Part 6

“They have gone away?” asked Oscar, sharply.

“Ah--yes,” returned the reticent John. “An unexpected matter of importance.”

“But, my dear sir, those gentlemen know nothing! Philosophy 4 is tomorrow, and they know nothing.”

“They’ll have to stand it, then,” said John, with a grin.

“And my time. I am waiting here. I am engaged to teach them. I have been waiting here since ten. They engaged me all day and this evening.

“I don’t believe there’s the slightest use in your waiting now, you know. They’ll probably let you know when they come back.”

“Probably! But they have engaged my time. The girl knows I was here ready at ten. I call you to witness that you found me waiting, ready at any time.”

John in his pyjamas stared at Oscar. “Why, of course they’ll pay you the whole thing,” said he, coldly; “stay here if you prefer.” And he went into the bathroom and closed the door.

The tutor stood awhile, holding his notes and turning his little eyes this way and that. His young days had been dedicated to getting the better of his neighbor, because otherwise his neighbor would get the better of him. Oscar had never suspected the existence of boys like John and Bertie and Billy. He stood holding his notes, and then, buckling them up once more, he left the room with evidently reluctant steps. It was at this time that the clocks struck one.

In their field among the soft new grass sat Bertie and Billy some ten yards apart, each with his back against an apple tree. Each had his notes and took his turn at questioning the other. Thus the names of the Greek philosophers with their dates and doctrines were shouted gayly in the meadow. The foreheads of the boys were damp to-day, as they had been last night, and their shirts were opened to the air; but it was the sun that made them hot now, and no lamp or gas; and already they looked twice as alive as they had looked at breakfast. There they sat, while their memories gripped the summarized list of facts essential, facts to be known accurately; the simple, solid, raw facts, which, should they happen to come on the examination paper, no skill could evade nor any imagination supply. But this study was no longer dry and dreadful to them: they had turned it to a sporting event. “What about Heracleitos?” Billy as catechist would put at Bertie. “Eternal flux,” Bertie would correctly snap back at Billy. Or, if he got it mixed up, and replied, “Everything is water,” which was the doctrine of another Greek, then Billy would credit himself with twenty-five cents on a piece of paper. Each ran a memorandum of this kind; and you can readily see how spirited a character metaphysics would assume under such conditions.

“I’m going in,” said Bertie, suddenly, as Billy was crediting himself with a fifty-cent gain. “What’s your score?”

“Two seventy-five, counting your break on Parmenides. It’ll be cold.”

“No, it won’t. Well, I’m only a quarter behind you.” And Bertie puffed off his shoes. Soon he splashed into the stream where the bend made a hole of some depth.

“Cold?” inquired Billy on the bank. Bertie closed his eyes dreamily. “Delicious,” said he, and sank luxuriously beneath the surface with slow strokes.

Billy had his clothes off in a moment, and, taking the plunge, screamed loudly “You liar!” he yelled, as he came up. And he made for Bertie.

Delight rendered Bertie weak and helpless; he was caught and ducked; and after some vigorous wrestling both came out of the icy water.

“Now we’ve got no towels, you fool,” said Billy.

“Use your notes,” said Bertie, and he rolled in the grass. Then they chased each other round the apple trees, and the black gelding watched them by the wall, its ears well forward.

While they were dressing they discovered it was half-past one, and became instantly famished. “We should have brought lunch along,” they told each other. But they forgot that no such thing as lunch could have induced them to delay their escape from Cambridge for a moment this morning. “What do you suppose Oscar is doing now?” Billy inquired of Bertie, as they led the black gelding back to the road; and Bertie laughed like an infant. “Gentlemen,” said he, in Oscar’s manner, “we now approach the multiplicity of the ego.” The black gelding must have thought it had humorists to deal with this day.

Oscar, as a matter of fact, was eating his cheap lunch away over in Cambridge. There was cold mutton, and boiled potatoes with hard brown spots in them, and large picked cucumbers; and the salt was damp and would not shake out through the holes in the top of the bottle. But Oscar ate two helps of everything with a good appetite, and between whiles looked at his notes, which lay open beside him on the table. At the stroke of two he was again knocking at his pupils’ door. But no answer came. John had gone away somewhere for indefinite hours and the door was locked. So Oscar wrote: “Called, two p.m.,” on a scrap of envelope, signed his name, and put it through the letter-slit. It crossed his mind to hunt other pupils for his vacant time, but he decided against this at once, and returned to his own room. Three o’clock found him back at the door, knocking scrupulously, The idea of performing his side of the contract, of tendering his goods and standing ready at all times to deliver them, was in his commercially mature mind. This time he had brought a neat piece of paper with him, and wrote upon it, “Called, three P.M.,” and signed it as before, and departed to his room with a sense of fulfilled obligations.

Bertie and Billy had lunched at Mattapan quite happily on cold ham, cold pie, and doughnuts. Mattapan, not being accustomed to such lilies of the field, stared at their clothes and general glory, but observed that they could eat the native bill-of-fare as well as anybody. They found some good, cool beer, moreover, and spoke to several people of the Bird-in-Hand, and got several answers: for instance, that the Bird-in-Hand was at Hingham; that it was at Nantasket; that they had better inquire for it at South Braintree; that they had passed it a mile back; and that there was no such place. If you would gauge the intelligence of our population, inquire your way in a rural neighborhood. With these directions they took up their journey after an hour and a half,--a halt made chiefly for the benefit of the black gelding, whom they looked after as much as they did themselves. For a while they discussed club matters seriously, as both of them were officers of certain organizations, chosen so on account of their recognized executive gifts. These questions settled, they resumed the lighter theme of philosophy, and made it (as Billy observed) a near thing for the Causal law. But as they drove along, their minds left this topic on the abrupt discovery that the sun was getting down out of the sky, and they asked each other where they were and what they should do. They pulled up at some cross-roads and debated this with growing uneasiness. Behind them lay the way to Cambridge,--not very clear, to be sure; but you could always go where you had come from, Billy seemed to think. He asked, “How about Cambridge and a little Oscar to finish off with?” Bertie frowned. This would be failure. Was Billy willing to go back and face John the successful?

“It would only cost me five dollars,” said Billy.

“Ten,” Bertie corrected. He recalled to Billy the matter about the landlady’s hair.

“By Jove, that’s so!” cried Billy, brightening. It seemed conclusive. But he grew cloudy again the next moment. He was of opinion that one could go too far in a thing.

“Where’s your sand?” said Bertie.

Billy made an unseemly rejoinder, but even in the making was visited by inspiration. He saw the whole thing as it really was. “By Jove!” said he, “we couldn’t get back in time for dinner.”

“There’s my bonny boy!” said Bertie, with pride; and he touched up the black gelding. Uneasiness had left both of them. Cambridge was manifestly impossible; an error in judgment; food compelled them to seek the Bird-in-Hand. “We’ll try Quincy, anyhow,” Bertie said. Billy suggested that they inquire of people on the road. This provided a new sporting event: they could bet upon the answers. Now, the roads, not populous at noon, had grown solitary in the sweetness of the long twilight. Voices of birds there were; and little, black, quick brooks, full to the margin grass, shot under the roadway through low bridges. Through the web of young foliage the sky shone saffron, and frogs piped in the meadow swamps. No cart or carriage appeared, however, and the bets languished. Bertie, driving with one hand, was buttoning his coat with the other, when the black gelding leaped from the middle of the road to the turf and took to backing. The buggy reeled; but the driver was skilful, and fifteen seconds of whip and presence of mind brought it out smoothly. Then the cause of all this spoke to them from a gate.

“Come as near spillin’ as you boys wanted, I guess,” remarked the cause.