A RAMBLING DISCUSSION AND AN ADVENTURE, PERHAPS UNCONNECTED.

Dick Stoughton came to lunch that day in a decidedly bad humor, cause unknown. He was late, and all the other members of the club table were there, including the two dogs. A "Gray baiting" was going on. This sport consisted in working up the poetic feelings of Ernest Gray, and then ruthlessly harrowing the same. Gray was a fiery, imaginative little man, whose soul compassed far more than his body. His impulsive nature drove him constantly into the net spread by his friends, but he had become used to the process, and perhaps it did him good. Whether or not he had in him the stuff for a true poet, he was at least in no danger among those men of becoming a false one. He was just then stirred to a fine condition on the subject of Philistinism, was violently supporting the famous professor of the Humanities, and had almost got to the point of quoting poetry.

"It makes me laugh a low, sad laugh," remarked Stoughton, gloomily buttering a muffin, "when I think what Gray will be doing thirty years from now."

"We have arranged all that," said Burleigh. "Ernest is going to marry a strong-minded woman four times as big as himself, who will take him out shopping and make him carry the bundles and the twins."

"No, it will be a greater change than that," continued Dick. "At fifty he will probably be a keen, representative business man. He will be celebrated for being better able than any one in Wall Street to cheat his neighbor, and he will be absorbed in the occupation. He will be a man of strength and stamen, a man of industry, a plain, hard-working man. He will publish Letters of a Parent, in bad English, about the degeneracy of education at Harvard, and will refuse to send his sons here for fear of their becoming dudes and loafers. He won't spoil good paper then with odes and fantasies; he will devote it, instead, to watering stock and foreclosing mortgages. Just see if he doesn't."

"Are you narrow enough to think," asked Gray, defiantly, "that a man cannot work in this world, and work hard, without shutting his mind to everything outside of his tool shop?"

"Perhaps he can," answered Stoughton, "but he never does in this country; he hasn't time. Whatever we take up, we have got to keep at fever heat or else go to the wall. It will be work, work, work until we become utterly uninteresting machines. It can't be helped, we have got to make up our minds to it some day and we had better do so now. We are all wasting four valuable years in this anomalous spot of Cambridge, when we ought to be learning bookkeeping. We are a nation of one-sided workers, and we might just as well accept the situation philosophically. I am sure I for one don't care a cent. Only I wish I had not fooled away my time so long, with a set of men made up of dilettantes and bummers."

Dick emphasized the concluding word by handsomely scooping the last sausage just ahead of Jack Randolph, who with a bow and wave of his hand gracefully acknowledged the defeat. It was a strict rule of etiquette at the club table to take the odd trick of any dish, whether you wanted it or not.

"Hello," exclaimed Burleigh, with a happy light in his face, "Dick has waked up to the seriousness of life again. That is the third time this month." Stoughton's occasional pessimism was as fair game to his friends, as Gray's poetry, so the victim for that day's lunch was promptly changed.

"So he has," added Hudson. "He has a good, old-fashioned attack of remorse. Where were you last night, Dick? Must have been an awful spree."

"Is it a letter from your governor?" queried Rattleton, sympathetically.

"Perhaps it is the letter on your forensic," suggested Randolph. "Jack Rat got an E. on his, but just see how sweetly he takes it."

"A little serious reflection is undoubtedly a good thing for you, my son," observed Hollis Holworthy. "But though I don't want to flatter you, excuse my saying that you talk like an ass. Even if your premises were true your conclusion is false. If we Americans are all such narrow-minded money-makers, that is all the more reason for trying to be something better. But it isn't so. I don't believe work has necessarily any such effect. Gray is right."

"My conclusion is all right. The difference between us is that I am perfectly contented to be as the rest of my countrymen are; you want to be something different, ergo, you are a snob. Furthermore my premises are true, and you will find them so, my poor children. I am a few years in advance of you, that's all. Just see how men change after they leave college. Go over to the Law School and look at those grinds, each one working night and day to get ahead of the rest. I met old Dane Austin the other day crossing the Yard, three huge books under each arm, and a pair of spectacles across his nose. He used to be the best built man in the 'Varsity boat, but he doesn't touch an oar now, and won't try for the crew, unless they absolutely need him at the last minute. He is getting red-eyed and pale, and looks almost hollow-chested. A man can't keep up with the law and pay any attention to his physique. He is losing all his strength and good looks."

"You had better hit him once and find out," suggested Holworthy.

"Thanks; I don't care to put my theories to quite such a test," acknowledged Dick, with a grin. "But it is true just the same. It is true of every other occupation. Go down to New York and stand on Wall Street. You will see a dozen men you knew, at least by sight, in college, men who used to be well-dressed and well-bred. Down there they rush by you with a nod, in all sorts of costumes,—dirty, slovenly, nervous. Sometimes they will stop for a moment to shake hands, and make some impertinent remark on your clothes. I don't mind the prospect myself, but I am only laying it fairly before you blissful, careless, conceited youths."

"I rather think you will find that those fellows haven't forgotten how to turn themselves out properly when there is any need for it," said Holworthy. "You don't wear your town togs to recitations here."

"There is no doubt about it, this work and worry does spoil a man's looks," said Burleigh. "Just look at that poor wreck over there," pointing to Rattleton.

That student had finished his lunch (or breakfast) and stretched his legs as usual in the next chair. He was engaged in throwing crackers for his dog Blathers to catch, and was rather out of the conversation. He caught the last remark only.

"You have no idea what a handsome man I'd be if I didn't work so hard," he replied.

"It is all right for you, Jack," Stoughton went on. "A watchful Providence has sent you an income. It is almost a pity, though, for you would make a fascinating tramp. No amount of either starvation or public opinion would ever make you change your calm, philosophical life. But the rest of us must all get into the procession and keep up with the brazen band. No wonder so many of our girls marry Englishmen. They are dead right, too; they don't want to marry worn-out machines, they prefer men."

"Hurray!" shouted Hudson. "The secret is out. Some Englishman has cut him out with his best girl."

"I am not handicapped with any such nonsense, thank Heaven," growled Dick. "But if I was, by Jove, I wouldn't be fool enough to do any work for her sake, as so many misguided men do. No, sir, I'd take life easily and keep my figure, as our trans-Atlantic cousins do. I'd spend my days with the daughter and live on the old man. That is what girls like, and they do have some sense."

"That is perfect rot," exclaimed the poetic Gray, expressing his roused sentiment with more force than grace. "Life to-day is just what it was in the days of chivalry. A true knight must prove his love with his lance, and win his wife like a man."

"There you go, of course," answered Stoughton; "clap your leg over Pegasus, and off across country, regardless of hedges and ditches, or the narrow roads of commerce. Suppose his lance got busted, as was frequently the case?"

"Sic 'im, sic 'im," chuckled Burleigh. "We have got the poet and the cynic by the ears. Oh, this is lovely!"

"Both of 'em amateurs," added Holworthy, "and neither knowing what he is talking about."

"Two to one on the poet, though," said Randolph. "He is always in earnest, anyway."

"Shake hands, gents," said Rattleton, getting interested. "Time."

"Now just listen to me," said Dick, tilting back his chair and waving his fork pedantically. "I'll give you a really accurate picture of your dear days of chivalry, such as you never got out of a romance."

"Silence for Sir Walter Stoughton's account of a tourney," commanded Burleigh. "Steve Hudson, pull that pup of yours off the table; she'll upset the milk pitcher."

"I have just been reading all about that sort of game," interrupted Rattleton. "Seems to me they were a most unsporting lot. They had no classes or handicaps; just lumped 'em all in together, feather-weights and heavy-weights. No idea of a fair thing."

"Shut up your childish prattle, Jack," commanded Burleigh. "If you will push your researches far enough you will find that the little fellows always won. The giants invariably got the heads smote off 'em. We are not on the brutal subject of prize-fighting, we are on chivalry. You know nothing about that, so keep quiet and let Dick go on."

"I suppose you have an idea," Stoughton went on, "that every interesting young gentleman who entered the lists was a sure winner, and then all he had to do was to crown the heroine as Queen of Love and Beauty and live happily ever afterwards. Now of course that wasn't so. Some one had to get thrashed, and most young knights probably occupied that position for the first ten years or so of their career. Take an individual case; Sir Ernest Gray, bent on winning glory for Dulcinea, looks over the sporting calendar and enters himself for every big field-meeting during the season. He bears himself right bravely in them all, but gets stood on his head with great regularity; in fact Dulcinea gets a little tired of watching his performance. Nevertheless she goes to the crack meeting of Ashby de la Zouche, to see Gray try again.

"This tourney is carried off with great ease by an old hand, Sir Thomas de Mainfort, who, having been separated from his third wife on the ground of brutal treatment, is not doing any love-proving with his lance. He is simply a mug hunter; he is in for the white Barbary steed, and the other fellows' armor."

"Gate money?" broke in Rattleton interrogatively.

"Same principle," answered Dick. "He wins the appointment of the Queen of Love and Beauty, and takes d—— good care to choose the king's elderly daughter; thereby putting in good work for a government office. Of course, none of the fair damsels in the ladies' gallery are in the slightest degree interested in him, that goes without saying; but do you suppose that they are a bit more interested in the poor youngsters whom he has been knocking about? Not much. The fellow who takes their eyes is a chap in a white satin doublet, cut in the latest French fashion, who has sent flowers to Dulcinea, and is hanging over the rail of the ladies' gallery, talking to her. He is a delightful young man. He can sing the songs of the Troubadours that he has heard in Provence. He knows all the latest gossip about that delicious row between the Pope and the German Emperor. He spends the proper season in each Continental court. He is so different from the homely, insular youths who are pummelling each other down below in the lists. They never can think or talk anything but fight. He says funny things about those youths, and criticizes their armor. Altogether he is charming. Handsome and well preserved, too. Splendid figure, and could undoubtedly fight well if he had to; but he doesn't have to, and isn't fool enough to do it. No bruises on him.

"After the fight is over young Sir Ernest comes along, in a sheepish sort of a way, to see what Dulcinea thinks of his day's work. Sir Ernest was a pretty good-looking boy when he started on the career of arms. Now, however, he is showing marks of wear. The saddle has made him bow-legged, the helmet has worn off much of his hair, and the gauntlet has raised corns on his knuckles. Some of his front teeth have been knocked out. Besides the wear and tear in his personal appearance, his mind runs largely on parries and thrusts, relative advantages of chain-mail and Milan plate, and all that sort of shop talk. He can not sing the new Romance songs, he knows only the old ones that his nurse taught him. Dulcinea used to like him very much, and is still fond of him in a way. If he had accomplished the marvel of winning the whole tournament, of unhorsing the old veteran De Mainfort; if he had won the crown of Love and Beauty, and brought it to her, giving that hideous stuck-up old Princess the go-by, Dulcinea would have loved him fondly, and been ready to marry him then and there. But he has not brought her the crown of Love and Beauty; he has only brought a stove-in helmet and a black eye. True, he has been fighting his level best, but how much good has it done him? He has unhorsed two or three young men of his own weight; he has even put up a stiff set-to against big De Thumper, who won the Templar stakes; but Dulcinea did not see him then, she was talking to the interesting foreigner. Then he ran up against Sir Thomas de Mainfort, and got landed on his back; Dulcinea was looking right at him that time. He got up like a little man, without claiming his ten seconds, and went for the redoubtable Sir Thomas again. Thereupon the big fellow smashed him on the jaw, and put him to sleep, so that it took his squires half an hour to bring him round. Dulcinea took that in, too, and the amusing foreigner remarked on what conceit a youngster must have to go in for this sort of thing against men like De Mainfort. The highest renown that the young knight has so far won may possibly be a line next day in the Ashby Herald and Tournament Gazette. It will run something like this: 'Where are we to look for the De Mainforts and Thumpers of the next generation? There is absolutely no new material worth mentioning. Young Gray gives a little glimmer of promise in some of his back-strokes, but his work is eminently crude and boyish. However, if he gets over his swelled head, he may in twenty or thirty years of hard work become a fair lance.' Do you think that helps his chances with Dulcinea? D—— that dog of yours, Hudson, she has stolen my muffin!"

"Are you all through?" demanded Gray, who had been restraining himself with difficulty.

"No; hold on. I haven't shown you half your trouble yet. At the banquet in the evening, Gray sits on one side of Dulcinea and the handsome stranger on the other. Gray is sore and tired and comes near falling asleep at the table, while the other fellow discusses the Italian painters, and tells anecdotes of the Dauphin of France. Gray used to be able to play the harp well, and can still play sometimes in the evenings, when his fingers are not too lame; but they generally are. He can also get into his satin doublet on Sundays and great occasions, and look almost as well as the other chap; but he does so only on occasions, whereas the stranger keeps himself up to the mark all the time. Dulcinea cannot help thinking, therefore, that Gray is a boor and a bore, even though he sometimes shows capabilities other than those of getting his head smashed. On the other hand, Dulcinea's governor is a stout baron of the old school. He looks upon Gray as a dude and aper of foreign customs, for taking a bath after a hard day in the lists and leaving off his breastplate at dinner. The old man's chief boast is that with his own good sword he has carved out all his fat lands and broad baronies, and he asks, as he proudly thumps his chest, how he could ever have done all that if he had put on effeminate airs and fooled away ten minutes every week in a bath-tub. Now I ask you to drop your poetry for a minute, substitute reason for imagination, and confess that this is really what a young knight had to take. Dixi, let's hear what you have got to say."

"Just this," answered Gray, "that your Dulcinea is a fool. Any true woman would appreciate a man's best efforts, even if unsuccessful. I claim that such Dulcineas are the exception and not the rule. Point two. Your young knight is also a fool if he allows himself to become nothing but a mere bruiser and cut-throat. He ought not to forget that he is a gentleman as well as a fighting man. He can pay some attention to the graces of life and fight none the worse for it. You say he knows the old songs,—those are the best always—and he can pick up the new ones in spare moments. It makes no difference how he dresses, so long as he has a good excuse for dressing badly, and doesn't forget how to dress well. As for your point about his personal appearance, that doesn't amount to a row of pins. It certainly can't trouble him, and it wouldn't trouble Dulcinea if she had any sense. I don't believe any woman objects to honorable scars in a man."

"Every woman doesn't throw poetry around them as you do. Honorable scars received in commonplace everyday scrapping don't count."

"This has not been a fair fight," declared Holworthy. "I can see through this man Stoughton, now, and understand it all. He has prepared all this harangue, and is trying to pass it off here as impromptu. Now, I am going to give him away. I was with him the other evening at a dinner. There was a girl there who had been abroad for the first time. She had spent the last season in London, for the expenses of which her governor probably had to do double work at home. She had quite naturally, fallen completely in love with all those great big, splendid-looking chaps who float about London in long coats all day during the season. A handsome leisure class. Some of the biggest and best dressed of them, by-the-way, are quite apt to be her own humdrum countrymen on a vacation, but she hadn't found that out yet, and it has nothing to do with the present discussion, anyway. I heard her remark to Dick during dinner that Englishmen were so much better looking and more agreeable than American men. That is an undeniable fact, in daily life, but Dick was fool enough to get a little mad over the observation. He couldn't think of any brilliant repartee at the time, but came home and slept over it. Next time he meets that girl, or one like her, he will be loaded for bear, but he wants to rehearse a little, first, so he has brought his mediæval metaphor here to try it on the dog. He knew that our hair-trigger poet, with a little joggling, would be morally certain to shoot off something about love and lances; that was just the opening he wanted. Keep it for your next dinner-party, Dick. It doesn't mean anything but it may make you feel clever and entertaining. I hold that Brother Gray has thrown you and your Dulcinea down hard."

"It is perfectly true to life, anyway," said Dick, with a conscious grin; "but you are wrong in accusing me of worrying about it. I don't mind the prospect in the least, as I said before, and am only warning you snobs who think you are something pretty nice. You can't carry your poetry out of college. Your 'graces of life' as you call 'em, either mental or physical, won't raise your salary in an office, and your hard work in the office won't help you to figure in a ballroom. If you get to the top before you are thirty, Dulcinea may smile on you; but you are not likely to do anything of the kind. You will probably spoil all your other chances with her in the attempt."

"Listen to our man of the world, you fellows," said Burleigh. "Jack Rattleton, stop playing with that ugly pup and improve your advantages. Uncle Richard, here, aged two and twenty, has upon half a dozen occasions made the exertion of going to a party in Boston, where he has talked foot-ball with some débutante and been floored on Esoteric Buddhism by an elderly lady who had it. He has spent all the rest of his time smoking a villanous pipe in Cambridge. He is now giving us, from his wealth of experience, a few opinions and straight tips on the nature of woman."

"I don't pretend to know anything about 'em," protested Dick, stoutly, "and care less. But this I do know, that, among most men, success counts for more than endeavor, and I am willing to bet that it is four times as much so with women."

"And I know this," said Hudson, "that you, on your own confession, don't know what you are talking about, and are in a beastly humor. You need exercise; come on over to Fresh Pond and go skating."

"Yes, do take him off," sighed Rattleton; "when he and Hol and Gray get theorizing it gives everybody a headache. They'll go around to the Pud. and keep it up there if you don't take them skating."

Stoughton replied to this by kicking the hind legs of Rattleton's carefully balanced chair, and upsetting him on top of the dog Blathers. After which exchange of courtesies the party adjourned, arranging to meet and go to Fresh Pond at three.

Holworthy did not join the skating party; he had promised to go for a walk with his chum Rivers. Gray also had some engagement. As the others were starting out with their skates, they met the latter little gentleman arrayed in his best. He tried to pretend that he didn't see them. They promptly set up a cheer and began ostentatiously making snow-balls.

"Didn't you say something at lunch about men in New York who made impertinent remarks about your clothes," demanded Gray of Stoughton.

"This isn't New York," answered Stoughton. "When a man puts on all his feathers and paint on a week day in Cambridge, we know he is on the war-path."

"Dog his trail, dog his trail," yelled Hudson. "Let's see what wigwam it leads to."

"Doesn't he look pretty?" shouted Burleigh. "Only his coat doesn't fit in the back."

"Look at that smooch on his collar," exclaimed Randolph.

"I hope you children will grow up sometime," grumbled Gray, as he hurried on.

An hour or two afterwards Gray was walking into Boston in very good company. The new Harvard Bridge was not then built, and the two (yes, only one other) were passing through one of the more lonely streets of Cambridgeport that lead to the Cottage Farms bridge. A hard-looking citizen turned a corner ahead of them, and on catching sight of the pair stopped with some insulting remark. Gray's blood boiled into his face, but he had sense enough to cross to the other side of the street with his convoy. The man, evidently in liquor, promptly did the same, and showed that he meant to give trouble.

"Run back as fast as you can to Main Street," said Gray to his companion, upon which advice she wisely and quickly acted.

The rough started forward, and Gray placed himself in the middle of the path.

"Hold on," he commanded. "Don't come a step nearer."

"Get out of my way, you little dude, before I eat you up," answered the other.

The little dude naturally did not get out of the way. He dropped his stick and squared himself for the enemy. Then, contrary to the generally accepted pleasant idea, the burly ruffian proceeded to "eat up" the slender thoroughbred.

The light-weight met his adversary's rush handsomely, but utterly failed to stop it. The tough closed, "back-heeling," and at the same time landing his right with a door key in it, used as brass knuckles, thereby cutting Gray's face open. As the latter tripped and went down under the blow, the tough kicked him. Gray jumped to his feet again, however, and managed to fasten on the rough's back as he went by. They went down together, the rough on top with his knee on Gray's stomach. This knocked the wind out of the little fellow terribly, still he clung to his adversary. The latter struggled to free one of his hands, with the amiable purpose of choking, or of gouging the eye of the youth under him, when a shout made him look up. He managed to tear himself away, and sprang to his feet. Holworthy and his chum, Charles Rivers, who was No. 4 in the 'Varsity crew, were tearing down the street.

The second battle was quite as unequal as the first, for there was as much difference between the big college oarsman in the pink of condition, and the rum-soaked Port tough, as there had been between the latter and the plucky little stripling. It is only justice to the tough, however, to say that no idea of flight entered his mind; he was quite as ready to fight the big dude as the little one.

His hand went to his hip-pocket, but evidently the weapon was not there. Then he gathered himself and made a spring at the new-comer. As a result he ran his face into a big fist at the end of a long, straight, stiffened left-arm. At the other end of that arm were a hundred and ninety pounds of hard-trained muscle. As he staggered back from this concussion, he got the hundred and ninety pounds again, concentrated in a right hander on his fifth rib. That doubled him up, and then it was River's turn to rush. He knew enough not to close, for the brute, though practically knocked out, could still use his teeth if he got a chance. Holding him up by the throat with his left hand, with his right Rivers pounded the ruffian on the jaw, then threw him senseless on the ground.

"There, that will do. He'll come to after awhile," he remarked, "but he will do no more mischief at present. You chivalrous little jackass," he continued, turning to Gray, who was wiping the blood from his face, "I saw you throw away your stick when we first caught sight of you. It's lucky you weren't killed. Of course you couldn't help fighting under these circumstances, but if you ever get caught with a beast like that again, don't ever try fair prize-ring methods with him. It is only in books that the nice young man thrashes two or three toughs bigger than himself in a square fight. These chaps know how to fight just as well as you; what is more, they know how to fight foul, and always do if they get a chance. Just remember, now, if you ever have to tackle this kind of cattle again, cut him right over with your stick. Paste him under the ear for keeps."

"If this isn't just my luck!" said Gray, looking ruefully at the blood on his handkerchief. "Here have I been longing and praying for this sort of an opportunity, and when it comes, by Jove, I get a thundering licking and another fellow comes along and saves me and the girl both. Hang it, Charlie, I could have held on to him until she got away."

"Too bad," laughed Rivers, "I beg your pardon. I didn't think. I ought to have let you get killed or gouged for her and glory, oughtn't I? Come, cheer up, old man, you did a great deal more than I, and deserve all the favors. Let's go back and see her."

They walked back to Holworthy and the fair casus belli. The latter had paused in her flight on the arrival of the reinforcements, and with natural curiosity and anxiety had watched the fray from a distance. As her rescued rescuer and his rescuer came up, she held out her hand to Rivers, and uttered her gratitude in nervous broken sentences.

She expressed much sympathy for Gray.