The Prospector | Page 5

know what you are saying. `Some day,
some day they will grovel.' Alas, only too soon! And, indeed, here
comes The Don on his second round. I'll ask him what he means."
"If you dare!" cried Betty.
"Mr. Lloyd!" said Helen haughtily, and Mr. Lloyd thought better of it.
But "The Don" did not even glance toward the group.
"Look at that, now," said Lloyd disgustedly.
"Did anyone ever see such besotted devotion to a barbarous vocation."
"He did not see us at all," insisted Betty. "But why is Mr. Balfour
called 'The Don'?"
"Obviously, I should say, from his Don-like appearance, bearing,
carriage, etc. But I am not an authority. Ask little Brown, your special
slave. He knows all about both Shock and The Don."
"What absurd names you have," exclaimed Betty. "Now, what is the
reason for Shock's name? Is it the shock of his charge in the
scrimmage?"
"Not bad, that. I rather fear, however, it has to do with his most striking
feature, if feature it be, for, when you pull him feet first out of a
scrimmage, a method not infrequently adopted, his head is a sight to
behold. But, as I said before, ask Brown."
"I will to-night. He's coming over after tea. You are coming, too, are
you not?"

Lloyd bowed. "I shall be delighted"
True to her word Betty greeted Brown, on his appearance in the cosy,
homelike parlour of the Fairbanks' that evening, with the question,
"How did 'The Don' come by his nickname?"
"Oh, did you never know that? Most fellows put it down to his style,
but it's not that. He got it from his blood. You know, his father was one
of those West India, sea-captains that one used to find strewn thick
through Halifax society, who made fortunes in rum and lost them pretty
much the same way. Well, the old captain married a Spanish girl. I
have seen her portrait, and she was a beauty, a `high-bred Spanish
lady,' sure enough. Lived somewhere in the islands. Came home with
the Captain, and died in Halifax, leaving her seven year old boy in
charge of an aunt. Father died soon afterwards. Grief, I believe, and
drink. Even then his people called the 'the little Don.' He had a little
money left him to start with, but that has long since vanished. At any
rate, for the last five or six years he has had to fend for himself."
"Quite a romance," said Lloyd.
"Isn't it?" exclaimed Betty. "And he never told a word."
"Well, The Don's not a publisher."
"But then he told you."
"Yes, he told me and Shock one night. He likes us, you see."
"'De gustibus non disputandum,'" murmured Lloyd, and in answer to
Betty's inquiring look added, "as the old woman said when she kissed
her cow."
"Now then, what about Shock's name?" continued Betty.
"Hair," said Brown laconically. "You have seen him come out of a
scrimmage like a crab?"
"Yes. Isn't he just lovely then?" exclaimed Betty.
"Lovely? Oh, woman, woman! A ghastly, bloody, fearsome spectacle.
Lovely! But it was ever thus. 'Butchered to make a Roman holiday,'"
replied Lloyd.
"Well, he is rather bloody. Bleeds easily, you; know, but it doesn't hurt
at all," said Brown. "He never really enjoys himself till the blood
flows."
"Disgusting old Berserker!" exclaimed Lloyd.
"But I think he is just a dear," went on Betty enthusiastically. "The way
he puts his head right down into a crowd of men, and lets them jump on

him and maul him!"
"Yes," replied her sister, who had taken little part in the conversation,
"and comes out smiling. That is what I like."
"And bloody," added Lloyd. "That's what Miss Betty likes."
"I want to know about him," cried Betty impatiently. "Why don't we get
to know him? Tell me about him," she insisted. "Where does he live?
Who are his people?"
Brown hesitated.
"Well, you see, Shock's shy. Does not go in for the sort of thing that
Lloyd, for instance, revels and glitters in--teas, functions, social routs,
and all that, you know. He has only his mother, a dear old Highland
lady, poor, proud, and independent. She lives in a quaint little house out
on the Commons away behind the college, and lives for, in, with, by,
and around Shock, and he vice versa. He shares everything with her, his
work down in the mission--"
"Mission!" interrupted Betty.
"Yes. Runs a mission down in St. John's ward. Gives her all his
experiences with the denizens of that precinct, keeps her in touch with
his college work, and even with his football. You ought to see him lay a
out the big matches before her on the tea table with plates, cups, salt
cellars, knives, spoons, and you ought