Harvard Stories Part 4

Holworthy had accepted an invitation to dine at the Tremonts' in Boston.

There was nothing remarkable about that; but so had Jack Rattleton, and that _was_ remarkable. He had done so chiefly on Holworthy's account. He rarely went anywhere in Boston society, as he held that to do so was a waste of precious time given to him for a college education. He could employ his evenings much better in Cambridge in his study, with a select party, or in one of the clubs. True, he often went over the bridge; but that, as he said, was always with some earnest purpose, such as a study of the drama at the Howard Athenaeum, or to attend a benefit of Prof.

Murphy or some other revered instructor. He never frittered away his moments in the vapidity of a polite ballroom. Dinners he especially abhorred (except, of course, serious masculine dinners); chiefly because dinner engagements had to be kept, and worse, kept punctually. For that reason they were, in Jack's estimation, as bad as lectures to a man on probation. He had decided to bind himself to this dinner, however, because he knew the Tremonts very well, and happened to know they were going to invite Holworthy, and also happened to know that some one else was going to be thereabout whom Holworthy did not like to be chaffed. He foresaw a possible opportunity of "seeing Hol do the devoted and breaking him up"; so for this benevolent purpose he determined to sacrifice himself.

Now, Holworthy knew naught of this, and when Rattleton casually mentioned to him that he (Jack) had been bidden to a dinner at the Tremonts', and asked him for the most approved form for a lying regret, he used all his powers of persuasion to make Rattleton accept. He preached a sermon on the evil effects of Jack's Bohemian ways and neglected opportunities. He said he was going to that same dinner and would bring Jack back in a cab. Finally, after much objection, and after getting as many bribes out of his mentor as possible, Rattleton agreed to go, and also agreed to do his best not to be late.

On this latter point Hollis spent half an hour. He insisted, and impressed upon Jack in every way, that a man could do nothing more outrageous than to keep his hostess waiting for him for dinner.

Holworthy, it may be observed, had been brought up with old-fas.h.i.+oned ideas of good breeding. His father had taught him never to fail, or be late at a dinner or a duel, if once engaged for either. He cautioned Rattleton not to put his faith in excuses, for they were always weak and as naught. "Everybody," said he, "knows you are lying, and you know that they know you are lying, and they know that you know that they know you are lying."

"That's so," acknowledged Jack, with a melancholy shake of his head. "At one time, when I went in for these vanities, I used to have some pretty good excuses, but they are all played out now. I have broken down every cab in Cambridge, given every horse the blind staggers, and ruined the reputation for sobriety of every driver. I have broken my own leg once or twice, and limped painfully into the room; that was very effective, until I once favored the wrong leg. The electric cars were a great help when they first came in, but I have long since dislocated every trolly on the line."

"Well, above all," said Holworthy, "if you _should_ happen to be late, don't try that worn out chestnut about the drawbridge being open, as I heard a poor young Freshman do the other night, with a happy confidence."

"Do you take _me_ for a Freshman?" responded Jack, indignantly. "At the first dinner I went to when I first came up, I started to use the drawbridge, and the old grad. with whom I was dining took the words out of my mouth and then laughed at me."

"The best thing for you to do," suggested Hollis, as his final advice, "is to get a chain and make yourself fast to your bedstead from now until the evening of the dinner. I'll come round and unchain you when it is time to dress. At any rate, I shall endeavor to keep you in sight all that day." All of which Rattleton took humbly, and promised to do his best.

But on the afternoon of the appointed day Jack was not to be found.

Holworthy hunted in vain for him at all his usual haunts, and in the evening began dressing himself with many misgivings. While he was still in his room, his chum Charles Rivers came in from the afternoon's work in the University boat. Holworthy complained to him of the way in which the man Rattleton was turning his hair gray.

"Looking for Lazy Jack, are you?" laughed Rivers, rea.s.suringly; "well, he was in a four-oar above the Brighton Abattoir not very long ago. I couldn't see him, because I had to keep my eyes in the boat, but I could hear him objurgating Steve Hudson for hitting up the stroke. We pa.s.sed them as we were pulling back from Watertown. It wasn't half an hour ago."

Holworthy made a short remark about Rattleton that has nothing to do with the story. "I have only just time to get into the Tremonts' now,"

said he, as he threw on his cloak, "but I will stop at the s.h.i.+ftless beggar's room before I go in. He may possibly have got back and dressed."

He hurried along Harvard Street, and on the corner ran into a lot of men coming up from the river. Sauntering along in their flannels, perfectly happy after the glorious exercise and bath, he saw Hudson, Randolph, Stoughton,--and the long form of Mr. Rattleton, quite as usual, hands in his pockets, head thrown back, a smile on his face, content in his soul, and nothing on his mind. There was a sudden change in his aspect, however, when he caught sight of Holworthy's silk hat and white tie. He stopped, aghast, with a "By Jove!" and then, "Oh, the devil!"

"Yes," exclaimed Holworthy, hotly, "and that is just where you will go some day from sheer carelessness. That is the one appointment you'll keep,--though, I believe, you will be late for your own funeral."

"Don't wait for me, old man. I'll be there as soon as I can," answered Jack, ambiguously.

"Wait for you!" Hollis cried, "I wash my hands of you! If you choose to disgrace yourself, it is none of my business. As it is now, I may be late myself," and he boarded a car for Boston.

Now it was so that Holworthy did not know the Tremonts. They were old friends of his family, and he ought to have called on them when he first came to college; but he had not, and they had been abroad since his Freshman year. He was not even perfectly certain of where they lived, and he had forgotten, in his hurry on leaving his room, to look at the address on the invitation! He thought of this fact when he was over the bridge and well into Boston. However, he pretty clearly remembered having sent his acceptance to 142 Marconwealth Street. It was either 142 or 242; but to make sure he decided to look it up in a Blue Book. He, therefore, got out at Park Square and went into a druggist's, to consult the little directory.

He first looked up 142 Marconwealth Street, and found the name of Jones.

Then he looked for 242, 342, 442,--he felt there was a 42 in the combination somehow,--but all were vacant of Tremonts. He tried the 42's of other streets, but in vain. Then, in desperation, he ran down the whole list of Tremonts. Reader, dost thou know aught of the ancient town of Boston? If not, look some time into a Boston Blue Book, open anywhere, and see what Holworthy saw. In Boston, when they want to describe a particularly luxuriant forest, they say that its leaves are as the Tremonts. Hollis was not even sure of the first name of his intended host; he thought it was Mayflor. There were three Mayflor Tremonts on Marconwealth Street, one at each end and one in the middle.

Of other Tremonts on that street there were fourteen.

The cold sweat stood on Holworthy's brow in the most approved style. It was already half past seven, the hour of dinner, for he had spent several minutes in his Blue Book research. Only one plan occurred to him. He bought the book at an extravagant price and jumped into a cab, determined to hunt down that dinner if he had to go to every Tremont in Boston. He began with the Mayflor Tremonts. When the servant answered the bell, he would ask if there was a dinner-party going on in that house. He was not sure whether he was taken for a lunatic or a society reporter, but did not care which. None of the Mayflor Tremonts were giving dinners on that evening. Then he began at one end of Marconwealth Street, and tried every Tremont in order.

All this time the minutes were joining the past eternity, and he, Hollis Holworthy, was getting later and later for dinner. At the sixth house, however, as a maid opened the door, he heard the sounds of gentle revelry and small talk, and his heart leaped for joy. The maid said, "Yes, we have a party here to-night." He rushed back and paid for his cab, not stopping for the paltry change due him, amounting to half that he gave. He left his coat and hat in the hall to save time and, without asking further questions, strode by the maid into the dining-room. He was twenty-five minutes late, and glad they had not waited for him.

Going up to the hostess, he began, "Mrs. Tremont, I can't tell you how mortified--" the table was filled! There was no vacant chair! Then he noticed that the hostess was looking a little blank, though smiling and polite. "I beg your pardon," he said, as his heart sank, "have I made some awful mistake? My name is Holworthy; did you not invite me to dinner this evening, or have I got the wrong house?--or the wrong night?"

"I am afraid you _have_ made a mistake, Mr. Holworthy," replied the lady, "and I think it must be in the house."

"Well, can you tell me," asked the blus.h.i.+ng and desperate youth, trying to keep a groan out of his question, "whether you happen to know of any other Mrs. Tremont who is giving a dinner to-night? I have lost the address, and I am dinnerless in the streets of Boston."

The hostess laughed a little at Holworthy's despair, but relieved him by saying that her cousin, Mrs. Mayflor Tremont, had said something that day about a dinner.

"But I have been to the houses of three Mrs. Mayflor Tremonts on this street," protested poor Hollis. "Is there another one?"

"Why, Hol," spoke up Ernest Gray, an intimate friend, who was present to Holworthy's great comfort, "that is where Jack Rattleton told me that you and he were going--the Mayflor Tremont's, 142 Marconwealth Street."

"That is just what I thought," said Holworthy, "but the Blue Book gives one Jones at 142."

"Oh!" explained Mrs. Tremont, "they have only just moved in, and their name has not been changed in the Blue Book."

"Then _that_ was my ruin," Hollis exclaimed. "Thank you very much, indeed. I hope you will forgive me for making such a scene," and he retreated with as much dignity and haste as could be combined. He was too much relieved to mind Gray's remark, "That is one on you, Hol," or the laugh that he heard as he got to the front door.

His cab had only moved to the corner, and he hailed it again. The driver repaid his recent generosity by getting him to 142 in less than three minutes.

Let us now see how it fared with Jack, the gra.s.shopper. At the moment when Holworthy took the car in Harvard Square, there was seen a rare phenomenon of nature;--Rattleton showed acute animation. He went up Harvard Street with two leaps to a block. Riley's cab, as usual, was standing at the corner of Holyoke Street, and as Jack dashed by, he yelled for Riley. The latter came tumbling out of Foster's, and, in forty-three seconds and two fifths, had his chariot at the door of Rattleton's staircase. Both Riley and his horse are as well drilled to emergencies as are the men and steeds of a fire-engine. Jack reached his room in record time, and only stopped to wash his face and hands. He grabbed his evening clothes and shoes, a "boiled" s.h.i.+rt and tie, and was in the cab almost as soon as it got to the door.

"Riley," said he, "get me to 142 Marconwealth Street before Mr.

Holworthy, and I'll try and pay what I owe you this week. It is a matter of life and death, and I expect you this day to do your duty. Don't be beaten by an electric car."

The latter part of this exhortation had its effect. Riley follows the Golden Rule and never duns anybody, but his weak spots are his professional pride and his sporting blood. Touch him there, and you will travel in his cab as in the car of Phoebus. He has never lost the day when it was possible for man and horse to save it. Ned Burleigh used to say that he would back Riley's nag against Salvator, provided the former should have behind him the cab, Riley, and a load. On this particular occasion he fully maintained his reputation.

While rus.h.i.+ng towards Boston, Rattleton proceeded to dress. He at first complimented himself on not having forgotten anything; but, when he came to his s.h.i.+rt, behold, there were no studs! He had been wearing a soft cheviot, and had only a collar b.u.t.ton. The absence of sleeve b.u.t.tons would probably not be noticed, but he could not go to dinner with a studless chest. For a minute he thought the game was up, wrecked by such a little thing. Then an inspiration came to him. With his knife he cut three little pearl b.u.t.tons out of his under-s.h.i.+rt, leaving a piece attached to each b.u.t.ton. These he pushed through his s.h.i.+rt, and they were held in place by the pieces of flannel at their backs. It had always been suspected by his friends that Jack Rattleton really had brains, though he never made the exertion to use them. It had even been said that some time in an emergency he might show positive genius. He looked at those improvised studs with satisfaction, as he reasoned to himself that they would be taken for imitation b.u.t.tons and, therefore, go unnoticed. If they should be recognized as real, that would be all the better; it would look like a new fas.h.i.+on, and one of most "swagger"

simplicity. He tied his cravat all right by feeling; but he had not thought of a hair-brush, and his hair was all damp and on end after his shower-bath at the boat-house. This did not trouble him, however, as he was sure of finding a brush at the Tremonts, in the room where the men would leave their coats.

He had hardly finished this flying toilet when he arrived at the house, not two minutes late. He instructed Riley to come back at ten, and that the return trip would be "on Mr. Holworthy." In the dressing-room there were hair-brushes, as he had expected, and he went down to the drawing-room in faultless order, feeling that he had made a great discovery. Undoubtedly a cab was just the place for a hurried man of business, like himself, to dress.

He called the attention of his hostess to his punctuality, and a.s.sured her that such a thing in him was a sign of the greatest devotion. "You see," said he, "when I am late, everyone says, 'Oh, it is only that s.h.i.+ftless Jack Rattleton,' and when I am on time, I want the credit for it. Now it is nothing particularly praiseworthy for a man like Holworthy to be on time. If he should ever slip up, it might well be put down as an insult, because he never forgets or dawdles. Some day his good reputation will be the ruin of him. I think my system is the better."

After which airy persiflage, Rattleton noticed that Holworthy was not in the room; and ten minutes later, when the latter was still absent, he began to wish he had let airy persiflage alone. Everybody else had arrived. Five minutes more went by, and when twenty minutes were gone and no Holworthy, Jack went to Mrs. Tremont and told her how Hollis had left Cambridge in plenty of time, and, in fact, had refused to wait for him. "Something must have happened to him," he said, rather anxiously, "and I am prepared to back up as strictly true any excuse he may offer, for I can swear he left Cambridge more than an hour ago, and was coming right here."

"No accident to himself, I hope," replied Mrs. Tremont. "At any rate, I think we had better go in, as I am sure Mr. Holworthy will feel more comfortable if we do not wait for him."

So in they went, Rattleton taking her whom Holworthy should have taken, for Jack was one of two extra men.

And Hollis, where was he? Suffering in the cab.

Ten minutes later, as he went up the stoop of 142, an insidious policy stole into Holworthy's brain. He had lost the invitation and mistaken the number of the house,--why should he not have mistaken instead the hour of dinner? Was that not better than to be ignorant of the address of his hostess, upon whom he ought to have called long before this? He was in good time for an eight o'clock dinner, and most dinners are at eight nowadays. Then, too, Rattleton would be just about half an hour late, and would probably be utterly unconcerned about it, and offer no excuses. That would lend color to a suspicion that Mrs. Tremont had herself made the mistake, in writing some of the invitations. He would not need to tell any actual untruth--to say distinctly that he thought dinner was at eight. He need only imply it, and apologize for his evident mistake. It would be a pretty poor plea for a very bad crime, but at any rate it was a more polite explanation than the real one, and less ridiculous. Oh, Hollis Holworthy, that thou shouldst thus forget the _veritas_, the watchword of thine Alma Mater!

In the dressing-room was a straw hat with a colored ribbon. "Hullo," he surmised, "Jack is here. Wonder if the rest of his outfit corresponds, and he has come in his blazer." As he went into the dining-room, his eye first lighted on that interesting person whom Mr. Davis has capitally termed "A Girl He Knew." On her right was Rattleton, on her left a vacant chair. She must have had to go in alone!

With a look of gentle surprise and concern, that, he flattered himself, was rather well done, he went up and saluted Mrs. Tremont.

"Have I been mistaken," he asked, "in thinking that dinner was at eight o'clock, or has my watch betrayed me?" There was no fib in this and what could be more diplomatic?

Mrs. Tremont stood it for a second, then she happened to catch sight of Rattleton's face. It was too much for her, and she burst out laughing.

After all, it was the best thing to do.

"Now, Mr. Holworthy, tell us what really happened, and we will believe and forgive you. Jack, here, has testified to the time of your departure from Cambridge, and you must fill in the interim somehow."

Then Hollis made a clean breast of the whole thing, and made the tale of his sufferings as moving as possible, finis.h.i.+ng with a request for some dust to put on his head. He was so humble that even Rattleton was sorry for him; but the memory of many of Holworthy's lectures came to Jack and he could not resist suggesting to Mrs. Tremont, as Hollis took his seat, that as Holly's blood had run so cold she ought to have some soup warmed up for him.

That evening, on the way back to Cambridge in the cab, was spent one of the pleasantest half hours of Rattleton's life. He told Holworthy how a man could do nothing more outrageous than to keep his hostess waiting for dinner. He said he had a very good chain that he used for his dog Blathers, but which he could lend Hollis. He warned him some day that he would surely go to the devil by his careless habits. "Above all," said he, "never put your faith in excuses. Everybody knows you are lying, and even if you don't know that they know, etc., you sometimes find out."