The Guarded Heights
"Glad to see Mundy hasn't dropped you out the window yet," he grinned.
"Maybe you'll get along. Glad for Mr. Alston's sake. See here, if I were
a cub, and knew as much about Katydid as you do, I wouldn't hesitate to
borrow a few cents from the boss."
"No," George said. "I've a very little of my own. I'll use that."
He had, perhaps, two hundred dollars in the bank at Princeton. He drew a
check without hesitation and followed Blodgett's advice. He had
commenced to speculate without risk. Several times after that Blodgett
jerked out similar advice, usually commencing with: "What does young
Pierpont Morgan think of so and so?" And usually George would give his
employer a reasonable forecast. Because of these discreet hints his
balance grew, and Mundy one day announced that his salary had been
raised ten dollars.
All that, however, was the brighter side. Often during those hot, heavy
nights, while he pieced together the day's complicated pattern, George
envied the fortunates who could play away from pavements and baking
walls. He found himself counting the days until he would go back to
Princeton and football, and Betty's charm; but even that prospect was
shadowed by his doubt as to how he would emerge from the club tangle.
He didn't meet Sylvia, but one day he saw Old Planter step from an
automobile and enter the marble temple where he was accustomed to
sacrifice corporations and people to the gods of his pocket-book. The
great man used a heavy stick and climbed the steps rather slowly,
flanked by obsequious underlings, gaped at by a crowd, buzzing and
over-impressed. Somehow George couldn't fancy Blodgett with the gout--it
was too delightfully bred.
He peered in the automobile, but of course Sylvia wasn't there, nor, he
gathered from his mother's occasional notes to thank him for the little
money he could send her, was she much at Oakmont.
"I'll see her this fall," he told himself, "and next winter. I've
started to do what I said I would."
As far as Wall Street was concerned, Blodgett evidently agreed with him.
"I can put up with you next summer," he said at parting. "I'll write Mr.
Alston you're fit for something besides football."
Mundy displayed a pastoral sadness.
"You ought to stay right here," he said. "College is all right if you
don't want to amount to a hill of beans. It's rotten for making money."
Nevertheless, he agreed to send George a weekly letter, giving his wise
views as to what was going on among the money makers. They all made him
feel that even in that rushing place his exit had caused a perceptible
ripple.
XXII
The smallness, the untidiness, the pure joy of Squibs Bailly's study!
The tutor ran his hands over George's muscles.
"You're looking older and a good deal worn," he said, "but thank God
you're still hard."
Mrs. Bailly sat there, too. They were both anxious for his experiences,
yet when he had told them everything he sensed a reservation in their
praise.
"I think I should turn my share of the laundry back," he said,
defiantly. "I've something like three thousand dollars of my own now."
"Does it make you feel very rich?" Mrs. Bailly asked.
He laughed.
"It's a tiny start, but I won't need half of it to get through the
winter."
Bailly lighted his pipe, stretched his legs, and pondered.
"You're giving the laundry up," he said, finally, "because--because it
savours of service?"
George didn't get angry. He couldn't with Squibs in the first place;
and, in the second, hadn't that thought been at the bottom of his mind
ever since Dalrymple's remark about dirty hands?
"I don't need it any more," he said, "and I'd like to have you dispose
of it where it will do the most good."
His voice hardened.
"But to somebody who wants to climb, not to any wild-eyed fellow who
thinks he sees salvation in pulling down."
"You've just returned from the world," Bailly said, "and all you've
brought is three thousand dollars and a bad complexion. I wish you'd
directed your steps to a coal mine. You'd have come back richer."
XXIII
Goodhue got in a few hours after George. There was a deep satisfaction
in their greetings. They were glad to be together, facing varsity
football, looking ahead to the pleasures and excitements of another
year, but George would have been happier if he could have shared his
room-mate's unconcern about the clubs. Of course, Goodhue was settled.
Did he know about George? George was glad the other couldn't guess how
carefully he had calculated the situation--to take the best, or a
dignified stand against all clubs with Allen getting behind him with all
the poor and unknown men. But wasn't that exactly Wandel's game?
Stringham and Green were glad enough to see him, but Green thought he
had been thoughtless not to have kept a football in the office for
kicking goals through transoms.
It was good to feel the vapours of the market-place leaving his lungs
and brain. Goodhue and he, during the easy preliminary work, resumed
their runs. He felt he hadn't really gone back. If he didn't get hurt he
would do things that fall that would drive the perplexed frown from
Bailly's forehead, that would win Betty's applause and Sylvia's
admiration. Whatever happened he was going to take care of her brother
in the Yale game.
Betty was rather too insistent about that. She had fallen into the habit
again of stopping George and Goodhue on their runs for a moment's
gossip.
"See here, Betty," Goodhue laughed once, "you're rather too interested
in this Eli Planter."
George had reached the same conclusion--but why should it bother him? It
was logical that Betty and Lambert should be drawn together. He blamed
himself for a habit of impatience that had grown upon him. Had it come
out of the strain of the Street, or was it an expression of his
knowledge that now, at the commencement of his second year, he
approached the culmination of his entire college course? With the club
matter settled there would remain little for him save a deepening of
useful friendships and a squeezing of the opportunity to acquire
knowledge and a proper manner. For the same cause, the approaching
election of officers for Sophomore year was of vital importance. It was
generally conceded that the ticket put through now, barring accident,
would be elected senior year to go out into the world at the head of the
class. The presidency would graduate a man with a patent of nobility, as
one might say. George guessed that all of Wandel's intrigues led to the
re-election of Goodhue. He wanted that influential office in his own
crowd. Even now George couldn't wholly sound Wandel's desires with him.
He yielded to the general interest and uneasiness. Squibs had been
right. Princeton did hold a fair sample of it all. He understood that
very much as this affair was arranged he would see the political
destinies of the country juggled later.
Allen got him alone, begging for his decision.
"Have you been asked for a club yet?"
"None of your business," George said, promptly.
"You've got to make up your mind in a hurry," Allen urged. "Promise me
now that you'll leave the clubs alone, then I can handle Mr. Wandel."
"You're dickering with him?" George asked, quickly.
"No. Mr. Wandel is trying to dicker with me."
But George couldn't make up his mind. There were other problems as
critical as the clubs. Could he afford to fight Dick Goodhue for that
high office? If only he could find out what the Goodhue crowd thought of
him!
He had an opportunity to learn one evening, and conquered a passionate
desire to eavesdrop. As he ran lightly up the stairs to his room he
heard through the open study door Wandel and Goodhue talking with an
unaccustomed heat.
"You can't take such an attitude," Wandel was saying.
"I've taken it."
"Change your mind," Wandel urged. "I've nursed him along as the only
possible tie between two otherwise irreconcilable elements of the class.
I tell you I can't put you over unless you come to your senses."
George hurried in and nodded. From their faces he gathered there had
been a fair row. Wandel grasped his arm. George stiffened. Something was
coming now. It wasn't quite what he had expected.
"How would you like," Wandel said, "to be the very distinguished
secretary of your class?"
George gazed from the window at the tree-bordered lawns where lesser men
contentedly kicked footballs to each other.
"It ought to be what the class likes," he muttered. "I'm really only
interested in seeing Dicky re-elected."
"If," Wandel said, "I told you it couldn't be done without your
distinguished and untrammelled name on the ticket?"
George flushed.
"What do you mean by untrammelled?"
"You stop that, Spike," Goodhue said, more disturbed than George had
ever seen him. "It's indecent. I won't have it."
George relaxed. Untrammelled had certainly meant free from the taint of
the clubs. He was grateful Goodhue had interfered.
"Why don't you run for something yourself, Mr. Wandel?" he asked, dryly.
Goodhue laughed.
"Carry your filthy politics somewhere else."
He and George, with an affectation of good nature, pushed Wandel out of
the room. They looked at each other. Neither said anything.
George had to call upon his will to keep his attention on his books that
night. In return for Allen's support for Goodhue Wandel wanted to give
Allen for a minor place on the ticket a poor man untrammelled by the
clubs. The realization angered George. Aside from any other
consideration he couldn't permit himself to be bartered about to save
any one--even Goodhue. But was Goodhue trying to spare him at a
sacrifice? George, with a vast relief, decided that that was so when
Goodhue mentioned casually one day that he was a certainty for the club.
"Don't say anything about it," he advised. "The upper classmen have been
getting a few of us together. I'm glad you're among us. We'll elect the
full section later."
"Of course I came here a stranger," George began, trying to hide his
pleasure.
"Quite a lot of us have learned to know you pretty well," Goodhue
smiled.
George wouldn't accept this coveted gift without putting himself on
record.
"I needn't ask you," he said, "if Dalrymple's already in."
Goodhue shook his head.
"Maybe later."
"I think," George said, distinctly, "that the men who are responsible
for my election should know I'll hold out against Dalrymple."
"You're a conscientious beggar," Goodhue laughed. "It's your own
business now, but there'll be a nice little rumpus just the same."
George was conscientious with Allen, too.
"I feel I ought to tell you," he said, "that I've made up my mind, if
I'm asked, to join a club. Anything that has so much to offer can't be
as bad as you think."
Without answering Allen flushed and walked off angrily.
It was the next day that the parties gathered on the top floor of
Dickinson Hall for the election. George went as an amused spectator. He
had played the game on the level and had destroyed his own chances, but
he was afraid he had destroyed Goodhue's, too, or Goodhue had destroyed
his own by insisting on taking George into the club. That was a
sacrifice George wanted to repay.
Wandel, as usual, was undisturbed. Allen's angular figure wandered
restlessly among the groups. George had no idea what the line-up was.
George sensed weakness in the fact that, when the nominations were
opened, Wandel was the first on his feet. He recited Goodhue's virtues
as an athlete and a scholar. Like a real political orator at a
convention he examined his record as president the previous year. He
placed him in nomination amid a satisfactory applause. Now what was
coming? Who did Allen have?
When he arose Allen wore an air of getting through with a formality. He