Andy at Yale Part 49

"Take 'em for twenty cents," said the student salesman, suddenly. "I need the money!"

"Tell you what I'll do," spoke Andy. "If we win the game to-morrow I'll buy a dollar's worth, provided you let us alone now."

"It's a bargain!" cried Ikey, gathering up the scattered socks.

"And I'll do the same," promised Dunk, whereupon the salesman departed for other rooms.

"Queer chap, isn't he?" remarked Dunk, after a pause that followed Ikey's departure.

"Yes, but do you know, I rather like him," said Andy, with a quick look at his chum. "There's one thing that a fellow gets into the habit of when he comes to Yale--or, for that matter, to any good college, I suppose."

"What's that?" asked Dunk, his mind quickly snapping to some of the not very good habits he had fallen into.

"It's learning how to take the measure of a fellow," went on Andy, "I mean his measure in the right way--not according to the standards we are used to."

"Quite philosophical; aren't you?" laughed Dunk, as he picked up a book, and leafed it.

"Well, that's another habit you get into here," said Andy, with a smile.

"But you know what I mean, don't you Dunk?"

"Well, I suppose you mean that you get tolerant of persons--fellows and so on--that you have a natural dislike for otherwise; is that it?"

"Partly. You learn to appreciate a fellow for what he is really worth--not because his dad can write a check in any number of figures, and not turn a hair. It's _worth_ that counts at Yale, and not cash."

"You're right there, Andy. I think I've learned that, too. Take some of the fellows here--we needn't mention any names--their popularity, such as it is, depends on how much they can spend, or how many spreads they can give in the course of the year. And the worst of it is, that their popularity would go out like a candle in a tornado, once they lost their money."

"Exactly," agreed Dunk. "They get so to depending on the power of their cash they think its all that counts."

"And another bad thing about that," continued Andy, "is that those fellows, if they wanted to, could make a reputation on something else besides their cash. Now there's one chap here--no names, of course--but he's a fine musician, and he could make the glee club, and the dramatic a.s.sociation too, if he liked. But he's just to confounded lazy. He'd rather draw a check, give an order for a spread, and let it go at that.

"Of course the fellows like to go to the blow-outs, and--come home with a headache. This fellow thinks he gets a lot of fun out of it, but it's dollars to some of these socks Ikey sells, that he'd have a heap more fun, and make a lot more permanent friends, if he'd get out and take part in something that was worth while.

"Now you take our friend Ikey. I don't imagine it's any great fun for him to be going around selling things the way he does--he has to, I understand it. And yet at that, he has a better time of it than maybe you or I do--and we don't exactly have to worry where our next allowance check is coming from."

"Right, Andy old man. Jove! You'd better have taken up the divinity school. I'm thinking. You're a regular preacher."

"I don't feel a bit like preaching though, Dunk old boy. In fact I'd a heap sight rather turn in and snooze. But, do you know I'm so nervous over this game that I'm afraid I'll lie awake and toss until morning, and then I won't be much more use than a wet dishrag, as far as my nerve is concerned."

"I feel pretty nearly the same as you do, Andy. Let's sit up a while and talk. I s'pose, though, if we ever make the varsity we'll laugh at the way we're acting now."

"Oh, I don't know," spoke Andy musingly. "Some of these varsity fellows have as bad a case of nerves before a big game as we have now, before our little Freshman one."

"It isn't such a little one!" and Dunk bridled up. "The winning of this game from Princeton means as much to our cla.s.s, and to Yale, in a way, as though the varsity took a contest. It all counts--for the honor of the old college. How are you feeling, anyhow?"

"Pretty fit. I'm only afraid, though, that I'll make some horrible break in front of the crowd--m.u.f.f a foul, or let one of your fast ones get by me with the bases full," concluded Andy.

"If you do," exclaimed Dunk, with a falsetto tone calculated to impress the hearer that a petulant girl was speaking--"if you do I'll never speak to you again--so there!" and he pretended to toss back a refractory lock of hair.

Andy laughed, and pitched a book at his chum, which volume Dunk successfully dodged.

"Well, I wouldn't want that to happen," said the catcher. "And that reminds me. There's a rip in my glove, and I've got to sew it."

"Can you sew?"

"Oh, a bit," answered Andy. "I'm strictly an amateur though, mind you. I don't do it for pay, so if you've got any b.u.t.tons that need welding to your trousers don't ask me to do it."

"Never!" exclaimed Dunk. "I've found a better way than that."

"What is it--the bachelor's friend--or every man his own tailor? Fasten a b.u.t.ton on with a pair of gas-pliers so that you have to take the trousers apart when you want to get it off?"

"Something like that, yes," laughed Dunk, "only simpler. Look here!"

He pulled up the back of his vest and showed Andy where a suspender b.u.t.ton was missing. In its place Dunk had taken a horseshoe nail, pushed it through a fold of the trousers, and had caught the loop of the braces over the nail.

"Isn't that some cla.s.sy little contrivance?" he asked, proudly. "Not that I take any credit to myself, though. Far be it! I got the idea out of the comic supplement. But it works all right, and the beauty of it is that you can use the nail over and over again. It is practically indestructible.

"So you see if you are wearing the nail all day, to lectures and so on, and if you have to put on your glad rags at night to go see a girl, or anything like that, and find a b.u.t.ton missing, you simply remove the nail from your day-pants and attach it to your night ones. Same suspenders--same nail. It beats the bachelor's friend all to pieces."

"I should imagine so," laughed Andy. "I'll have to lay in a stock of those nails myself. The way tailors sew b.u.t.tons on trousers nowadays is a scandal. They don't last a week."

"There's one trouble, though," went on Dunk, and he carefully examined his simple suspender attachment as if in fear of losing it. "With the increasing number of autos, and the decrease in horses, there is bound to be a corresponding decrease in horseshoe nails. That's a principle of economics which I am going to bring to the attention of Professor Shandy. He likes to lecture on such cute little topics as that. He might call it 'Bachelor's future depends on the ratio of increase of automobiles.'"

"I see!" exclaimed Andy with a chuckle. "Just as Darwin, or one of those evolutionists proved that the clover crop depended on old maids."

"How do you make that out?" asked Dunk.

"I guess you've forgotten your evolution. Don't you remember? Darwin found that certain kinds of clover depended for growth and fertilization on humble bees, which alone can spread the pollen. Humble bees can't exist in a region where there are many field mice, for the mice eat the honey, nests and even the humble bees themselves.

"Now, of course you know that the more cats there are in a neighborhood the less field mice there are, so if you find a place where cats are plentiful you'll find plenty of humble bees which aren't killed off by the mice, since the mice are killed off by the cats. So Darwin proved that the clover crop, in a certain section, was in direct proportion to the number of cats."

"But what about old maids?"

"Oh, I believe it was Huxley who went Darwin one better, come to think of it. Huxley said it was well known that the more old maids there were the more cats there were. So in a district well supplied with old maids there'd be plenty of cats, and in consequence plenty of clover."

"Say, are you crazy, or am I?" asked Dunk, with a wondering look at his friend. "This thing is getting me woozy! What did we start to talk about, anyhow?"

"Horseshoe nails."

"And now we're at old maids. Good-night! Come on out and walk about a bit. The fresh air will do us good, and maybe we'll sleep."

"I'll go you!" exclaimed Andy. "Let's go get some chocolate. I'm hungry and there isn't a bit of grub left," and he looked in the box where he usually kept some biscuits.

They went out together, pa.s.sing across the quadrangle, in which scores of students were flitting to and fro, under the elms, and in and out of the shadows of the electric lights.

Dunk was saying something over to himself in a low voice.

"What is that--a baseball litany?" asked Andy, with a laugh.