The Measure of the Rule E-Book

Robert Barr

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Robert Barr has been almost completely overlooked by critics and anthologists of Canadian literature, in part because, although he was educated in Canada, he spent most of his life in the United States and England. However, since most of his serious novels are either set in Canada or have some Canadian connection, Barr deserves attention. „The Measure of the Rule” is a 1907 coming-of-age novel about a country teacher who migrates to the city to study engineering, but is forced by dint of circumstance to go to a teacher’s training college, where he meets his wife-to-be. In this novel, Barr is exorcising unhappy memories and is ironic, even bitter, about the school’s system and school’s quality of education, the rigid discipline observed by its staff and their indifference to their students, and the sexual segregation practiced. A number of men under whom Barr actually studied are vividly caricatured.

Leseprobe

Contents

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER I

Perhaps thou wert a Mason, and forbiddenBy oath to tell the secrets of thy trade.

Address to an Egyptian Mummy.

The short winter day, increasingly cold, was drawing to a close as the train, ninety minutes late, came to a standstill under the lofty canopy of the Union Station. For hours and hours it had crunched along over a frozen land, losing time because of slippery rails and accumulated snow. With the ending of that railway journey a section of my own life had reached its conclusion; for, like the train that carried me, hitherto I had been losing time. On the previous day an ambitious friend, solemnly bidding me farewell, suddenly realized to the full the importance of the plunge I was making, and put the question–

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-three,” I replied. “How old are you?”

“Thank God, I’m only nineteen,” was his fervent answer.

To-day, I being well on in years, there seems an element of humour in that brief conversation, but it was serious enough at the time, and, for a moment, this four years’ handicap pressed its weight upon my shoulders.

Heretofore my life had been spent first in the labour of tilling a backwoods farm; second, in the labour of teaching a backwoods school. It is delightful to read in books about farming, and even the periodical press contains now and then articles upon agriculture so charmingly written that the reader is soon convinced of the simplicity, healthfulness and independence which a rural existence presents to its votaries, and as I peruse these contributions I am filled with a vague longing to go back to the land. Candour compels me to state, however, that at the time I was engaged in this vocation the prospects which look so well in print had not been presented to me. I was quite willing to leave to others the delights of raising wheat while I earned my bread in some other manner. Being thus determined to exchange the complex existence of a farm for the simple life of the city, I spent my evenings and wet days in study of one kind and another, reading everything in the shape of a book that came to my hands, discovering thus a very pretty taste for mathematics and science, finding algebra as interesting as the puzzle column in our weekly paper, while Euclid’s problems seemed to be much better constructed than the average short story, with conclusions that were invariably more logical and satisfactory than the efforts of even our best authors, and thus it came about that one day I journeyed to our county town, passed certain examinations inflicted by the State, and emerged from the ordeal with a third-class certificate, licensing me to teach school for the term of three years from the date thereof.

I now got my first lesson regarding the nonsense talked by those charming writers who show the advantages of farming life. My day’s work, instead of beginning anywhere from four to six o’clock in the morning, started at nine, and ended at four, while my recompense was half-a-dozen times the amount I could have earned at farm work, though I toiled all day and half the night. I have owned farms since that time, but laboured on them merely by proxy, earning my bread, as Artemus Ward said, by the sweat of the hired man’s brow.

The forced economy of the farm was part of my nature, so I determined in that three years covered by my teacher’s certificate to save enough money to enable me to grapple with a college. I knew that my future lay along one of two paths: mathematics or science. Science fascinated me, and on more than one occasion I had nearly blinded myself with premature explosions. A young man with a lean purse, and thirty miles between him and the nearest chemist’s shop, one would think had little opportunity for research, nevertheless so successful were some of my experiments that the inhabitants of the house where I boarded were compelled on several occasions to camp out in the green fields while the breezes of heaven blew noxious vapours through the open windows. I achieved in some sort a local reputation, but the desire to have me board at some one else’s house became exceedingly general throughout our neighbourhood. I dreamed of ultimately receiving the thanks of the Royal Society by discovering some new and particularly objectionable compound.

On the other hand, there was a chance that I might be a success in mathematics, perhaps as a grave college professor, or who knows what else. A young man whose taste for light reading is such that he goes through six books of Euclid like a ravaging bush-fire, and yearns for more, seems adapted for progression along that line.

At the moment when the respective claims of mathematics and science swung in equal adjustment, there was slowly approaching me across the fields and through the woods a young man of my own age who was destined to settle the matter. Looking out of the window of the white school-house on the hill one afternoon, I saw this young man with bent back and wide-spread legs in the field below, peering through a little telescope on a tripod. He was making incantations with his hands, waving now the right, now the left, and far down the valley stood another chap, holding upright a red and white wooden pole taller than himself, which he adjusted this way or that in response to the manual signs made by his chief. I knew at once what was afoot. These were the advance scouts of the railway which had been talked about for years and years. Nobody in the neighbourhood believed it would ever be built, and yet the other day I read that the world’s record of railway speed had been broken along the line this young man was surveying.

It was nearly four o’clock in the afternoon, and as no pupil is likely to complain if the school is dismissed a few minutes too soon, I let the class go, climbed a fence, crossed a field, and struck up an acquaintance with the civil engineer. The young man was as glad to meet me as I was to meet him, for as the sun declined he became anxious about a stopping place for the night. On this point I was able to relieve his mind. I lived at a house some two miles further west, and there I assured him he could secure a room, and something to eat, such as it was. He was accompanied by a retinue of axe men who slashed their way through the forest when tall timber intercepted the line. The choppers were a rough crowd, given to profanity and chewing tobacco. Their days were employed in cutting a straight and narrow path, but not necessarily in following it. This gang slept in barns, with or without permission, or in the woods if night overtook them there. So, indeed, did the civil engineer and his super, who carried the wooden pole, when they could do no better, but the two young men preferred more civilized environment when they could get it.

We spent a red-letter evening after supper. The engineer was an excellent story-teller, and he recited extract after extract out of a book then just published, entitled The Innocents Abroad, written by a man I had never heard of, named Mark Twain. I resolved to buy the book, for the author seemed to have touched on several points overlooked by my ancient comrade, Euclid. But the most startling thing I learned that evening was the compensation received by an engineer running a railway line. The sum seemed incredible in its hugeness, and I resolved at once to join so lucrative a profession. I wrote to the University several hundred miles away, asking particulars of the civil engineering course, and received a printed slip of paper which gave a list of books, and various interesting items from which I gathered that two years from entering the University I might, if reasonably diligent, write C.E. after my name. And thus it was that on a particular evening in the early part of January I found myself one of the crowd emerging from the train at the Union Station of the city that contained the University.

Leaving my trunk in custody of the railway company, and taking only a small hand-bag, for I should need to stop at an hotel for a night or two, until I learned whether I should be assigned rooms at the University, or be directed to lodgings outside, I walked up a slight hill, and came to the main street of the town, the crisp snow creaking under my feet. The weather was intensely cold, but very dry, and the air seemed as exhilarating as if some magician had taken all the nitrogen out of it. I needed no stimulant, however, for I was already in a state of such exaltation that the snow I trod might have been the clouds of heaven. Although the lamps were lit in two long lines, stretching so far that they seemed to merge into one another, on either side of the main street, darkness had not yet set in. I stood for a moment, and gazed down past the Union Station to the great lake upon whose shore the city stood. To the eye it was as expansive as the ocean, for in the clearest day no man can see to the other side. Motionless it lay, and sailless; frozen, and pure white with the wreathed snow that covered it to the horizon. Along the water front rose innumerable masts of ships locked in the iron grip of winter. A mile or more away a curved island partially enclosed a bay that faced the city, and the surface of this bay, dark as slate, was of smooth, clear ice, from which the wind seemed to have swept every vestige of snow.

In the deepening gloom it looked like a liquid lake forgotten by the frost, and this illusion was strengthened by two or three belated ice-yachts skimming over its surface, their huge sails, out of all proportion to the hulls, making them, in the haze of distance, to resemble low-flying gulls of incredible swiftness. The street cars were gliding along on runners, tuneful bells jingling on the necks of the horses; the rails temporarily abandoned under the snow. But I did not patronize the company. My tip for the next two years was rigid economy, and it cost nothing to walk. On my right hand I passed a huge hotel, which seemed to me the largest in the world, occupying the greater part of a whole city block. That hotel might be mine some day after the letters C.E. had been attached to my name, but not to-night, yet poverty seemed simply a good joke, a merely temporary inconvenience. Life was full of such amazing possibilities. I had just stepped across the threshold of the world, so I snapped my fingers at the big hotel, and cried aloud–

“Some day, my friend, we’ll meet again.”

Reaching the market square, I found the tavern of which I was in search, and there, with an overpowering feeling of being a prince at large, I ordered a room, and hanged the expense. After securing the room I enjoyed the evening meal in a dining-room so huge and gaudily lighted that it gave me the feeling the Prodigal Son must have experienced when he first set out to squander his share of the property. Often have I looked at the outside of this commonplace commercial hotel since the time of which I write, and have restrained the inclination to approach the cook, and say to him–

“If you can give me what I had when I first dined with you twenty years ago, I will pay you unquestioned the rates of the most expensive hotel in the world.”

The astonished man would probably reply that the fare of to-day is infinitely superior to that provided in the last century, and such may be the case, but he could never supply the delicious sense of semi-wickedness which his hostelry formerly bestowed upon me: a thrill which belonged to twenty-three, graphically described by Magda as being “on the loose.” Many morals have been pointed from the career of the Prodigal Son, but no one has yet pictured the young man’s hilarious sense of freedom while his funds lasted.

After dinner I went out to view my newly-acquired kingdom. The clear-cut moon had risen glittering and cold, and seemingly so near as to be neighbour to the city and part of its municipal lighting scheme. The streets presented all the splendour of an Arabian tale transported north; the shops were ablaze with light; the pavement thronged with an effervescent people. The street was musical with the tinkle of silver-tongued bells, and alive with the swift motion of spirited horses and gliding sleighs. This capital was a city of hilarious youth, with the riches of the world displayed behind sheets of plate-glass, transparent as curtains of dew.

As I had already traversed the main streets from the Union Station to the market-place, I now broke new ground and struck north along a thoroughfare scarcely less distinguished than the one I had left. This, I knew vaguely, led to the University, whose building I had never seen except in a picture. As I wandered farther and farther north the pavement became less and less crowded. The shops out here were beginning to close, and by and by I found myself alone. The name of a side street attracted my attention. It was Park Avenue, and I turned to the left, walking underneath a canopy of trees through which the moonlight filtered, and came at last to the entrance of an extensive park, beautifully undulating, with its coverlet of snow, dazzlingly pure under the ascending moon, its million points of frost scintillating in the cold radiance, like diamond dust on the gown of a bride. Gigantic trees were grouped here and there, as if they formed the rear-guard of the ever-retreating primeval forest which, within the memory of living man, had covered these plains; or, rather, they seemed sentinels forgotten, standing frozen at their posts, like Napoleon’s veterans in the disastrous march from Moscow. The night was intensely still, and I stood there as much alone as if I had never left the frost-bound farm in the west. The cultured park, with its formal gravel walks, its trim parterres and beds for summer flowers, had lapsed back to Nature under the all-covering mantle of snow, until now it was very brother to the farm. It seemed impossible to believe that but half-an-hour ago I had been jostled by the multitude.

And yet in this solitude the works of man over-topped the works of God. Above the tall trees rose the taller Norman tower of University College, strong and staunch in solid stone; square and battlemented, with its round turret in the corner, like a military castle set up on the battle-ground, where savagery and ignorance had waged its ineffectual warfare with civilization and enlightenment. I pressed through the miniature forest to the other side, and there before me stood the most magnificent structure I had ever seen: the centre of a landscape almost blinding white, with the moonlight shining full upon this noble edifice. I fancy I was enthralled with the same emotion that agitates a devout pilgrim when from the hills he sees for the first time the dome of St. Peter’s in Rome. Here, like a dream-palace, was the fulfilment of dreams, and as I leaned against a tree and gazed upon it, my eyes filled with tears, until the vision became dimmed as if a cloud had overcast the moon. It all seemed unreal, and unreal it was, so far as I was concerned, for another man had once stood as I was standing there: his name was Moses, and he viewed the Promised Land.

All along the extended front no light was visible; its numerous windows gazed blindly at the moon. These sightless panes, without a friendly gleam behind any one of them, began to oppress me with a loneliness that was almost intolerable; my exaltation subsided, and gradually died in a shiver of desire to hear a friendly voice. I retraced my steps down into the bustling city once more, yet, strangely enough, the loneliness was not lifted. All these gay, laughing people were conversing with each other on their mutual concerns, and I was an outsider. I had merely exchanged the lonesomeness of the solitude for the greater lonesomeness of the unknown crowd. Thinking of absent friends, I remembered a note written before dinner to announce my safe arrival in the city, and inquiring for the nearest letter-box, was directed to the post-office itself, into whose maw I dropped my missive. Near the post-office stood a striking building of stone, with flat pillars running from the pavement to its very eaves, giving to it an unusual appearance, which may or may not have been good architecture. Asking its purpose of a passer-by, he told me it was a temple of a noted fraternity. This secret organization I had joined the day I was twenty-one, and eligible. I asked if a Lodge met there that night, and the man laughed, taking me doubtless for what I was, a green countryman.

“There are probably two or three in session at this moment, as it is the home of many Lodges. The porter in the entrance hall will give you more exact information if you wish it,” and so the stranger passed on.

I stood there gazing at the Temple as a while before I had gazed at the College. Inside were sworn brothers of mine, so why not pluck up courage, enter, and greet them? I had every right, and was well up in the ritual. A reluctance to thrust myself thus upon strangers held me back for a few hesitating minutes, but I said to myself that a civil engineer should be a bold man if he is to succeed; so I crossed to the Temple, and interviewed the custodian. He gave me the choice of several Lodges, and when I had made my selection, conducted me into an ante-room, where, presently, two brethren came out, asked me a number of questions, shook hands, and invited me inside.

An initiation was going forward, so I tip-toed to the first seat available, and there sat until the end. When the function was finished, a general movement and mix-up of members immediately took place. The two who had introduced me now sought me out.

“We are all about to adjourn from labour to refreshment,” said one. “Is there any friend among our members with whom you would like to sit?”

“No,” I replied; “I do not know a soul in the whole city. I came up to-day from the western country, and expect to begin attendance at the University to-morrow.”

“Ah,” said my new friend, “then that’s why you came to this Lodge. We call ourselves the Educational Lodge of the city.”

“Then I hope that’s a good omen,” I replied. “I must admit I made my choice in ignorance. The man down-stairs mentioned the Lodges in session, and I chose this one purely by accident.”

“In that case,” continued the one that had spoken, “we’ll place you beside Professor Bruit.”

“Nonsense,” cried the other, “if he attends the University for the next three or four years, he’ll see more than enough of Bruit, who’s as dry as a stick. We can do better for him than that. Let us introduce him to Dr. Darnell. He has some sense of humour.”

“You forget,” objected the first, “that the Doctor’s own institution opens this week, and he is always like a bear for several days before.”

“Oh, come now,” his colleague protested, “I never knew the Doctor bring his renowned discipline into a Lodge-room. He is a Prince of Schoolmasters and a Doctor of Divinity, but he mixes with us incog. and leaves the pedagogue at home.”

I threw a dash of oil on the waves of discussion.

“I am myself in a small way a peasant of schoolmasters, so I insist on meeting my Prince.”

The two men laughed, and the one who had demurred, said–

“That settles it; you are the victim of Dr. Darnell,” and with this he hailed a man whom I had already differentiated from the rest, wondering who he was. The crowd in the Lodge-room was filtering through an open doorway, which gave a glimpse beyond of a long table, set for supper. Dr. Darnell seemed to have forgotten all about the call from labour to refreshment, for, quite alone, he paced up and down the emptying Lodge-room with head bent and hands clasped behind him, meditating on some problem, with a deeply-marked frown on his broad brow, seemingly as oblivious of companionship as if he were alone in his own study. The dome of his head was bald, and on each side of his face stood out bristling whiskers of an aggressive red. His features were strongly marked and clean cut, and his eyes, when he raised them from the floor, seemed to scintillate with chilly grey light that penetrated me like X-rays. When he was aroused from his reverie, introduced, and had turned his regard upon me, I felt, under that flash of appraisement, that I was instantaneously judged, condemned, and cast aside. My sponsor gave me a genial introduction.

“Dr. Darnell,” he said, “I want to make you acquainted with Brother Thomas Prentiss, who comes from the western land, and has journeyed to the East, like a true member of our fraternity, in quest of wise men, and so we instantly thought of you.”

“Ah,” said the D.D., and if brevity is the soul of wit, the Doctor of Divinity had scored in his curt salutation. He shook hands with no undue cordiality, and bestowed upon me another lance-like glance, which the two men simultaneously interpreted, and one of them hastened to reassure the Prince of Schoolmasters.

“Mr. Prentiss is not coming under your tutelage, Doctor, but aspires to be an undergraduate at the University.”

“Ah,” said the Doctor again, giving a slight inflection of relief to the exclamation.

Our quartette now moved towards the dining-room, my conductors vying with each other in cheerful conversation about nothing in particular, probably to mitigate the frigid reception accorded me by the learned schoolmaster, while one at least may have cherished a hope that the Doctor himself would thaw even slightly, and merit the reputation he had received of being a humorist, but he walked in silence to the table, and contented himself by indicating the chair adjoining him, with a wave of his hand. Upon this chair I seated myself, as tongue-tied as he, and we were left by the other two to make the best of it. I deeply regretted that I had paraded my University aspirations to the examiners, who seemed to be cheerful, commonplace persons of a companionable nature, and therefore blithe company, whom I should have preferred to the taciturn pundit seated beside me.

The feast was very simple; sandwiches of various kinds, white and brown bread, and pressed beef. For drink we were given the choice of coffee, beer, or Rhine wine, and I saw that the majority of my brethren on each side of the long table took the wine in glasses of a peculiar shape that was new to me. Up to this point in my existence I had never tasted any beverage that was intoxicating in its nature, so I bespoke a glass of wine without the least intention of emptying it, resolving to satisfy my curiosity with a sip, and then fall back upon the more familiar coffee. I had an idea that wine was a seductive fluid of such enticing qualities that if once a man indulged in it he needed great strength of mind to withstand the liquid lure that would ultimately draw him on to destruction. I was sure I possessed great strength of mind, and therefore might with safety dally for one brief moment with the charmer, and so gather a new experience. I expected it to taste like a glorified, sublimely sweet lemonade, and was certain that a thimble-full would not make an inebriate of me. If there was exhilaration in the cup, I wanted it then, for a deep depression weighed upon me, and the loneliness of the streets had returned. I was with the brethren, but not of them. Every man there except myself was acquainted with the others, while I was a stranger within the gates, and as the very name of the Rhine possessed an aroma of romance; of old-world medievalism; I took to the cup, hoping in my moderation that it would cheer but not inebriate me.

“So here’s to the brew of history and of fiction,” said I to myself.

Another disappointment awaited me. Could this sour, otherwise tasteless stuff be the Rhine wine celebrated in song by the great poets? I could scarcely swallow it. The Doctor on my left was comforting himself with a tankard of beer. He asked me curtly how I liked the city, and in the midst of answering, I saw he was not listening, and he paid no heed when my sentence stopped abruptly in the middle. I suppose some problem was occupying his mind, but every now and then a consciousness that he was by way of being my host seemed to prick him, arousing him momentarily to a sense of duty, whereupon he shot a quick question at me, and relapsed into his reverie during my answer.

“Do you go to church?” was his unexpected demand.

At the time I was feeling particularly wicked, because of the glass of wine at my elbow.

“Yes,” I answered, so shortly that he had not time to slip into his brown study again.

“I am Rector of Holy Trinity,” he snapped. “Many University students attend. I shall be pleased to see you there any Sunday.”

“Thank you,” said I.

So he was a clergyman. I had gathered from what the two men said that he was connected with some educational institution, but the discipline they spoke of doubtless meant church discipline. In calling him the Prince of Schoolmasters they probably referred to a former occupation, for many of our ministers had graduated from the teacher’s desk. I caught myself wondering what sort of sermons he preached, and arrived at the conclusion that he would come out strong in the denunciation of his fellow-creatures. Never before had I met a man who made me feel so absolutely worthless, and of a consequence, so despondent and gloomy. I knew I was going to fail in this city. My place was in the rural community which I had so heedlessly deserted. How could I hope to compete with such alert and capable men as lined this table? An air of prosperity surrounded each. I had heard more than one called by a well-known name, and others I recognized by having seen their pictures in the newspapers, but instead of being inspired, I was humbled and crushed. My lips were dry, and my throat parched with the hot discomfort that filled my frame at being unable to say a word or a sentence that was worth listening to, and although half the glass of Rhine wine was gone, I took another sip, for sour and noxious as it was, it still moistened the vocal cords if my benumbed brain should give them any work to do. The confusion at my own unworthiness was masked by the ever-increasing volume of conversation up and down the table. There broke out bursts of laughter every now and then as some one told a good story, and I could not but smile in sympathy, wishing luck had placed me in one or other of the groups to hear the tales. Imperceptibly my spirits began to rise. After all, the hope of the city lay in its diet of youth from the country. The man whom they called Senator, at the upper end of the table, one of those I had recognized from his portrait, I remembered now had worked as a lad at the carpenter’s bench, and there he sat, a rubicund millionaire, and a power in the political world; stout, it is true, but laughing with the heartiness of a boy as he tossed off his Rhine wine. Gazing intently at him, his eyes met mine, as is so often the case. With a smile he raised his glass.

“I drink wine with you, sir,” he said.

I noticed my own glass was full again. I lifted it, saluted him in return, and drank. After all, it wasn’t so sour as I first thought it to be. Why should I allow myself to be depressed by the discourtesy of any Doctor of Divinity, and mentally I used the two “d’s” to indicate an adjective before the term. Curse his patronage and his estimate and his sizing up! A man’s a man for a’ that, and I was as good as he, and probably ran as great a chance of salvation.

“Are you going in for a B.A.?” I heard him say.

“No, C.E.”

“But they don’t teach civil engineering at our University College.”

“I beg your pardon, sir, they do. I wrote to the University and received printed particulars of the C.E. course. It takes two years.”

“You are mistaken,” said the Doctor, with the frown of a man who does not like to be contradicted. “The University examines, and confers the degree, but University College does not teach civil engineering.”

I laughed, and patted him on the shoulder. He seemed to stiffen under my touch, and an expression came into his face that would have frozen an ordinary man, but it seemed to me as comical as that of a clown in a circus.

“My dear Doctor,” I cried, “there are still a lot of things for you yet to learn in this world.”

I had conquered him at last. He drew a deep sigh.

“That is true; that is true,” he said almost in a whisper.

“After all,” thought I to myself, “there’s nothing like standing up to these chaps who think they can put other fellows down. I have shown him I am not such a fool as I look.”

A group opposite, who had noticed my condescending salutation of the Doctor, at first with amazement, as if they were witnessing something never seen before, which indeed was the case, now shook with laughter, raised their glasses, and we drank together. At last every one rose to his feet. The Master had given a toast, and we all drank.

“Gentlemen, you may smoke,” he said, as we sat down again. And now a tall man was on his feet amidst a great rattle of tankards on the table, and he sang, in a deep, strong, bass voice, of which I had never heard the equal; never heretofore had suspected there could be such singing–

My home is in the cellar here, Upon a cask I’m seated, And every wine that heart can cheer To me is freely meted. The cellar-man deserves my praise, From duty never shrinking, He deftly fills the glass I raise When I’m drinking, drinking, drinking.

Good lord, this was glorious! Here was where the city outdid the country. We had nothing like it where I came from. As he sat down amidst well-earned applause–

“Bravo!” I shouted; “Bravo!” and the cry was taken up.

“Encore!” I roared. They would see I understood one French word at least.

“Encore, encore!” shouted the rest, and the singer with a smile of gratification was on his feet again, bowing diagonally along the table to me. I held aloft the Rhine wine, and spilled a little down my sleeve. Again we were favoured with a magnificent bass song.

“By Jove! that was good,” I said to the Doctor.

The tobacco smoke had become so thick that it seemed to obscure my vision a little, but the Doctor’s face reminded me somehow of cast iron. This being funny, I quite naturally laughed, but my attention was turned to the Master, who was on his feet again. He said something about their hospitable Order, and their delight in welcoming the stranger. All men were brothers. It was his pleasure to propose the health of their guest, coupled with the name of the gentleman from the West.

I was about to rise, when I felt a grip of steel on my left wrist. For some reason the Doctor was holding me down in my chair, and when he himself rose he placed his right hand on my shoulder that I might be kept there. They drank, there was a cheer, and they all sat down again. The chairman spoke my name, and a cry of “Prentiss! Prentiss!” echoed along the table.

This was not the first time I had addressed an assembly, with more or less success. On former occasions I had spoken on my feet to uncritical gatherings composed of friends, neighbours and acquaintances, yet I had always approached the platform with a feeling of trepidation. Here I was to hold forth to a much more important audience than I had ever before faced, yet all diffidence had vanished. Never had my mind been so diabolically clear. Never before had such barbed shafts of wit lain ready for my use, and probably never again would such a store-house of humorous anecdotes to emphasize my points hold its doors open for me. For once the hour and the man had coincided. Fear and humility had vanished, and in their place had come a malignant determination to show Dr. Darnell that I was a person to be reckoned with. All the rest of the audience were merely the strings of the harp I would play upon, but Dr. Darnell, D.D., I would make sit up as surely as he had held me down physically a moment before, and held me down mentally the whole evening. In this mellow glow of self-satisfaction there was only one thing that troubled me. My knees had become universal joints, and I knew if they got the slightest encouragement they would certainly give way in some unexpected direction; backwards, for instance, like the hind legs of a horse. It was annoying that at the very moment I had reached the apex of mental perfection, my legs should unexpectedly show signs of refusing to support a brain animated by such genius. However, by holding them excessively rigid, I hoped to control those joints which had so surprisingly developed ball-bearings during the evening. The silence showed me it was time to begin. My voice, although it proved far off, was nevertheless as flexible as my knee-joints, and much more under control. I do not remember a word I said, but I knew from the second sentence that I had gripped my audience. Then there was a ripple of laughter, and a few moments later a roar, and from that time on until the conclusion, my address and my stories were given in the intervals between laughter and applause. I had my hearers on the run, and knew it exultant, monarch of all I surveyed. At last I launched my supreme story. I had intended that for the end, but now I saw I was so great an orator that I could speak to them all night. In the tempest of sound that followed the narrative, I again felt the steel grip on my wrist, and a slight downward jerk. I had no intention of taking my seat, but that jerk was something my knees had not calculated upon, and they spread. Seated thus, entirely contrary to my intention, I turned round fiercely to the Doctor, and was astonished dimly to perceive that those eagle eyes were moist, and yet sparkled with that indication of humour with which he had been accredited, but all sign of which had hitherto been lacking. In the tumultuous uproar which continued and continued, his whisper came sharp as a lancet to my consciousness.

“It’s all right, my boy. The success of a speech depends on knowing when to sit down. Don’t open your mouth again to-night either to drink or speak, and you will have scored one of the finest oratorical successes I have ever heard.”

I drew a deep breath of satisfaction, partially realizing that it was this man’s commendation I had been working for, and not the boisterous applause I was receiving. I heard the strains of “For he’s a jolly good fellow,” and then came hand-shaking which chased away for the time a languorous desire for going to sleep. They helped me on with my overcoat, which was unduly heavy, and I doubted if it were mine. I think there was some friendly competition about seeing me to my hotel, but drowsy as I was, I remember Dr. Darnell’s decided dictum that this pleasure devolved upon him. When we reached the street the keen, cold air roused me for the moment, but the increased frost had made the pavement underfoot slippery and difficult to stand on.

“You’d better take my arm,” said the Doctor.

“Then we’ll both fall,” I laughed. “The ground is as slippery for you as for me.”

“Not to-night,” replied the Doctor grimly.

The street was silent and deserted. I was still baffled by the trouble with my knees, and was seized with a great desire to collapse and let it go at that. A wave of oblivion came over me like a whiff of laughing gas, and unexpectedly I found myself standing in the dimly-lit hall of the hotel, and by a mysterious necromancy, which I could not fathom, the Doctor had been transmogrified into a porter, who seemingly wished to conduct me to my room, an offer that I rejected with some indignation. The man, in a huff, said–

“Oh, very well. No use of making a fuss about it,” and I walked, stiff and dignified, in a straight line down the hall to the stairway, humming nonchalantly, “My home is in this cellar here,” to show the porter, who was undoubtedly gazing after me, that I knew what I was about; then, fearing a trap door, for there is more wickedness in cities than in the country, I cautiously climbed the stairs on hands and knees, thus anticipating Mr. David Balfour’s ascent of his uncle’s ruined stair. I reached my room triumphant.

CHAPTER II

Down came the storm and smote amainThe vessel in its strength.

‘Wreck of the Hesperus.’

The annals of next morning have frequently been written, and are sad reading. I regret, for the sake of the warning they might convey, that my experiences differed from those of the printed word. Perhaps my strenuous rural training had warded off the effects I was entitled to, for I had no headache, no parched throat or woolly feeling in the mouth, and no remorse. I confess to some uneasiness regarding what I had said the night before, of which not the faintest recollection remained beyond a misty remembrance of being on my feet, having trouble with my knees, and talking. Not one of those who were gathered round the table could I recognize if I met him again, except Dr. Darnell, who remained in my mind vivid as chiselled marble, and I prayed I might never more on this earth encounter him; indeed, the chance of a future meeting was so remote that I brushed my uneasiness aside, and set my face towards the future. One conventional thing I did, which was to resolve I should never look upon the wine again, when it was white or red, and thus obey the Scriptures.

I was astonished to find myself with my clothes and boots on. The wonder was that I had escaped freezing, for the morning was intensely cold, and although the sun shone brilliantly outside, its rays made no impression on the frosted pane, and my pitcher was full of solid ice. I rang for something more liquid, and took a long draught of it when it arrived, with a keen enjoyment of its cool refreshment. A wash and brush-up, a clean collar and tie, prepared me for the hot breakfast down-stairs, to which a rural appetite did ample justice. Yesterday was a day that did not count; a mere interlude between the end of one section of life and the beginning of another, and so out into the street, breathing an air so crisp and exhilarating that it almost became competitor to the Rhine wine. Early as it was, the streets were already thronged. This thoroughfare appeared to be the busiest in the world, and the huge commercial buildings on either side spoke of unlimited wealth to a young fellow with very little money at his command. I was keenly enjoying the novelty of my environment when suddenly I became aware of a beaming face and an outstretched hand.

“Good-morning. I’m glad to see you looking as fresh as a snow-drift.”

“Not as white, I hope.”

“No, you’re all right, and a good healthful colour. I say, my son, you did rub it into old Darnell last night. I never enjoyed myself so much in my life. You see, he’s rather sarcastic sometimes, and to tell you the truth, we’re all a little afraid of him. They say his books on education are A1, though I’ve never read any of them myself, and to see you take him on his own ground, and simply mop the floor with him, was too rich for words, and I tell you, my boy, I agree with every word you said, and so did every one there.”

“Did they?” I gasped.

“Yes, your comparison of the teacher and the preacher was masterly. Of course, as you said, the future of the nation rests with the teacher, and not with the preacher. The one works with humanity at the malleable age, the other attempts to influence those whose characters and opinions are hardened and fixed, but the moment we realized old Darnell was having some home truths thrust upon him, which many of us had thought but none dared say, the interest was intensified. You should have seen his face. It was a study in conflicting emotions. You see he is not only one of our leading clergymen, but also perhaps our most notable teacher, so while you were scoring off one half of him, as it were, you pleased the other half, and I could see the old man didn’t quite know how to take it. I saw a look almost of terror come into his eyes when you began to tell stories. I suppose he thought that finding yourself in the company of men–Oh, well, I don’t know what he thought–but as the stories were all right, he laughed just as heartily as any one. You must join our Lodge. Get a demit from the Temple you hail from, and be one of us while you’re in the city.”

I shook my head. “I’ve no money to spare,” I said. “I have two strenuous years ahead of me at the University, and just barely enough to carry me through with the strictest economy.”

“Are you on your way to the University now?”

“Yes.”

The man looked at me with that expression of envy with which elderly middle-age sometimes regards ambitious youth.

“Lucky devil,” he said.

“Are you on your way to business so early as this?”

“Yes,” he replied. “I generally get there before my clerks do. That’s my establishment,” and he waved his hand towards an immense block that housed a hive of retail industries.

“Are you the owner of that name?” I asked, nodding towards the huge sign across the end of the store towards us, familiar in big letters on the advertising pages of the daily papers.

“Yes,” he replied.

“Lucky devil,” said I, and we laughed and parted, never to meet again.

So now I knew the subject of my discourse, and it frightened me to think that a man might lose touch with his brain and remember nothing of what he had spoken. Again I resolved to leave wine alone in future, thanking my stars that I had seemingly got off so cheaply in my first encounter.