X THE RULES OF THE GAME

I became rather friendly with that near-sighted junior. He was so genial, good-hearted, apologetic a chap that I could not harbor any resentment against him for the events which took place at his fraternity house. They were not his fault, anyhow.

His name was Trevelyan, and he came from one of the oldest families in New York; one of the wealthiest, too. At college he was considered somewhat of a fool, his never-failing good nature giving justification for the opinion. I don't think that, since that first embarrassing luncheon, I have never seen him unhappy—and even then it was on my account he was discontented, not on his own. And outside of college he must have been respected with all the awe which New Yorkers accord to the Sons of the American Revolution and five or six million dollars. But he was the least lofty, least snobbish man that I have ever known. Most of his college friends thought he was too much of a fool to play the snob; I thought he was too much of a gentleman.

He came to dinner at my aunt's apartment after he had known me for about a month. I do not know who of us was the more proud, my aunt or I—for to me the idea of having a junior and a member of one of the most powerful fraternities visiting at my home was quite as much of a marvel as my aunt seemed to feel it, that a member of the Trevelyan family—the Trevelyan's of Fifth avenue and Sixty-fourth street, don't you know—should be seated at her table and giving gracious attention to her gossipy conversation. For a whole week after his visit Aunt Selina made a great point of it—and of telling her friends of it. The distinction of having a Trevelyan to dinner was a great triumph over Mrs. Fleming-Cohen, who had once entertained a Jewish mining magnate from the Far West—but who had never attained anything like a Trevelyan.

I think Trevelyan began at first feeling very much ashamed and sorry; he was just trying to square up matters with his own conscience. He had a room in one of the college dormitories. He seldom used it, but when he did he would invite me to stay up there with him and to sit until the wee, quiet hours, talking over our briar pipes, interspacing the layers of blue smoke with argument and stirring plans. Trevelyan had great hopes for me. He had discovered that I was a runner.

As a matter of fact, I had done a little practicing with the track team at military school. I had never amounted to much, had never stood out tremendously in meets. I liked to run, I liked the healthy trim that the exercise gave me, but I'm afraid I never took it very seriously.

But Trevelyan saw things differently. Here was my great chance. Never mind the college papers, the literary societies and all that tame coterie of lesser institutions. If I made the track team I would be a college hero—and, after seeing me capture the flag in the class rush, he had no doubt of my vim and nerve. I must make the track team. (Trevelyan, by the way, was assistant manager of the track organization.)

So, soon enough, I was out on the windy field in my old school track-clothes, racing around and around with a sturdy intention of proving myself worthy of Trevelyan's friendship. That was my chief reason for "coming out for track," after all.

The coach, a taciturn, gray old fellow, whose muscles were running too fat and whose temper had frayed out in the years of snarling at prospective champions, paid little attention to me until the week before the freshman-sophomore track meet. Then he tried me out at a 44-yard run. That was what I had been used to doing at school. There was only one man in the freshman class who could beat me in this run for certain. There was no reason, said Trevelyan, why I should not be absolutely sure of my place on the class team.

Three days before the meet the other "44" man sprained his knee. He was out of the race for the time being. There was no doubt now that I would be put in. So said Trevelyan, and so, in surly, semi-official fashion, said the coach.

But we had not counted on the captain of the freshman track team. This was one of my classmates, chosen from among the many candidates by the captain of the 'varsity team. This freshman leader I did not know personally. I had met him almost every day on the field, but he had never recognized me. His track shirt bore the monogram of a noted preparatory school; and it was echoed that he was the handsomest man in the class. He was most certainly the most snobbish. He was thrown into contact with me in various organizations during our four years. I do not remember his ever having bowed to me. In his college world I, and such as I, did not exist.

At any rate, the college newspaper came out one noon to announce the members of the freshman track team, as chosen by its captain. My name was not among them.

In vain did Trevelyan protest to the 'varsity captain, to the coach—I even think he took the matter as high as a meeting of the faculty athletic advisory committee. Nothing could be done. The 'varsity captain shrugged his shoulders, the old coach growled but said nothing, the faculty advisers kept away from the topic as if it were beneath their tutelary notice. And the freshman-sophomore track meet was held with me on the side-lines, among the spectators. I have no reason to gloat over it, but it is a rather amusing point that we lost the entire meet through losing the four-forty yard run.

"It's a dirty shame," said Trevelyan, his squinting eyes full of rue and anger. "I knew that sort of thing went on in the 'varsity circle—but I didn't think they'd carry it down into the class teams. It's all college politics—and college politics are the meanest, most vindictive intrigue on earth."

I didn't ask him for a further explanation, and I suppose he felt it would be kinder not to make one. But I knew well enough to what he referred—and why there had been this sudden, underhanded discrimination. I made up my mind to forget the whole episode. I had not been so tremendously anxious to make the track team that I would let the disappointment of it rankle and grow and ruin my year's fun. I put it all behind me, resolving to take my enthusiasm into some other of the college activities where it would be more sincerely appreciated.

I consulted Trevelyan about it. He suggested the college newspaper. But after he had made the suggestion, he began to stammer and make strange protests. I asked him to tell me plainly what was wrong.

"Why, it's the same with that as with the track team. The editor-in-chief of the paper is in my 'crowd.' I'll speak to him—and save you any trouble. If he says yes, then you go out and win a place on the board of editors. But if he says no, I want you to promise me that you won't subject yourself to any more of this puppy-dog prejudice."

I did promise. And two days later I received a postcard from Trevelyan, telling me that it would hardly be worth my while to try for the college paper. He added, in the large, unruly handwriting which his near-sightedness made necessary:

"You may go on breathing, however, if you don't make a noise at it."

He supplemented this, a few nights later, when he and I were at our old places in his room. He threw down his pipe in the midst of talking about something carefully unimportant, and sat up with a laughably angry face.

"See here, 'fresh,'" he bawled out, "you're getting the rottenest deal I ever saw. You know why—so do I. And we're going to show them a thing or two. We're going to buck up against the strongest thing in the world—and that thing is prejudice. We're going to beat it, too. Do you understand? Were going to beat it out! Smash it to pieces!"

Yes, I understood, I said. I understood it all only too well. So well, indeed, that I knew there was no use trying to fight. I knew that prejudice of race and religion was the strongest shield of the ignorant and mean, that neither he nor I could fight it fairly—and that, if he came into the fight by my side, he would ruin his own chances of being one of the biggest men in the college world when his senior year arrived.

"A lot I care for being a big man in a place of little thoughts," he snapped back at me. "I'm ready to take the consequences, now and forever after."

"Have you thought of what your fraternity brothers might say about it?" I asked him.

"I don't care—I don't—well, if they—." His voice died away in perplexity. I had hit upon his weak spot. He was an easy-going, likeable chap; he hated a rumpus. If he made any sort of fight against the anti-Jewish prejudice, he would have his whole fraternity against him, he would perhaps be shunned by all his sworn brothers, by his best college friends. His enthusiasm became a little dulled, then died down into a great good-natured sigh.

"I suppose you're right, 'fresh,'" he admitted slowly. "I'm not of the fighting sort. And I have my fraternity to consider. That's the worst of belonging to a fraternity." He took up his pipe again and smoked in silence for a while. "I suppose you think you'll never be happy, now that you know you aren't going to be in a fraternity. Take my word for it, you're ten times luckier in having your freedom. Wait until you're an upperclassman and you'll agree with me."

It seemed a dreadful sacrilege for him to be saying it. Besides, I thought he was blaming his own lack of fighting power on his fraternity in too heavy and unjust a degree. I wasn't any more of a fighter than he—but I was disappointed, somehow, that his pugnacity had died out so readily.

"I can't do it, 'fresh,'" he confessed, with a grin. "I'm not the scrapper I thought I could be. I just want to go through college lazily, happily, respectably—and all that. I wouldn't know how to make a rumpus if I wanted to. But listen here." He pointed his finger at me sternly. "If I were you, I wouldn't rest until I had made the fight and won it. Fight it not only for yourself but for the hundred other Jewish fellows in college. See that they get a square deal. See that they don't lose out on all the things that make college worth while. A Jew is just as good as anyone else, isn't he?"

"Yes," I answered him only faintly.

"Well, then, go ahead and prove that fact to the whole college world."

But, though I did not answer him, I knew that I was not any more able to make the fight than he. Less able, perhaps, because I was more handicapped. I made myself a thousand excuses as I sat there thinking it over—I was not brave enough, that was all.

But one thing my acquaintanceship with Trevelyan did bring me. He was a dabbler in light verse, and had been elected to the college funny paper. He also contributed to the undergraduate literary magazine at times—though he was a bit ashamed of being taken seriously. At any rate, he encouraged me to go into these two activities.

Whether or not it was due entirely to his influence, or whether these two college publications were broader and less exacting as to the ancestry of contributors, my work for them was welcomed. Before the year was over I had been elected an associate editor of the funny paper, and had four articles accepted by the literary magazine—enough to put me among the list of "probables" for election, next winter.

At the same time I went through a successful trial for membership in the college dramatic association. I was not given a part in the annual play, however. I made up my mind to consider this a just decision, and that I had no right to impute it to anything other than my lack of talent. The president of the association, however, met me at lunch hour one day and made some rather lame remarks about the embarrassment to which the "dramatics" would be put if I were in the cast.

"Yer see," he said, "we go on an annual tour. And we get entertained a lot, yer see. And it's big social stunts in every city. And it's the cream of society wherever we go—so, it'd be funny if—well don'tcher see?"

"Yes," I admitted, "I do see. I see further than you do."

I was beginning to wonder if that fight that Trevelyan planned wouldn't be worth while, after all.