The Trail of the Hawk: A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life
flat-bed hand-presses and pure Jeffersonian politics, and feared
neither man nor devil, though he was uneasy in the presence of his
landlady. He ostentatiously flapped a wad of copy-paper in his left
hand, and shook a spatter of ink-drops from a fountain-pen as he
interviewed the Greek professor, who could be seen answering
pompously. Carl was hating them both, fearing the Greek as a faculty
spy on Frazer, picturing himself kicking the editor, when he was aware
of a rustling all over the room, of a general turning of heads toward
the platform.
He turned. He was smiling like a shy child in his hero-worship.
Professor Frazer was inconspicuously walking through the low door
beside the platform. Frazer's lips were together. He was obviously
self-conscious. His motions were jerky. He elaborately did not look at
the audience. He nearly stumbled on the steps up to the platform. His
hand shook as he drew papers from a leather portfolio and arranged
them on the small reading-table. One of the papers escaped and sailed
off the platform, nearly to the front row. Nearly every one in the
room snickered. Frazer flushed. A girl student in the front row
nervously bounded out of her seat, picked up the paper, and handed it
up to Frazer. They both fumbled it, and their heads nearly touched.
Most of the crowd laughed audibly.
Professor Frazer sat down in his low chair, took out his watch with a
twitching hand, and compared his time with the clock at the back of
the room--and so closely were the amateur executioners observing their
victim that every eye went back to the clock as well. Even Carl was
guilty of that imitation. Consequently he saw the editor, standing at
the back, make notes on his copy-paper and smirk like an ill-bred
hound stealing a bone. And the Greek professor stared at Frazer's
gauche movements with a grim smugness that indicated, "Quite the sort
of thing I expected." The Greek's elbows were on the arm of the seat,
and he held up before his breast a small red-leather-covered note-book
which he superciliously tapped with a thin pencil. He was waiting.
Like a judge of the Inquisition....
"Old Greek 's going to take notes and make a report to the faculty
about what Frazer says," reflected Carl. "If I could only get hold of
his notes and destroy them!"
Carl turned again. It was just three. Professor Frazer had risen.
Usually he sat while lecturing. Fifty whispers commented on that fact;
fifty regular members of the course became self-important through
knowing it. Frazer was leaning slightly against the table. It moved an
inch or two with his weight, but by this time every one was too
high-strung to laugh. He was pale. He re-arranged his papers. He had
to clear his throat twice before he could speak, in the now silent,
vulturishly attentive room, smelling of wet second-rate clothes.
The gusty rain could be heard. They all hitched in their seats.
"Oh, Frazer _can't_ be going to retract," groaned Carl; "but he's
scared."
Carl suddenly wished himself away from all this useless conflict; out
tramping the wet roads with the Turk, or slashing through the puddles
at thirty-five miles an hour in the banker's car. He noted stupidly
that Genie Linderbeck's hair was scarcely combed. He found he was
saying, "Frazer 'll flunk, flunk, flunk; he's going to flunk, flunk,
flunk."
Then Frazer spoke. His voice sounded harsh and un-rhythmical, but soon
swung into the natural periods of a public speaker as he got into his
lecture:
"My friends," said he, "a part of you have come here legitimately, to hear
a lecture; a part to satisfy the curiosity aroused by rumors to the effect
that I am likely to make indecorous and indecent remarks, which your
decorum and decency make you wish to hear, and of which you will carry away
evil and twisted reports, to gain the reputation of being fearless
defenders of the truth. It is a temptation to gratify your desire and shock
you--a far greater temptation than to be repentant and reactionary. Only,
it occurs to me that this place and time are supposed to be devoted to a
lecture by Henry Frazer on his opinions about contemporary drama. It is in
no sense to be given to the puling defense of a martyr, nor to the
sensational self-advertisement of either myself or any of you. I have no
intention of devoting any part of my lecture, aside from these introductory
adumbrations, to the astonishing number of new friends whose bright and
morning faces I see before me. I shall neither be so insincerely tactful as
to welcome you, nor so frightened as to ignore you. Nor shall I invite you
to come to me with any complaints you have about me. I am far too busy with
my real work!
"I am not speaking patiently. I am not patient with you! I am not
speaking politely. Truly, I do not think that I shall much longer be
polite!
"Wait. That sounds now in my ears as rhetorical! Forgive me, and
translate my indiscretions into more colloquial language.
"Though from rumors I have overheard, I fancy some of you will do
that, anyway.... And now, I think, you see where I stand.
"Now then. For such of you as have a genuine interest in the brilliant
work of Bernard Shaw I shall first continue the animadversions on the
importance of his social thought, endeavor to link it with the great
and growing vision of H. G. Wells (novelist and not dramatist though
he is, because of the significance of his new books, _Kips_ and
_Mankind in the Making_), and point out the serious purpose that seems
to me to underlie Shaw's sarcastic pictures of life's shams.
"In my last lecture I endeavored to present the destructive side of
present social theories as little as possible; to dwell more on the
keen desire of the modern thinkers for constructive imagination. But I
judge that I was regarded as too destructive, which amuses me, and to
which I shall apply the antidote of showing how destructive modern
thought is and must be--whether running with sootily smoking torch of
individuality in Bakunin, or hissing in Nietzsche, or laughing at
Olympus in Bernard Shaw. My 'radicalism' has been spoken of. Radical!
Do you realize that I am not suggesting that there might possibly some
day be a revolution in America, but rather that now I am stating that
there is, this minute, and for some years has been, an actual state of
warfare between capital and labor? Do you know that daily more people
are saying openly and violently that we starve our poor, we stuff our
own children with useless bookishness, and work the children of others
in mills and let them sell papers on the streets in red-light
districts at night, and thereby prove our state nothing short of
insane? If you tell me that there is no revolution because there are
no barricades, I point to actual battles at Homestead, Pullman, and
the rest. If you say that there has been no declaration of war, open
war, I shall read you editorials from _The Appeal to Reason_.
"Mind you, I shall not say whether I am enlisted for or against the
revolutionary army. But I demand that you look about you and
understand the significance of the industrial disturbances and
religious unrest of the time. Never till then will you understand
anything--certainly not that Shaw is something more than an _enfant
terrible_; Ibsen something more than an ill-natured old man with
dyspepsia and a silly lack of interest in skating. Then you will
realize that in the most extravagant utterances of a red-shirted
strike-leader there may be more fervent faith and honor, oftentimes,
than in the virgin prayers of a girl who devoutly attends Christian
Endeavor, but presumes to call Emma Goldman 'that dreadful woman.'
Follow the labor-leader. Or fight him, good and hard. But do not
overlook him.
"But I must be more systematic. When John Tanner's independent
chauffeur, of whom you have--I hope you have--read in _Man and
Superman_----"
* * * * *
Carl looked about. Many were frowning; a few leaning sidewise to
whisper to neighbors, with a perplexed head-shake that plainly meant,
"I don't quite get that." Wet feet were shifted carefully; breaths
caught quickly; hands nervously played with lower lips. The Greek
professor was writing something. Carl's ex-room-mate, Plain Smith, was
rigid, staring unyieldingly at the platform. Carl hated Smith's
sinister stillness.
* * * * *
Professor Frazer was finishing his lecture:
"If it please you, flunk this course, don't read a single play I
assign to you, be disrespectful, disbelieve all my contentions. And I
shall still be content. But do not, as you are living souls, blind
yourself to the fact that there is a world-wide movement to build a
wider new world--and that the world needs it--and that in Jamaica
Mills, on land owned by a director of Plato College, there are two
particularly vile saloons which you must wipe out before you disprove
me!" Silence for ten seconds. Then, "That is all."
The crowd began to move hesitatingly, while Professor Frazer hastily
picked up his papers and raincoat and hurried out through the door
beside the platform. Voices immediately rose in a web of talk,
many-colored, hot-colored.
Carl babbled to the man next him, "He sure is broad. He doesn't care
whether they're conservative or not. And some sensation at the end!"
"Heh? What? Him?" The sophomore was staring.
"Yes. Why, sure! Whadya mean?" demanded Carl.
"Well, and wha' do _you_ mean by 'broad'? Sure! He's broad just like a
razor edge."
"Heh?" echoed the next man down the row, a Y. M. C. A. senior. "Do you
mean to say you liked it?"
"Why, sure! Why not? Didn't you?"
"Oh yes. Yes indeed! All he said was that scarlet women like Emma
Goldman were better than a C. E. girl, and that he hoped his students
would bluff the course and flunk it, and that we could find booze at
Jamaica Mills, and a few little things like that. That's all. Sure!
That's the sort of thing we came here to study." The senior was
buttoning his raincoat with angry fingers. "That's----Why, the man was
insane! And the way he denounced decency and----Oh, I can't talk about
it!"
"W-w-w-well by gosh, of all the--the----" spluttered Carl. "You and
your Y. M. C. A.--calling yourself religious, and misrepresenting like
that--you and your----Why, you ain't worth arguing with. I don't
believe you 'came to study' anything. You know it all already."
Passionate but bewildered, trying not to injure the cause of Frazer by
being nasty, he begged: "Straight, didn't you like his spiel? Didn't
it give you some new ideas?"
The senior vouchsafed: "No, 'me and my Y. M.' didn't like it. Now
don't let me keep you, Ericson. I suppose you'll be wanting to join
dear Mr. Frazer in a highball; you're such a pet of his. Did he teach
you to booze? I understand you're good at it."
"You apologize or I'll punch your face off," said Carl. "I don't
understand Professor Frazer's principles like I ought to. I'm not
fighting for them. Prob'ly would if I knew enough. But I don't like
your face. It's too long. It's like a horse's face. It's an insult to
Frazer to have a horse-faced guy listen to him. You apologize for
having a horse face, see?"
"You're bluffing. You wouldn't start anything here, anyway."
"Apologize!" Carl's fist was clenched. People were staring.
"Cut it out, will you! I didn't mean anything."
"You wouldn't," snapped Carl, and rammed his way out, making wistful
boyish plans to go to Frazer with devotion and offers of service in a
fight whose causes grew more confused to him every moment. Beside him,
as he hurried off to football practice, strode a big lineman of the
junior class, cajoling:
"Calm down, son. You can't lick the whole college."
"But it makes me so sore----"
"Oh, I know, but it strikes me that no matter how much you like