Different

Contents

Chapter

I Jack Classifies Brown 9

II An Adventure 16

CHAPTER I Jack Classifies Brown

” Truth has rough flavors if we bite it through'^

H e is not an agnostic. He is just an ordinary damned fool.” In the foyer of the Brown Palace Hotel, Denver, there is a large palm. On opposite sides of the palm back to back are two seats. On one of the benches are seated a handsome old clergyman and his well-dressed daughter, on the other, two college students. Jack Venator, tall, lean, and handsome, and Bob Russell, a little above medium height, fat, robust, and smiling.

It was the taller of the two youths who unwittingly attracted the attention of the clergyman and his daughter by the somewhat startling pronouncement with which the chapter opens. On observing a young man, an upper classman of the same college, entering the hotel. Bob had remarked: “Here comes Brown, hear him talk philosophy and tell us how deeply he has been reading. Do you know Brown thinks he is an agnostic.”

Venator retorted: “He is not an agnostic, he is just an ordinary damned fool.”

The clergyman on the other side of the palm was visibly shocked but his effort to disguise from his daughter, the fact that he was interested, was unsuccessful.

Brown fulfilled Bob’s prediction: “Hello Jack, hello Bob, I have just been reading Hume’s argument against miracles. I tell you it is great. Have you ever read it?”

Jack answered: “Yes I have read it and I do riot think it is great/’

“Can you give the argument?”

“Sure, is this not a fair statement: there are no variations from the laws of Nature; there are many examples of untrustworthy human testimony ; therefore no amount of human testimony can prove a miracle?”

“Yes, that seems all right, and it seems to me unanswerable.”

“You had better take your course in logic over again. You gump, don’t you see that he begs the whole question in his major premise. His first assertion is that there has never been any variation from the laws of Nature. That is begging the question. That is the whole point at issue. That is starting out to prove that a miracle could never have occurred by saying that they never have occurred.”

Brown was unable to answer Jack’s refutation and became angry exclaiming, “Oh, you think you’re smart. You want to show off your logic. Besides you are insulting, you called me ‘a gump.’ I will not talk to you any more.”

“I don’t want to talk to you. Trot along.”

Brown left in high dudgeon. Jack turning to Bob exclaimed, “It is too bad to treat a fellow like that, but I just can’t help it. Brown always has the same effect on me that a red rag has on a red bull.

‘Some men there are love not a gaping pig;

Some are mad if they behold a cat;

As there is no firm reason to be rendered Why he cannot abide a gaping pig;

Why he a harmless necessary cat; —

So I can give no reason nor I will not More than a lodged hate and a certain loathing

JACK CLASSIFIES BROWN

II I bear Antonio, that I follow thus

A losing suit against him.’ ”

“Oh, cut out the Shakespeare stuff. Jack. Cut it out, cut it out, cut it out!”

“Right you are Bob. That was inexcusable. Please kick me.”

Bob proceeds to kick him, and Jack exclaims: “Cured, let us go and feed.”

“Sure, come along. My desire to feed is limited only by my ability to pay.” The two boys move toward the dining room unconscious of the presence of the dignified gentleman and the pretty school girl behind the palm.

The clergyman said to his daughter, “I fear the young men of today lack reverence; but that was certainly a good answer to Hume’s argument.”

The young woman made no comment, but proposed that they go to breakfast. Her father consented and on entering the dining room sought a table as far away from the college men as possible, placing his daughter with her back towards them. She laughed and said, “Daddy you are very obvious. Are you afraid that I shall have my faith shaken in Hume’s argument against miracles?”

“There was nothing wrong with that young man’s refutation, but I fear that those are two wild reckless young persons. I do not wish to talk about them.”

His daughter retorted, “Isn’t that just a little like the fellow they call Brown?”

Her father ignored the question and asked her what she would like for breakfast.

An hour later Lucile Hammond, the clergyman’s daugh« ter, was standing by the high iron fence that, in Denver separates the station from the railroad tracks, alternately looking out at the shifting trains and idly watching the gathering crowd. With her bright young face, modest carriage, and pretty costume she made a pleasing picture. Jack later, writing to a college chum described her: “She was a symphony in brown ; brown hat, brown eyes, brown travelling costume, brown shoes, and a sun browned complexion, lighted up by a dash of red on each cheek.”

Tired, dust begrimed travellers, as they trudged by, carrying heavy valises, smiled as they passed. The corners of their mouths turned up instead of down, and they looked the happier for having seen her.

At a little distance near the exit to trains stood Jack Venator. Tall and slim, in contrast with some of the burly travellers about him he seemed almost fragile; but the trained eye of a physical director noting his square shoulders, strong looking neck, and the strength with which he moved about when he changed his position would have detected in him an athlete of no mean pretentions. His active figure, dark curly hair, dark quick eye, and clean cut features, attracted the attention and gained the approval of the young woman in brown.

She heard him ask the man at the gate: “Is the train for Chicago ready?” The gate-man answered that the train was open, and a smart young official, in a very new uniform, just outside the fence said with a pompous gesture: “There the train is, sir, right there.” Jack said, “You couldn’t bring it in, I suppose.” But his attempt at humor was lost on the self-conscious young man in buttons.

Jack passed through the gate and got aboard a day coach. Selecting a seat on the left side of the car near the middle, he placed his hat in the rack above, and then remembering that there is a better outlook from the other side, h,e crossed the aisle to the seat opposite leaving his hat in the rack where

JACK CLASSIFIES BROWN he had placed it on entering.

Just before the train started, the clergyman and his daughter got aboard and entering the same car, found only one vacant seat, immediately in front of Jack. This they were compelled to occupy.

As the train began to move. Bob swung aboard, found his friend Jack and took a seat beside him.

The conductor passed through the train collecting tickets and distributing checks. As he took Jack’s ticket he looked in the rack above for his hat. Jack pointed to the rack opposite. When the conductor took the hat and was slipping the green card board into the band. Jack said, “I suppose you furnish hats for green slip decoration to passengers who have none.”

The conductor replied, “Yes, always. I was just about to start back to get you one, when you pointed out your hat.”

The boys laughed appreciatively at the conductor’s humor. Miss Hammond, without betraying any interest, was enjoying the colloquy, while her father, somewhat to his own disgust, found himself listening to the persiflage going on behind him.

The conversation of the boys drifted onto college matters. They talked in a natural tone, as though they had nothing to conceal. They were evidently not talking to be heard, but were making no effort not to be heard.

The sharp ears of Miss Hammond easily caught everything that was said.

“Say, Jack are you going to try for the Foot-ball Team this year?”

“Oh, yes, I have been trying for it for years, and have got the habit.”

“Same here. I think we’ll make the scrub-team this time.”

“Yes, I guess we shall probably herd with the scrub ladies.”

“Jack you ought to make the ’Varsity team. You are one of the strongest men in college and I think one of the best players.”

“I am strong all right but am not heavy enough. I am short on avoirdupois.”

“How are you and Buller going to live together on the squad, if you make the Scrub?”

“I guess I shall have to lick the Bull before the season is over. Perhaps more accurately, I shall have to fight him. He is pretty sure to lick me in the end.”

The loyal Bob replied : “He’ll do nothing of the sort. You can lick any man in college. You are a regular threshing machine when you get started.”

“My discretion usually keeps me from starting. Yes Bobby, he’ll lick me all right, but you ought to see what I’ll do to him, while he is doing it. I have something to wager that he will never try to thresh me again.”

“I’ll bet a dinner at ‘Grogan’s’ that you will win out.”

“All right. I’ll go you, and I’ll not let him do me, just to keep from paying for the dinner, although that would probably ruin me financially for a month. However, I do much fear that I shall not have to pay.”

The boys now fell into a discussion of the selection of their courses for their Junior year and other matters less dramatic and less interesting than foot-ball aspirations and personal feuds.

It might perhaps be well to explain to the reader how such a fashionably dressed young woman as Lucile Hammond is found riding in an ordinary day-coach. Dr. Hammond had conscientious scruples against spending money on “useless luxuries.” Besides he claimed very justly that the atmosphere is better in the coach with window? raised and no screens.

JACK CLASSIFIES BROWN

He somewhat humorously declared that he would rather be dirty and comfortable than clean and uncomfortable.

Lucile rather enjoyed the situation, but when travelling alone, to and from the school that she attended in the East she always took a chair.

If Jack and Bob had been asked why they were not in the chair car, they would have frankly declared that they did not have “the price.”

CHAPTER II ‘'Perdition catch my soul

But I do love thee! And when I love thee not Chaos is come again/'

T he Reverend Doctor Hammond and his daughter after a day and a night in Chicago resumed their journey. As they passed along the platform towards the Pittsburgh train they saw Jack Venator looking from one of the coach windows.

Doctor Hammond said, “There is that ubiquitous reprobate again.”

His daughter replied, “A very interesting reprobate, is he not?”

■ ’■ not want you to be interested in him or his kind. I have already told you that I do not want to talk about that young man.”

“I wonder why you do it then. Daddy dear. Did I start this conversation?”

“True, I was surprised into commenting on his objectionable presence; but let us drop the subject.”

The clergyman then selected another coach and removed his daughter out of sight and hearing of the college boys.

In the afternoon a broken shaft on the locomotive delayed the train for some three hours. According to their various inclinations the passengers tried to amuse themselves. Some sat stolidly and smoked ; some were immersed in popular novels ; some discussed with much noise and little wisdom the

i6 most important questions of the day; some, among them Jack and Bob, played Bridge ; and others wandered aimlessly about outside the coaches.

Shortly Jack and Bob tired of their cards, and joined those who had taken to the fields. They did not leave the train however before Dr. Hammond passing through their car, saw them playing what he believed to be a very sinful game.

As they walked about they saw Lucile as she disappeared down a narrow ravine, through which there gurgled a pretty brook. She was alone.

Jack said, “If she follows the stream far into that narrow gorge, she may run into something she is not looking for. We are getting into the land of the tramp. Let us follow along the top of the ravine. See, a bank of gravel forms this side of the valley. If we are needed we can slide down the bank right into the midst of the fray.”

Bob exclaimed, “I hope there will be a fray. I need some sort of a cure for ennui.”

“I am not sure that I do. Bob. I do not wish the lady in brown to get into any danger.”

“Poor Jack you’re sure hard hit.”

“Yes, I am. I’ll just tell you how hard hit I am. If she would agree (which she wouldn’t), I would go right off and marry that girl right now without knowing her name, or where she lives or her antecedents, or anything about her. I have never seen a girl with a face like her’s. There is no other girl with a face like her’s.”

Bob replied with a rhyme that had just come out of the west :

I’d sigh for her. I’d try for her.

I’d drink Big Muddy dry for her.

i8

I’d boot for her, I’d shoot for her,

A rival come to suit for her.

I’d cry for her. I’d lie for her But hang me if I’d die for her.”

Jack laughed and answered, “Well I would be willing to take a mighty big risk.”

“I don’t blame you old man, if I were not engaged to the dearest girl on this old globe, I should fall in love with her myself. She has a very sweet face.”

“I would see that face at once in a crowd of ten thousand people. It is not only a sweet face but it is full of fun and intellectuality and everything a face ought to have,” Jack declared, and quoted:

“A creature not too bright or good For human nature’s daily food For transient sorrows gentle wiles Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.”

adding, “I make no apology.”

By this time they had advanced a considerable distance along the brink of the gorge. Bob broke in with, “Oh, cut out the poetry. Did you not hear a rustle in the bushes below?”

Lying down flat on the ground to avoid starting a fall of gravel they peered over the edge and saw an ill looking tramp emerge from the bushes and advance on the unconscious school-girl, who filled with the joy of being out of doors, was all unapprehensive of danger.

Jack cried: “Let us slide.”

The boys came down the precipitous slope like an avalanche. Indeed they precipitated an avalanche of gravel down which they rode tp the bottom of the ravine,

Jack reached the girl just as the tramp put out his hand to seize her by the throat. He threw all his weight and strength into a blow which landed on the then much talked of “solar plexus,” and brought the ruffian to the ground unconscious. Then turning his attention to Lucile he assured her that the danger was past.

The tramp quickly recovered and attempted to get to his feet, when Bob knocked him down again. When he a second time assayed to rise. Bob made no effort to hinder him and he shuffled off down a path that led away from the disabled train.

Lucile said, “I wish to thank you men very much for coming to my rescue. It was very kind : it was heroic. How did you happen to appear at such an opportune time?”

Jack answered, “Well, as to the heroism, there is nothing very heroic in two able bodied men beating up one able bodied man. As to our opportune appearance, we saw you enter the ravine, and thinking you might encounter something unpleasant we followed along the top. We should of course not have intruded if the wandering pedestrian hadn’t shown up.”

Lucile shrewdly observed : “There was no time during the conflict when two able bodied men were pitted against one able bodied man.”

Jack said, “You seem to be good in rebuttal. It is true all the same that our friend the enemy was taken at a disadvantage by that first blow.”

“What an awful blow that was. I did not know that a strong man could be knocked unconscious by a blow of the fist.”

“Read up the sporting pages of the daily papers, and study their discussion of the solar plexus and you will learn how it is done.”

“I decline to read about prize fights, but I shall study up the solar plexus, although I am not quite sure whether I ought to go to my Astronomy or my Physiology for information.”

“I suppose that means that you are not sure whether I got results because of my lucky star or because the blow was well placed. I assure you it was not my lucky star. I am not at all sure that the travelling man would not have gotten back at me, if my chum had not introduced his wind-mill operations just at the psychological moment.”

Bob interposed: “Oh, forget it Jack. What I did was easy. I just delivered the goods after the package was all done up and ready to send out.”

Jack said: “Commend me to the man who can deliver the goods.”

Lucile laughed and again thanking them said, “I do not wish my father to know anything about this adventure, I trust both of you to help me keep my secret. I hope we shall meet some time.” And she tripped away toward the train.

Jack said sotto voce to his companion, “Good lord Bob! she thinks we haven’t met.” When Jack said, “Good Lord,” he said it in a way that indicated that in reporting him, one should not spell it with a capital letter.

“Well, you could hardly call it formal,” commented Bob.

“Oh, I suppose she is right but it seems a little cruel. However there is a grain of comfort in her intimation that she might tolerate us if we were formally introduced. Strange are the ways of woman! If one had rescued a man from a predicament like that he would straightway have been taken possession of and borne off and introduced to the swellest people in the acquaintance of the rescued person.”

“Well, you didn’t want her to take possession of you did you?”

“Yes, that is just exactly what I do want. I want her to take possession of me.”

“You’re possessed all right.”

“Yes but I feel pretty sure that she would not care to prove up her title.”

“By the way Jack, you said you would be willing to marry ' the leading lady in this drama right now. How would you provide food and raiment and shelter?”

“I would quit college and go to work. Of course she would be taking an awful chance, but if she were willing I should take all risks. This drivel however is of only hypothetical value. Let us push on down the ravine and capture the wood-pile artist.”

They hurried off down the path taken by the frightened tramp, and following it for about a mile and finding no trace of the fugitive, they returned. Their real object, although not so declared by either, was not to find the tramp, but to give Lucile ample time to return unattended. She did not have far to go, and as she would be coming nearer to the train all the time, they were confident that she would not be taking any risk.

Lucile’s escape from the protecting care of her father needs some explanation. Dr. Hammond after going through the train and around the train, and examining the locomotive’s broken shaft, had retired to his seat and fallen asleep. Lucile decided that she would do some exploring on her own initiative, and hence her exciting excursion into the ravine.

When the boys returned they at once sought the car that they had seen Dr. Hammond enter in Chicago. There they saw Lucile demurely reading a magazine. Her father was still asleep. Jack and Bob had entered at the rear of the coach and were unobserved. Jack said, as he heard the snoring of the sleeping clergyman, “We shall not miss the noise of the locomotive if he keeps that up. I wonder how he does it. It seems an awful waste of energy.”

Jack had spoken in a low tone, but having a voice of peculiar carrying quality, Lucile easily heard every word that he uttered. She laughed aloud, but kept her eyes fixed steadily on her book.

Bob commented in a stage whisper that did not relieve the situation in any degree, “Now, you have done it.” Jack muttered in a tone easily overheard, “I’ll never use my mouth again for anything but to put food into it. Let us fade away.” The boys vanished.

They swung off down the track, and after walking for a quarter of a mile. Bob keeping up a run of conversation and Jack plunging along in grim silence, they seated themselves comfortably on a pile of railroad ties. Jack solemnly handed Bob a Pittsburgh stogie. They smoked silently for ten minutes. Then Jack spoke, “Well Bob I guess the game is over, but let us not talk about it.”

“Oh, rats! the thing you need to do is to talk. It is not nearly so bad as you think it is. She laughed at your remark. She could not be very angry while she laughed.”

“‘Oh, no not while she laughed. After she quits laughing is when my goose will be cooked — cooked to a turn, done up brown. She is just the kind of girl that is loyal to her father and will resent the prating of any imbecile, whose chatter does dishonor to her parent. I guess I am doomed to continue a bachelor.”

“Jack, don’t be an ass. You have not been a bachelor very long yet. Besides you say yourself that you do not expect to be able to get married for at least three or four years.”

“Yes, I am certainly an ass; but you do not need to rub it in.”

“Oh, well, cheer up: An ass is a rather wise old bird.

Now there was Balaam’s ass that was wiser than his master.”

“The only difference between the accomplished animal that you mention and myself is that he opened his mouth and spake wisdom and I opened my mouth and — and — well, let us take a final crack at that old chestnut and say that I opened my mouth and put my foot in it. I do not know why: it was probably because I sucked my toe when I was a baby.”

“Bob answered this deliverance with, “I see you are coming back to normal nicely. I think we may venture to go back to the coach.”

“Yes, I will go back to my own place.”

The boys arrived just in time to catch the moving train.

After they were comfortably seated Jack said, “Have you observed that when we speak of the girl in brown, we continually call her, ‘she’? The personal pronoun is very useful but one does not like to be confined to it. Bob, there is something I wish you to do for me.”

“Name it old man, and it’s done.”

“You shadow the girl in brown and her austere sire when they leave the train at Pittsburgh. My prophetic soul tells me that they will either stop there or transfer there. In either case, they will probably go to the baggage room. Your job is to see their trunks. You may possibly find out the present name of the future Mrs. Venator.”

“I’ll do it. Just watch me!”

When the train steamed into the Smoky City, Jack dropped off the train and disappeared. Bob got off leisurely and soon saw Dr. Hammond and his daughter leave the train. He stooped down and untied his shoe and occupied himself in tieing it until they had passed him. He then followed them to the baggage room, where he ostensibly and ostentatiously went through his pockets in search of his checks. He employed himself in this way until the Hammonds had checked their trunks. His search suddenly ended, and he quickly had his trunk and Jack’s transferred and sought his chum. When he found him, he greeted him with, “I tell you Jack, I’m great. I’m a Sherlock Holmes. I get results. I saw the whole process of transfer. They checked their trunks to Whitestown ; and crowning triumph of my act I saw in small neat letters on the end of one of the trunks, ‘Lucile Hammond, 1 86 Penn Ave., Whitestown, Pennsylvania.’ ”

“Bob, you’re white. You’re Bob-White. You are everything that is first rate. I could fall upon your neck and weep.”

“Please do. I’d like to see how you look when you weep.”

“The impulse is over. My tears are dried ; but I am tremendously obliged to you. If ever you need me Bob, in love or war, you may count on me to the shedding of blood.”

“Oh, don’t mention it. A man of my genius does little things like that easily. But that is not all. Oh, no, not by any means all of the information that I have accumulated. Jack I suppose you have no idea who Lucile Hammond is?”

“She is probably a princess in disguise and the old gentleman is her chaplain to whom she says her prayers. She is not however very well disguised. She has a royal look about her that gives the whole thing away.”

“Oh, Rats!”

“It seems to me you refer to that pestiferous rodent with unnecessary frequency. But go on and say it.”

“Brace yourself for the glad news — Jack, she is the room-mate of my sister Bessie, at Wellesley.”

“Bob, you’re bully. It is bully of you to have a sister and to have her at Wellesley; but to have her at Wellesley and rooming with the lady in brown!— That opens up vistas of opportunity that it staggers me to contemplate.”

“If you will just stop a bit to think about the difficulties ahead it will cure you of the staggers. I do not know her. I can not go to see her. I cannot even get an invitation to go to see her. I am not even sure that permission could be secured to have Miss Hammond present if I should call on my sister at Wellesley. I am not sure your ‘symphony in brown’ would want to be present if she had permission. I am not sure that my sister would play the game. I am sure that I do not have the necessary ducats to go to Wellesley. Besides what good would it do you if I should see her? The only possibility after all is that she may sometime visit my sister. In that case, I should invite you to visit me.”

“I stagger, again I stagger! I stagger at the difficulties. Can’t you induce your sister to issue that invitation for Thanksgiving?”

“Well, I’ll try, but Bessie says that I never do anything that she wants me to do ; consequently she sometimes does not do what I wish her to do.”

“I cannot imagine your refusing to do a good turn for any body.”

“Well you see she sometimes insists on my going to afternoon teas, and I sometimes resist.”

“Oh, I see, hence her hyperbole.”

“I say Jack, I’ll make an awful bluff at it.”

“Couldn’t you go to some afternoon teas for my sake. 1 would even chew gum if it would help you Bob. Couldn’t you drink a moderate amount of tea to help along a little?”

“The tea racket will not work old man. I shall not see a tea-pot this side of Thanksgiving.”

“Well, get that Clay head of yours to work, and you will be able to dig up something. My figure is a little mixed, but you get the idea. You are to surprise yourself by doing some good hard thinking.”

“The Thanksgiving scheme is I think, the best. My sister Bessie is a little inclined to flirt. She thinks that you are very handsome and would not mind an opportunity to play around with you a little. You will not be in any real danger for she is engaged to be married. I shall propose to her that we both invite our room-mates to visit us on Thanksgiving and liven things up a bit.”

“Of course, there isn’t any such word as ‘liven’ Bob, but there ought to be. Can’t you fall in somewhere with her affianced and invite him to spend Thanksgiving with you. Then we sure will ‘liven’ things up.”

“By the great Horned Spoon, I believe I can pull that off ; but what do I get out of this?”

“An opportunity to slip off and see your sweetheart. To come down to brass tacks. Bob, will it not be imposing on your home people to let loose on them a crowd of college boys and school girls?”

“Well, it is about all the Governor can swing to keep Bessie and me in college, but we still have plenty to eat. My father and mother are always glad of an opportunity to look over the boys and girls with whom their children associate. For this reason they will at once approve this plan.”