CHAPTER II
AN INTERRUPTION

Erskine College, at Centerport, is not large. Like many another New England college its importance lies rather in its works than in wealth or magnificence. Its enrolment in all departments at the time of which I write was about 600. I am not going to describe the college, it would take too long; and besides, it has been done very frequently and very well, and if the reader, after studyingthe accompanying plan, which is reproduced with the kind permission of the authorities, feels the need of further description, I would respectfully refer him to Balcom’s Handbook of Erskine (photographically illustrated) and May’s History of Erskine College. And if in connection with these he examines the annual catalogue he will know about all there is to be known of the subject.

Leaving Washington Street and going west on Elm Street, he will find, facing the apex of the Common, a small white frame cottage profusely adorned with blinds of a most vivid green. That is Mrs. Dorlon’s. It is by far the tiniest of the many boarding- and lodging-houses that line the outer curve of Elm Street, and, as might be supposed, its rooms are few and not commodious. Mrs. Dorlon, a small, middle-aged widow, with a perpetual cold in the head, reserves the lower floor for her own use and rents the two up-stairs rooms to students. Between these second-floor apartments there is little to choose. The western one gets the afternoon sunlight, while the one on the other side of the hall gets none. To make up for this, however, the eastern room is, or was, at the time of my story, the proud possessor of a register, supposed, somewhat erroneously, to conduct warm air into the apartment; while the western room, to use the language of Mrs. Dorlon, was “het by gas.”

Aside from these differences, apparent rather than real, the two chambers were similar. In each there was a strip of narrow territory in which it was possible to stand upright, flanked on either side by abruptly sloping ceilings whose flaking expanses were broken by dormer-windows, admitting a little light and a deal of cold. It was the eastern room that Jack Weatherby at present called home, a feat which implied the possession of a great deal of imagination on his part. For when, having escaped the hostile throng by the river and made his way up Washington into Elm Street, and so to the house with the painfully green blinds, the room in which he found himself didn’t look the least bit in the world like home.

The iron cot-bed, despite its vivid imitation Bagdad covering, failed to deceive the beholder into mistaking it for a Turkish divan. The faded and threadbare ingrain carpet, much too small to cover the floor, was of a chilly, inhospitable shade of blue. The occupant had made little attempt at decoration, partly because the amount of wall space adapted to pictures was extremely limited, partly because from the first the cheerless ugliness of the room discouraged him. The green-topped study table near the end window was a sorry piece of furniture. Former users had carved cabalistic designs into the walnut rim and adorned the imitation leather covering with even more mysterious figures; there were evidences, too, of overturned ink-bottles. A yellow-grained wardrobe beside the door leaned wearily against the supporting angle of the ceiling.

The brightest note in the room was a patent rocker upholstered in vivid green and yellow Brussels carpet. If we except a walnut book-shelf hanging beside the end window and a wash-stand jammed under one dormer, the enumeration of the furnishings is complete. Even on days when the sun shone against the white gable of the next house, the apartment could scarcely be called cheerful, and this afternoon with the evening shadows closing down and the wind whipping the branches of the elms outside and buffeting the house until it creaked complainingly, the room was forlorn to a degree.

After slamming the door behind him Jack tossed aside his cap, and subsiding into the rocker stretched his legs and stared miserably through the window into a swaying world of gray branches and darkening sky. The overmastering anger that had sent him striding home as though pursued dwindled away and left in its place a loneliness and discouragement that hurt like a physical pain. Things had been bad before, he thought, but now, branded in public a coward and despised by his fellows, life would be unbearable! He pictured the glances of contempt that would meet him on the morrow in hall and yard, or wherever he went, and groaned. He recalled the professor’s biting words: “I didn’t think we had any cowards here at Erskine!” and clenched his hands in sudden overmastering rage. The injustice of it maddened him. Would Professor White, he asked himself, have gone into the river after the drowning boy if, like himself, he were unable to swim a stroke and sickened at the mere thought of contact with the icy flood?

Presently his thoughts reverted to the morrow and the punishment he must undergo. His courage faltered, and the alternative, that of packing his few things there and then and leaving college by an early train in the morning, seemed the only course possible. Well, he would do it. It would mean disappointment to his parents and a loss of money they could ill afford. To him it would mean five months of study wasted. But better that than staying on there despised and ridiculed, to be pointed out behind his back as The Coward.

With a gasp he leaped to his feet, his cheeks tingling and his eyes moist with sudden tears. The room was in darkness. He fumbled over the desk until he found the match-box. When the gas was lighted he remembered the condition of his feet, and drawing a chair before the register he removed his wet shoes and placed them against the warm grating that they might dry overnight. His battered silver watch showed the time to be a few minutes before six. He found dry socks, and drawing them over his chilled feet donned a pair of carpet slippers. Then he washed for supper, bathing his flushed face over and over, and got back into his coat just as a weak-voiced bell below summoned the small household to the evening meal. As he went out he noted with surprise that the door of the opposite room was ajar, allowing a streak of light to illumine the upper hall with unaccustomed radiance. The room had been vacant all the year, but now, evidently, Mrs. Dorlon had found a tenant. But the fact interested him little, for his mind was firmly made up, and on the morrow his own room would be for rent.

When he entered the tiny dining-room Mrs. Dorlon and her daughter, a shy wisp of a girl some twelve or thirteen years of age, were already seated at the table. Jack muttered greetings and applied himself silently to the cold meat and graham bread which, with crab-apple jelly and weak tea, comprised the meal. But his hostess was plainly elated, and after a few pregnant snuffles the secret was out. The western chamber was rented!

“And such a nice, pleasant-mannered young man he is,” she declared. “A Mr. Tidball, a junior. Perhaps you have met him?”

Jack shook his head.

“Well, I’m sure you’ll like him, and it’ll be real pleasant for you to have another student in the house. I know what it is to be alone” – she sniffed sadly – “since Mr. Dorlon died, and I guess you feel downright lonely sometimes up there. If you like I’ll introduce Mr. Tidball after supper?”

The widow appeared to find a mild excitement at the thought, and her face fell when Jack begged off. “Not this evening, please,” he said. “I’m going to be very busy, Mrs. Dorlon.”

“Oh, very well. I only thought – ” What she thought he never knew, for excusing himself he pushed back his chair and returned to his room. As he closed his door he heard the new lodger whistling cheerfully and tunelessly across the hallway.

He dragged a steamer trunk from under the bed, threw back the lid and unceremoniously hustled the contents on to the floor. Then he took a valise from the wardrobe and proceeded to pack into it what few belongings would serve him until he could send for his trunk. The latter he couldn’t take with him. In the first place, there was no way of getting it to the depot in time for the early train; in the second place, as he was not now able to pay Mrs. Dorlon the present month’s rent, he felt that he ought to leave something behind him as security. The prospect of going home raised his spirits, and he felt happier than he had for many months. He even hummed an air as he tramped busily between the wardrobe and the trunk, and the result was that the first knock on the door passed unheeded. After a moment the knock was repeated, and this time Jack heard it and paused in the act of spreading his Sunday trousers in the till and looked the consternation he felt. Who was it, he wondered. Perhaps Mrs. Dorlon come to hint about the rent; perhaps – but whoever it might be, Jack didn’t want his preparations seen. He softly closed the trunk lid and wished that he had locked the door. He waited silently. Perhaps the caller would go away. Then, as he began to think with relief that this had already happened, the knob turned, the door swung open, and a lean, spectacled face peered through the opening.

“I thought maybe you didn’t hear me knock,” said a queer, drawling voice. “I’ve taken the room across the way, and as we’re going to be neighbors I thought I’d just step over and get acquainted.”

The caller came in and closed the door behind him, casting an interested look about the shabby apartment. Jack, after an instant of surprise and dismay, muttered a few words of embarrassed greeting. As he did so he recognized in the odd, lanky figure at the door the hero of the accident at the river.

CHAPTER III
MR. TIDBALL INTRODUCES HIMSELF

The caller looked to be about twenty-one or two years of age. He was tall, thin, and angular, and carried himself awkwardly. His shoulders had the stoop that tells of much poring over books. His hands and feet were large, the former knotted and ungainly. His face was lean, the cheeks somewhat sunken; the nose was large and well-shapen and the mouth, altogether too broad, looked good-natured and humorous. He wore steel-rimmed spectacles, behind which twinkled a pair of small, pale-blue eyes, kindly and shrewd. His clothes seemed at first sight to belong to some one very much larger; the trousers hung in baggy folds about his legs and his coat went down behind his neck exposing at least an inch of checkered gingham shirt.