, working from the Piccadilly Hotel, both intensively and extensively. . . .’ I wouldn’t mind doing that myself, or this one either: ‘Professor Snoop of the Anthropological Department will conduct investigations in Italy during the coming summer. His special field will be anthropometric measurement and he will measure at least a thousand Italian girls of the ages between sixteen and nineteen with a view to obtaining comparative data. It is understood that he will not be able to find time to measure the older women.’ And so it goes on.
“You see,” said Ned, shutting the book up with a snap, “they are all working. But naturally they can’t do their work here. There’s nothing here for them.”
“It must have been funny in the old days,” said Tom, “when the professors actually gave lectures, long talks to the students. I’d like to have heard one.”
“Why, you can,” explained Ned. “They have a lot of the old lectures on all sorts of things canned up in phonographs in the old lecture rooms. It’s all kept locked up but I got in once last year with special leave and heard some.”
“What on?” asked Tom.
Ned shook his head. “We couldn’t tell,” he said, “the lecture didn’t say. Some of us thought it was history but others said it was medicine. You couldn’t tell. The title had got torn out.”
“I wish I could hear some,” said Tom, “it would be interesting.”
“You, why, of course you could — with your stand-in with Dolly Dump. You go to the old bird’s office and say you want to get keys to get in and hear a lecture. She’ll fall for you all right. Only don’t let the old girl come along with you. Shove her out of it if she tries to. I tell you what we’ll do. I’ll get Phil and we’ll go over and get Nita and Dorothy and one or two of the girls to come, and then you can say to Dolly that it’s a group of students and not just you and that may keep her out. Get busy and get ready.”
“Why, of course, Tom, you may have the keys,” said Dean Dump, “I’ll send one of the janitors with you.” Then she added in a heart-to-heart voice, “You’ve been so much in my mind of late; I’ve been hoping that everything is well with you.” She took his hand a moment and clasped it with an eye-to-eye look that meant volumes. “Now,” she continued, “let me see, I wonder if I can find time to go with you.” She took a look at her gold watch. “Yes, perhaps, let me think.”
They moved together towards the door. As Tom held it half open they could see the little group of students in the corridor and he heard quite distinctly Nita’s rough voice saying, “I hope to God he doesn’t bring his old vamp with him.”
Whether Dean Dump heard the words, Tom, not being a woman, didn’t know. He only knew that her manner turned suddenly rigid. “I’m afraid I’ve no time, Mr. Buncom,” she said. Nor did Tom know that after he was gone Dean Dump said to her secretary, “Will you hand me please the list of women students liable next month to a character test.”
Meantime Tom joined the other students.
“Your lady-love not coming, eh?” laughed the girls.
“No time,” said Tom, and the girls laughed again.
It gave the students, even the co-eds, a certain sense of awe as they were ushered by the janitor into the locked-up wing of the old lecture rooms. The walls were dusty. Little sunlight came from the shuttered windows, and the corridor seemed to echo with forgotten voices and with the sound of footsteps long since gone by.
The door of the lecture room creaked on its hinges. The janitor threw back a shutter to let some light into the room. “My grandfather took lectures here,” said Ned. He spoke low as in a church.
“A hell of a place,” said Nita in the same reverential tone.
All about them stood tall upright phonographs with inscriptions on them. “Lectures in Psychology, 1888.” “Mediæval History, 1896.” “Political Science, 1901.”
“Which shall I turn on, gentlemen?” asked the janitor.
“Which do you want, girls?” asked Ned.
“What in hell is Political Science, anyway?” asked Dorothy gently.
“I don’t know,” said Ned. “I think it was a sort of introduction to Communism. Turn it on, Harry, and see.”
The janitor wound up and started the mechanism of the phonograph. The machine began to talk, reproducing word for word the long-forgotten lecture.
“We begin today, gentlemen, the first of our lectures on the Elements of Political Science. Any treatise on Political Science must necessarily begin with some discussion as to the scope and province of the science itself, and its relation to the other branches of human knowledge of a kindred character. This is especially necessary for two reasons. In the first place the term Political Science has been used with a great deal of latitude, not to say ambiguity both in colloquial language and in common discussion. In the second place—”
“Oh, cut out the second place,” said Nita. “The first is quite enough.”
The janitor stopped the machine.
“Say, my heavens! Can you imagine anything so fierce as that? Imagine sitting listening to that stuff. Why, Dorothy, what’s the matter? The kid’s crying.”
“I’m not,” said Dorothy with a sniffle, “only it all seemed so queer, such long-ago stuff.”
“Ah, forget it,” said Nita, “let’s get back into the sunshine.” And with that they left.
As Tom and Ned crossed the campus on the way to their dormitory, they came across Professor Woolgather standing under a tree. Ned went up to him and put out his hand. “You don’t know me, Professor,” he said, “my name is Fairfakes and I think my Uncle George was in your class years ago.”
The Professor looked a little dazed and then shook hands rather spasmodically.
“Ah, yes, yes,” he said. “I think I remember your uncle very well, Mr. — er — Fairman, yes . . . yes . . . and you’re here now at Shucksford. First year, I suppose? . . .”
“No, sir,” Ned said. “I’m a sophomore.”
“Ah, yes, a sophomore, second year, yes, and how are you getting on, Mr. Fairweather? Taking what?”
“Very well, thank you, sir,” answered Ned. “I’m taking mostly the open options, sir.”
“Ah, yes, quite naturally. And your friend, Mr. Fairtree? Is he in the second year too?”
“No, sir, the first. Let me introduce Mr. Thomas Buncom, sir.”
“The name,” said the Professor, stooping a little forward with his hand to his ear.
“Buncom,” said Tom.
“Ah, yes,” said the Professor, “Bome, yes, Bome. I always like to get a name correctly; it’s the only way to retain it. Once seized one can hold it. And now perhaps you’ll excuse me, Mr. Feathertrue, as I have” — he grabbed at his watch— “an almost immediate engagement. Good-bye, Mr. Bickam.”
And with that he went striding off — anywhere.
As Tom walked back to the dormitory he paid but little attention to Ned’s enthusiastic talk about Professor Woolgather. His mind kept running on the fact that Dean Dump had called him “Mr. Buncom.” Instinctively he felt it meant something.
Chapter IV. Danger Ahead
ALL THAT EVENING and at intervals in the days following Tom worried over the possible consequences of the sudden coldness of Dean Dump. But after all, such small troubles as this were easily forgotten in the strenuous but agreeable life at Shucksford.
This was all the more true as the college was now at the height of the football season and the day had come for the big game of the year, the annual contest between Shucksford and its great rival, Nutt College. On that day, once a year, every old Shuck and every old Nutt listened in on the radio to the great game, or rather, to use the proper term, “look-listened” through the radio television. It was said to be the biggest gathering of graduates on the air that took place all the year round. There was, of course, a huge air-crowd for commencement day every June, and the air was crowded again for some of the hockey finals, but it was generally said that the Nutt-Shucksford game took more air than anything. Every graduate was in on it.
Indeed Tom felt a fine sense of college companionship, a sort of feeling of a band of brothers as he and Ned sat in their sitting-room that Saturday to listen in on the big game.
Football games, of course, were no longer played at Shucksford itself. That antiquated system had gone long ago and the old-time stadium had been turned, years before, into a students’ private aerodrome. The Shucksford-Nutt game, like all the big football of the year, was played out in the Nevada desert where the absolute dryness, the clear light, the complete isolation and the freedom from any possible form of bribery made conditions for football ideal. The Shucksford team had been sent out to Nevada in cages a month back. But the special interest of this year’s game lay in the fact that one of the Shucksford team, Jim Doherty, was actually a student at Shucksford.
“It used to be like that, altogether,” Ned Fairfakes explained to Tom as they sat waiting for the game to begin. “I’ve heard old-timers who have read it up explain that in the old days all the players actually were students of the college.”
“It must have been hard to arrange,” said Tom. “I don’t see how they’d get very good men that way.”
“They didn’t,” Ned said. “Why, you look at this list here” — he picked up the programme as he spoke— “Bullock comes from Yorkshire; they hired him in England last summer. Toussaint Camouflage is from Madagascar and Cheng Go-to-Heaven was picked up at the Chinese Missionary College in Canton. Jimmy Doherty is the only white one, unless you count Bullock. But wait a bit, I guess it’s starting.”
Ned turned a button and a voice began. “The game today is presented to the public by Chaw’s Chewing Tobacco. The players in this contest are Shucksford College and Nutt College and in your television glass the entire line-up can now be seen chewing Chaw’s Chewing Tobacco. The game will be introduced by President Snide of Shucksford, who will say a few words.”
“Is Prexie out in Nevada?” murmured Tom in the ensuing pause.
“No, no,” said Ned, “they took him here in front of a dummy cardboard set. There he goes.”
Tom saw the president’s familiar form step out, apparently in front of a group of players, and heard his voice. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are privileged today by Chaw’s Chewing Tobacco to look on one of the greatest events of the football year on the continent. Football is a grand old game. As I was remarking this morning to the president of Chaw’s Chewing Tobacco over a plug of long number one which sells at the popular price of five cents per plug, football is a manly sport, a splendid exercise for millions of our young people. It trains our young people to acquire the mens sana in corpore sano. I may say that the president of Chaw’s Chewing Tobacco expresses his entire assent.”
And with that Tom found himself carried away with the rush and excitement of the game. Not only the voice of the announcer, but the television itself showed the pictures of it. Tom followed every phase of it, breathless, as it was announced.
“First quarter, second minute, Bullock punts behind the Nutt college line, Makiyama returns . . . Komsky fumbles . . . tackles . . . ball dead . . . Chaw’s Chewing Tobacco beg to announce in the interval, Harvard-Oxford, nothing-nothing; Moscow Y.M.C.A. against Vatican, nothing-nothing . . . game on . . . punt . . . touch . . . ball dead . . . man hurt . . . by kindness of Chaw’s Chewing Tobacco . . . International Copper six, International Nickel ten . . . revolutions in Paraguay . . . game continues . . .”
It was Tom’s first experience of big football. He followed it with tense interest every second and when the final score was called nothing-nothing, he felt that he had really seen something.
He shut off the instrument with a half sigh. “Hand me that plug of Chaw’s Chewing Tobacco, will you, Ned, the smaller plug which sells at the popular price of five cents, thus guaranteeing its wide appeal.”
The Monday following the great football game was, if Tom Buncom had only known it, one of the turning points in his life.
A note, half printed, half written, was brought by a janitor to the dormitory:
President Snide will be pleased to see Mr. Thomas Buncom in his office this morning at 10.17.
“Why’s that, Ned?” asked Tom. “Anything the matter?”
“I don’t suppose so,” said Ned, looking at the note. “It’s the other way. It’s a compliment. He knew your people, didn’t he?”
“He was at college with father,” said Tom.
“Ah, then, there you have it. But say, Tom, did your governor ever give any donation to Shucksford?”
“I don’t think so,” Tom answered.
“Well, it might be that. The president, you know, is said to be the finest money-getter on the continent.”
As Tom entered the president’s office he realized that Ned’s praise of the president was more than justified by his appearance. Alert, keen, with every faculty awake — with a figure as erect at fifty as at twenty-five — the president’s appearance was that of the ideal money-getter. There was something in the firmness of his face, and in his keen intelligent eye which suggested the getting of money, while his long prehensile hand, with every finger joint working to perfection, suggested the keeping, or retention, of it.
Never before had Tom realized more clearly the truth of the assertion that the ideal college president must be a money-getter. He felt, as it were, awed in the presence of the man who had got the money for the brass band, who had raised, single-handed, the money for the whole equipment of the pool rooms, who had got together the money for the college garage, for the oil tank station, for the swimming baths, for the dance hall — in fact for most of the things that were making the college what it was.
“Well, well, Mr. Buncom,” said the president, cordially shaking hands. “I’m delighted to make your acquaintance. Your father and I were at college together.”
“Yes, sir,” said Tom, “he has often told me so.”
“Not only at college together, but in the same class — terque quaterque beati — we took Latin in those days, Mr. Buncom — indeed I might add, sine qua non, e pluribus unum, so to speak.”
“Yes, sir,” said Tom. It was impressive to find oneself in the presence of such a scholar as the president.
“And how is your father, Mr. Buncom?” asked Dr. Snide.
“Very well, indeed, sir,” answered Tom.
“That’s good, that’s good,” said the president, rubbing his hands, “and keeping well, I hope. Not affected I trust by the rather — how shall I say — adverse business conditions.”
“I don’t think so,” said Tom. “He hasn’t said anything about it.”
“Ah, hasn’t said anything about it. Now you know I’ve been wondering, Mr. Buncom, whether your father, as an old Shuck, might not feel like — how shall I say — doing something to keep alive his contact with his own college. Some of our old Shucks do one thing, some another. But on the whole we find that perhaps the best form of contact with a college is giving money to it.”
“Yes, sir,” said Tom.
“Money, after all,” said the president, seeking a moment for a word, “is money. In fact I might say pecunia non olet.”
“It is, sir,” said Tom.
“So I ventured to write to your father — Miss Flame, please hand me my yesterday’s letter to Mr. Thomas Buncom, Senior — a letter which he will have received this morning. I’ll read the copy:
“Dear Mr. Buncom:
“The presence at Shucksford of your son, of whom I hear excellent reports, recalls to me our old college days of thirty years ago. I have therefore been wondering whether you would care to endow and equip a college distillery.
“You are no doubt aware that at the present, our students, both men and women, have no better access to distilled spirits than that which can be obtained by mere random purchase.
“I need hardly tell you what hardships and indeed what frauds this imposes on them, and in fact on the whole college community. Only last week I myself was compelled to pay ten dollars for a bottle of what I call very inferior gin.
“It has therefore occurred to a number of professors and trustees that if we had our own distillery on the premises we should be able to offer to these young people under our charge a continuous supply of what I might call first class stuff. We could easily arrange, by personal inspection and test, to guarantee its excellence.
“Your name occurs to me as that of one eminently suited for this form of philanthropy. I shall take an early opportunity to call you by ‘phone and arrange to talk over the matter.”
“There!” said the president. “That went to your father yesterday. I presume he has it this morning. In sending for you this morning, my idea is that you may now speak with your father—”
“Speak with him?” said Tom.
“Exactly — over the long distance. Miss Flame, will you get the connection if you please.”
Misery and apprehension sank into Tom’s heart as he sat waiting for his father’s voice. Only too well he knew what the answer would be; only too often had he heard his father tell of how when he was at college they used to call the present president “Slippery Snide.”
But even Tom was hardly prepared for the burst of profanity that broke out at the other end of the telephone. Fortunately for him, the president couldn’t hear it. Had Tom been skilled in dissimulation he might have carried off the situation. But his tell-tale face betrayed his father’s refusal.
“Now,” he said, “here they are, the whole lot of them — they’re in alphabetically.” He began to read:
Abbott, A. A. Professor Abbott during the present session has been granted leave of absence to spend a year in Kurdistan where he will look for Dinosaurus eggs. The egg which he found last year turned out to be a wild turkey’s egg.
Bonehead. Professor McBean Bonehead is absent on leave in Scotland making researches on the distillation of alcohol from barley malt. The professor reports that he is getting results already.
“They’re all working like that,” Ned explained, turning over the leaves of the directory. “ ’Professor Loafer has just been awarded two years’ leave for making sociological investigations in England. He will do this in London, working from the Piccadilly Hotel, both intensively and extensively. . . .’ I wouldn’t mind doing that myself, or this one either: ‘Professor Snoop of the Anthropological Department will conduct investigations in Italy during the coming summer. His special field will be anthropometric measurement and he will measure at least a thousand Italian girls of the ages between sixteen and nineteen with a view to obtaining comparative data. It is understood that he will not be able to find time to measure the older women.’ And so it goes on.
“You see,” said Ned, shutting the book up with a snap, “they are all working. But naturally they can’t do their work here. There’s nothing here for them.”
“It must have been funny in the old days,” said Tom, “when the professors actually gave lectures, long talks to the students. I’d like to have heard one.”
“Why, you can,” explained Ned. “They have a lot of the old lectures on all sorts of things canned up in phonographs in the old lecture rooms. It’s all kept locked up but I got in once last year with special leave and heard some.”
“What on?” asked Tom.
Ned shook his head. “We couldn’t tell,” he said, “the lecture didn’t say. Some of us thought it was history but others said it was medicine. You couldn’t tell. The title had got torn out.”
“I wish I could hear some,” said Tom, “it would be interesting.”
“You, why, of course you could — with your stand-in with Dolly Dump. You go to the old bird’s office and say you want to get keys to get in and hear a lecture. She’ll fall for you all right. Only don’t let the old girl come along with you. Shove her out of it if she tries to. I tell you what we’ll do. I’ll get Phil and we’ll go over and get Nita and Dorothy and one or two of the girls to come, and then you can say to Dolly that it’s a group of students and not just you and that may keep her out. Get busy and get ready.”
“Why, of course, Tom, you may have the keys,” said Dean Dump, “I’ll send one of the janitors with you.” Then she added in a heart-to-heart voice, “You’ve been so much in my mind of late; I’ve been hoping that everything is well with you.” She took his hand a moment and clasped it with an eye-to-eye look that meant volumes. “Now,” she continued, “let me see, I wonder if I can find time to go with you.” She took a look at her gold watch. “Yes, perhaps, let me think.”
They moved together towards the door. As Tom held it half open they could see the little group of students in the corridor and he heard quite distinctly Nita’s rough voice saying, “I hope to God he doesn’t bring his old vamp with him.”
Whether Dean Dump heard the words, Tom, not being a woman, didn’t know. He only knew that her manner turned suddenly rigid. “I’m afraid I’ve no time, Mr. Buncom,” she said. Nor did Tom know that after he was gone Dean Dump said to her secretary, “Will you hand me please the list of women students liable next month to a character test.”
Meantime Tom joined the other students.
“Your lady-love not coming, eh?” laughed the girls.
“No time,” said Tom, and the girls laughed again.
It gave the students, even the co-eds, a certain sense of awe as they were ushered by the janitor into the locked-up wing of the old lecture rooms. The walls were dusty. Little sunlight came from the shuttered windows, and the corridor seemed to echo with forgotten voices and with the sound of footsteps long since gone by.
The door of the lecture room creaked on its hinges. The janitor threw back a shutter to let some light into the room. “My grandfather took lectures here,” said Ned. He spoke low as in a church.
“A hell of a place,” said Nita in the same reverential tone.
All about them stood tall upright phonographs with inscriptions on them. “Lectures in Psychology, 1888.” “Mediæval History, 1896.” “Political Science, 1901.”
“Which shall I turn on, gentlemen?” asked the janitor.
“Which do you want, girls?” asked Ned.
“What in hell is Political Science, anyway?” asked Dorothy gently.
“I don’t know,” said Ned. “I think it was a sort of introduction to Communism. Turn it on, Harry, and see.”
The janitor wound up and started the mechanism of the phonograph. The machine began to talk, reproducing word for word the long-forgotten lecture.
“We begin today, gentlemen, the first of our lectures on the Elements of Political Science. Any treatise on Political Science must necessarily begin with some discussion as to the scope and province of the science itself, and its relation to the other branches of human knowledge of a kindred character. This is especially necessary for two reasons. In the first place the term Political Science has been used with a great deal of latitude, not to say ambiguity both in colloquial language and in common discussion. In the second place—”
“Oh, cut out the second place,” said Nita. “The first is quite enough.”
The janitor stopped the machine.
“Say, my heavens! Can you imagine anything so fierce as that? Imagine sitting listening to that stuff. Why, Dorothy, what’s the matter? The kid’s crying.”
“I’m not,” said Dorothy with a sniffle, “only it all seemed so queer, such long-ago stuff.”
“Ah, forget it,” said Nita, “let’s get back into the sunshine.” And with that they left.
As Tom and Ned crossed the campus on the way to their dormitory, they came across Professor Woolgather standing under a tree. Ned went up to him and put out his hand. “You don’t know me, Professor,” he said, “my name is Fairfakes and I think my Uncle George was in your class years ago.”
The Professor looked a little dazed and then shook hands rather spasmodically.
“Ah, yes, yes,” he said. “I think I remember your uncle very well, Mr. — er — Fairman, yes . . . yes . . . and you’re here now at Shucksford. First year, I suppose? . . .”
“No, sir,” Ned said. “I’m a sophomore.”
“Ah, yes, a sophomore, second year, yes, and how are you getting on, Mr. Fairweather? Taking what?”
“Very well, thank you, sir,” answered Ned. “I’m taking mostly the open options, sir.”
“Ah, yes, quite naturally. And your friend, Mr. Fairtree? Is he in the second year too?”
“No, sir, the first. Let me introduce Mr. Thomas Buncom, sir.”
“The name,” said the Professor, stooping a little forward with his hand to his ear.
“Buncom,” said Tom.
“Ah, yes,” said the Professor, “Bome, yes, Bome. I always like to get a name correctly; it’s the only way to retain it. Once seized one can hold it. And now perhaps you’ll excuse me, Mr. Feathertrue, as I have” — he grabbed at his watch— “an almost immediate engagement. Good-bye, Mr. Bickam.”
And with that he went striding off — anywhere.
As Tom walked back to the dormitory he paid but little attention to Ned’s enthusiastic talk about Professor Woolgather. His mind kept running on the fact that Dean Dump had called him “Mr. Buncom.” Instinctively he felt it meant something.
Chapter IV. Danger Ahead
ALL THAT EVENING and at intervals in the days following Tom worried over the possible consequences of the sudden coldness of Dean Dump. But after all, such small troubles as this were easily forgotten in the strenuous but agreeable life at Shucksford.
This was all the more true as the college was now at the height of the football season and the day had come for the big game of the year, the annual contest between Shucksford and its great rival, Nutt College. On that day, once a year, every old Shuck and every old Nutt listened in on the radio to the great game, or rather, to use the proper term, “look-listened” through the radio television. It was said to be the biggest gathering of graduates on the air that took place all the year round. There was, of course, a huge air-crowd for commencement day every June, and the air was crowded again for some of the hockey finals, but it was generally said that the Nutt-Shucksford game took more air than anything. Every graduate was in on it.
Indeed Tom felt a fine sense of college companionship, a sort of feeling of a band of brothers as he and Ned sat in their sitting-room that Saturday to listen in on the big game.
Football games, of course, were no longer played at Shucksford itself. That antiquated system had gone long ago and the old-time stadium had been turned, years before, into a students’ private aerodrome. The Shucksford-Nutt game, like all the big football of the year, was played out in the Nevada desert where the absolute dryness, the clear light, the complete isolation and the freedom from any possible form of bribery made conditions for football ideal. The Shucksford team had been sent out to Nevada in cages a month back. But the special interest of this year’s game lay in the fact that one of the Shucksford team, Jim Doherty, was actually a student at Shucksford.
“It used to be like that, altogether,” Ned Fairfakes explained to Tom as they sat waiting for the game to begin. “I’ve heard old-timers who have read it up explain that in the old days all the players actually were students of the college.”
“It must have been hard to arrange,” said Tom. “I don’t see how they’d get very good men that way.”
“They didn’t,” Ned said. “Why, you look at this list here” — he picked up the programme as he spoke— “Bullock comes from Yorkshire; they hired him in England last summer. Toussaint Camouflage is from Madagascar and Cheng Go-to-Heaven was picked up at the Chinese Missionary College in Canton. Jimmy Doherty is the only white one, unless you count Bullock. But wait a bit, I guess it’s starting.”
Ned turned a button and a voice began. “The game today is presented to the public by Chaw’s Chewing Tobacco. The players in this contest are Shucksford College and Nutt College and in your television glass the entire line-up can now be seen chewing Chaw’s Chewing Tobacco. The game will be introduced by President Snide of Shucksford, who will say a few words.”
“Is Prexie out in Nevada?” murmured Tom in the ensuing pause.
“No, no,” said Ned, “they took him here in front of a dummy cardboard set. There he goes.”
Tom saw the president’s familiar form step out, apparently in front of a group of players, and heard his voice. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are privileged today by Chaw’s Chewing Tobacco to look on one of the greatest events of the football year on the continent. Football is a grand old game. As I was remarking this morning to the president of Chaw’s Chewing Tobacco over a plug of long number one which sells at the popular price of five cents per plug, football is a manly sport, a splendid exercise for millions of our young people. It trains our young people to acquire the mens sana in corpore sano. I may say that the president of Chaw’s Chewing Tobacco expresses his entire assent.”
And with that Tom found himself carried away with the rush and excitement of the game. Not only the voice of the announcer, but the television itself showed the pictures of it. Tom followed every phase of it, breathless, as it was announced.
“First quarter, second minute, Bullock punts behind the Nutt college line, Makiyama returns . . . Komsky fumbles . . . tackles . . . ball dead . . . Chaw’s Chewing Tobacco beg to announce in the interval, Harvard-Oxford, nothing-nothing; Moscow Y.M.C.A. against Vatican, nothing-nothing . . . game on . . . punt . . . touch . . . ball dead . . . man hurt . . . by kindness of Chaw’s Chewing Tobacco . . . International Copper six, International Nickel ten . . . revolutions in Paraguay . . . game continues . . .”
It was Tom’s first experience of big football. He followed it with tense interest every second and when the final score was called nothing-nothing, he felt that he had really seen something.
He shut off the instrument with a half sigh. “Hand me that plug of Chaw’s Chewing Tobacco, will you, Ned, the smaller plug which sells at the popular price of five cents, thus guaranteeing its wide appeal.”
The Monday following the great football game was, if Tom Buncom had only known it, one of the turning points in his life.
A note, half printed, half written, was brought by a janitor to the dormitory:
President Snide will be pleased to see Mr. Thomas Buncom in his office this morning at 10.17.
“Why’s that, Ned?” asked Tom. “Anything the matter?”
“I don’t suppose so,” said Ned, looking at the note. “It’s the other way. It’s a compliment. He knew your people, didn’t he?”
“He was at college with father,” said Tom.
“Ah, then, there you have it. But say, Tom, did your governor ever give any donation to Shucksford?”
“I don’t think so,” Tom answered.
“Well, it might be that. The president, you know, is said to be the finest money-getter on the continent.”
As Tom entered the president’s office he realized that Ned’s praise of the president was more than justified by his appearance. Alert, keen, with every faculty awake — with a figure as erect at fifty as at twenty-five — the president’s appearance was that of the ideal money-getter. There was something in the firmness of his face, and in his keen intelligent eye which suggested the getting of money, while his long prehensile hand, with every finger joint working to perfection, suggested the keeping, or retention, of it.
Never before had Tom realized more clearly the truth of the assertion that the ideal college president must be a money-getter. He felt, as it were, awed in the presence of the man who had got the money for the brass band, who had raised, single-handed, the money for the whole equipment of the pool rooms, who had got together the money for the college garage, for the oil tank station, for the swimming baths, for the dance hall — in fact for most of the things that were making the college what it was.
“Well, well, Mr. Buncom,” said the president, cordially shaking hands. “I’m delighted to make your acquaintance. Your father and I were at college together.”
“Yes, sir,” said Tom, “he has often told me so.”
“Not only at college together, but in the same class — terque quaterque beati — we took Latin in those days, Mr. Buncom — indeed I might add, sine qua non, e pluribus unum, so to speak.”
“Yes, sir,” said Tom. It was impressive to find oneself in the presence of such a scholar as the president.
“And how is your father, Mr. Buncom?” asked Dr. Snide.
“Very well, indeed, sir,” answered Tom.
“That’s good, that’s good,” said the president, rubbing his hands, “and keeping well, I hope. Not affected I trust by the rather — how shall I say — adverse business conditions.”
“I don’t think so,” said Tom. “He hasn’t said anything about it.”
“Ah, hasn’t said anything about it. Now you know I’ve been wondering, Mr. Buncom, whether your father, as an old Shuck, might not feel like — how shall I say — doing something to keep alive his contact with his own college. Some of our old Shucks do one thing, some another. But on the whole we find that perhaps the best form of contact with a college is giving money to it.”
“Yes, sir,” said Tom.
“Money, after all,” said the president, seeking a moment for a word, “is money. In fact I might say pecunia non olet.”
“It is, sir,” said Tom.
“So I ventured to write to your father — Miss Flame, please hand me my yesterday’s letter to Mr. Thomas Buncom, Senior — a letter which he will have received this morning. I’ll read the copy:
“Dear Mr. Buncom:
“The presence at Shucksford of your son, of whom I hear excellent reports, recalls to me our old college days of thirty years ago. I have therefore been wondering whether you would care to endow and equip a college distillery.
“You are no doubt aware that at the present, our students, both men and women, have no better access to distilled spirits than that which can be obtained by mere random purchase.
“I need hardly tell you what hardships and indeed what frauds this imposes on them, and in fact on the whole college community. Only last week I myself was compelled to pay ten dollars for a bottle of what I call very inferior gin.
“It has therefore occurred to a number of professors and trustees that if we had our own distillery on the premises we should be able to offer to these young people under our charge a continuous supply of what I might call first class stuff. We could easily arrange, by personal inspection and test, to guarantee its excellence.
“Your name occurs to me as that of one eminently suited for this form of philanthropy. I shall take an early opportunity to call you by ‘phone and arrange to talk over the matter.”
“There!” said the president. “That went to your father yesterday. I presume he has it this morning. In sending for you this morning, my idea is that you may now speak with your father—”
“Speak with him?” said Tom.
“Exactly — over the long distance. Miss Flame, will you get the connection if you please.”
Misery and apprehension sank into Tom’s heart as he sat waiting for his father’s voice. Only too well he knew what the answer would be; only too often had he heard his father tell of how when he was at college they used to call the present president “Slippery Snide.”
But even Tom was hardly prepared for the burst of profanity that broke out at the other end of the telephone. Fortunately for him, the president couldn’t hear it. Had Tom been skilled in dissimulation he might have carried off the situation. But his tell-tale face betrayed his father’s refusal.
