Active Service | Page 7

had learned the comparative measurements, and they knew now
that their prowess was ripe to enable them to amply revenge what was,
according to their standards, an execrable deed by a man who had not
the virtue to play the rough game, but was obliged to resort to
uncommon methods. In short, the Freshmen were almost out of control,
and the Sophomores debased but defiant, were quite out of control. The
Senior and junior classes which, in American colleges dictate in these
affrays, found their dignity toppling, and in consequence there was a
sudden oncome of the entire force of upper classmen football players
naturally in advance. All distinctions were dissolved at once in a
general fracas. The stiff and still Gothic windows surveyed a scene of
dire carnage.
Suddenly a voice rang brazenly through the tumult. It was not loud, but
it was different. " Gentlemen! Gentlemen!'" Instantly there was a
remarkable number of haltings, abrupt replacements, quick changes.
Prof. Wainwright stood at the door of his recitation room, looking into
the eyes of each member of the mob of three hundred. "Ssh! " said the
mob. " Ssh! Quit! Stop! It's the Embassador! Stop!" He had once been
minister to Austro-Hungary, and forever now to the students of the
college his name was Embassador. He stepped into the corridor, and
they cleared for him a little respectful zone of floor. He looked about
him coldly. " It seems quite a general dishevelment. The Sophomores
display an energy in the halls which I do not detect in the class room."
A feeble murmur of appreciation arose from the outskirts of the throng.
While he had been speaking several remote groups of battling men had
been violently signaled and suppressed by other students. The professor
gazed into terraces of faces that were still inflamed. " I needn't say that
I am surprised," he remarked in the accepted rhetoric of his kind. He
added musingly: " There seems to be a great deal of torn linen. Who is
the young gentleman with blood on his chin?"
The throng moved restlessly. A manful silence, such as might be in the
tombs of stern and honourable knights, fell upon the shadowed corridor.
The subdued rustling had fainted to nothing. Then out of the crowd

Coke, pale and desperate, delivered himself.
" Oh, Mr. Coke," said the professor, "I would be glad if you would tell
the gentlemen they may retire to their dormitories." He waited while
the students passed out to the campus.
The professor returned to his room for some books, and then began his
own march across the snowy campus. The wind twisted his coat-tails
fantastically, and he was obliged to keep one hand firmly on the top of
his hat. When he arrived home he met his wife in the hall. " Look here,
Mary," he cried. She followed him into the library. " Look here," he
said. "What is this all about? Marjory tells me she wants to marry
Rufus Coleman."
Mrs. Wainwright was a fat woman who was said to pride herself upon
being very wise and if necessary, sly. In addition she laughed
continually in an inexplicably personal way, which apparently made
everybody who heard her feel offended. Mrs. Wainwright laughed.
"Well," said the professor, bristling, " what do you mean by that ? "
"Oh, Harris," she replied. " Oh, Harris."
The professor straightened in his chair. " I do not see any illumination
in those remarks, Mary. I understand from Marjory's manner that she is
bent upon marrying Rufus Coleman. She said you knew of it."
" Why, of course I knew. It was as plain---"
" Plain !" scoffed the professor. " Plain !"
Why, of course," she cried. "I knew it all along."
There was nothing in her tone which proved that she admired the event
itself. She was evidently carried away by the triumph of her penetration.
" I knew it all along," she added, nodding.
The professor looked at her affectionately. "You knew it all along, then,
Mary? Why didn't you tell me, dear ? "

" Because you ought to have known it," she answered blatantly.
The professor was glaring. Finally he spoke in tones of grim reproach.
"Mary, whenever you happen to know anything, dear, it seems only a
matter of partial recompense that you should tell me."
The wife had been taught in a terrible school that she should never
invent any inexpensive retorts concerning bookworms and so she
yawed at once. "Really, Harris. Really, I didn't suppose the affair was
serious. You could have knocked me down with a feather. Of course he
has been here very often, but then Marjory gets a great deal of attention.
A great deal of attention." The professor had been thinking. " Rather