Stanford Stories Part 8

"Come up to the room," and Haviland went up stairs with the emotions one carries to the dentist.

Smith threw himself on the bed and motioned Walt to a chair at his study table. They tried a little general conversation, but failed mournfully.

The Freshman had a wretched feeling that this room was home to him. He had slept here so often and he knew every athletic picture and trophy around it. There had been something said about his living here with Cap after Christmas. The clock ticked spitefully at him.

Smith's voice, deep and quiet, broke the pause.

"What's the good word, Professor?"

Walt swallowed a lump, nervously opened a book that lay on the table, then looked at the big red sweater on the bed, and said:

"I can't do it, Cap."

Smith kicked a pillow of which he thought a great deal almost into the grate, and said with fine scorn:

"When do you join the Phis?"

"I don't know," said Van, drearily.

"Well, I think you're nutty; it's the cheesiest gang in College."

The battle had begun. Walt might as well practice his defense at once, so he said with a little dignity:

"My uncle is a Phi, and it is his wish."

"So that is it!" Such a reason was no discredit to the Rhos; therefore it was the harder to accept. "You give me a jolt, Walt. Just because your uncle is in a rotten fraternity you must crawl into the heap, too.

I'd see him hanged first before I'd queer myself with those yaps."

Cap went on even more impatiently, but the Freshman heard not a word.

He was staring at the book open before him.

"Cap, what book is this?"

"The fraternity catalogue."

"What fraternity?"

"Ours, of course; whose did you think it was, the--"

Walt gave a hysterical whoop and flung himself over the footboard upon the astonished Smith. He rolled him over the bed and sent him to join the pillow on the floor; then, sitting up on the bed with tousled hair and s.h.i.+ning eyes, he said:

"Cap, if you still want me, I say yes!"

"What's the matter with you?" asked the amazed Soph.o.m.ore from the rug.

"Nothing!" shouted Walt. "I see the whole thing; uncle's awful writing--mother got it Phi instead of Rho--she doesn't know one from the other--his name's in your book. Hoo!" and he sprang on Smith again and lifted him bodily.

The Chapter had been waiting. Hearing propitious sounds, they came stringing in, and Haviland's explanation, with the celebration that followed it, took such a length of time that the longest, lankiest Phi fell asleep in the parlor and his lamp burned out about two.

THE INITIATION OF DROMIO.

The Initiation of Dromio.

"I know a prof.,--not much to see,-- Take care!

Mistakes are made here frequently, Beware!"

The Rho fraternity called Walter Haviland "professor." Haviland was one of their pledged Freshmen. In rus.h.i.+ng, a good nickname, gracefully used, is a great thing. It puts a Freshman considerably at his ease, and impresses him with the feeling that he belongs to the set.

The first day that Haviland came over to dinner, Bob Duncan, a Senior, spoke up from his end of the table: "Are you a relative of Lamb, the botany professor?"

"I have never heard that I am," answered the Freshman.

"Are you in any of his cla.s.ses?"

"No; I'm not going to take botany."

"If you were, I don't believe the cla.s.s could tell you apart. Doesn't he look like Lamb to beat the band, fellows?"

"He's a little heavier than the prof.," suggested Smith.

"Oh, perhaps he is a little," admitted Duncan, "but their height is the same to an inch, and the facial resemblance is great."

"He can't look much like a professor," laughed the Freshman.

"He doesn't," said Duncan, "they've got him down in the register as an a.s.sociate professor in botany, but that's all he has to his credit. He gets taken for a Freshman right along. New students ask him if he is registered and what his major is--sure they do."

"They say there was a big farmer who went in to register in botany and wouldn't do business with poor Lamb at all," said Perkins. "He said he wasn't so green as he looked, and he knew all about these students who make believe they're professors and give fake examinations. The professor was as red as a beet."

"I don't blame him," said Duncan. "Why, the man is married and has two children."

"Are you sure they're his," said Pellams, seriously. "I've seen them with him on the Quad, but I thought perhaps he'd borrowed them for effect, to keep off the Senior girls."

"The year he came here the Beta Phis tried to rush him, didn't they?"

asked Smith. Duncan scowled across the table at the Soph.o.m.ore. This was Haviland's first day at the house; they could josh other frats later, if he came their way; just now it was a break.

Ted Perkins interrupted tactfully. "Have some of this Spanish goo? The English department here is crazy on theatricals. They will probably want you for a grand revival of the Comedy of Errors."

"If I were you," came in Smith, to cover up his slip, "I would go over and draw his salary some day. They would pay it all right if they didn't look twice and ask questions."

"Better look out," added Pellams, in his solemn drawl, "those babies of his will be claiming you in the Quad in front of all Roble some sunny day, and then you might just as well leave college!"

This table-talk gave the men an idea for a nickname, and so, when they knew the Freshman a little better, they slipped an arm through his and called him "Professor." It was really the most civilized nickname in the house.