Chapter 7

From the day of his arrival Webster University felt the presence of Hugo Danner. Classes, football practice, hazing, fraternity scouting began on that morning with a feverish and good-natured hurly-burly that, for a time, completely bewildered him. Hugo participated in everything. He went to the classroom with pleasure. It was never difficult for him to learn and never easier than in those first few weeks. The professors he had known (and he reluctantly included his own father) were dry-as-dust individuals who had none of the humanities. And at least some of the professors at Webster were brilliant, urbane, capable of all understanding. Their lectures were like tonic to Hugo.

The number of his friends grew with amazing rapidity. It seemed that he could not cross the campus without being hailed by a member of the football team and presented to another student. The Psi Deltas saw to it that he met the entire personnel of their chapter at Webster. Other fraternities looked at him with covetous eyes, but Lefty Foresman, who was chairman of the membership committee, let it be known that the Psi Deltas had marked Hugo for their own. And no one refused their bid.

On the second Monday after college opened, Hugo went to the class elections and found to his astonishment that he received twenty-eight votes for president. A boy from a large preparatory school was elected, but twenty-eight votes spoke well for the reputation he had gained in that short time. On that day, too, he learned the class customs. Freshmen had to wear black caps, black shoes and socks and ties. They were not allowed to walk on the grass or to ride bicycles. The ancient cannon in the center of the class square was defended annually by the sophomores, and its theft was always attempted by the freshmen. No entering class had stolen it in eight years. Those things amused Hugo. They gave him an intimate feeling of belonging to his school. He wrote to his parents about them.

Dean Aiken, the newly elected president of the freshman class, approached Hugo on the matter of the cannon. “We want a gang of good husky boys to pull it up some night and take it away. Are you with us?”

“Sure.”

Left to his own considerations, Hugo recalled his promise and walked across the campus with the object of studying the cannon. It was a medium-sized piece of Revolutionary War vintage. It stood directly in the rear of Webster Hall, and while Hugo regarded it, he noticed that two sophomores remained in the vicinity. He knew that guard, changed every two hours, would be on duty day and night until Christmas was safely passed. Well, the cannon was secure. It couldn’t be rolled away. The theft of it would require first a free-for-all with the sophomores and after a definite victory a mob assault of the gun. Hugo walked closer to it.

“Off the grass, freshman!”

He wheeled obediently. One of the guards approached him. “Get off the grass and stay off and don’t look at that cannon with longing. It isn’t healthy for young freshmen.”

Hugo grinned. “All right, fella. But you better keep a double guard on that thing while I want it.”

Two nights later, during a heavy rain that had begun after the fall of dark, Hugo clad himself in a slicker and moved vaguely into the night. Presently he reached the cannon yard, and in the shelter of an arch he saw the sophomore guards. They smoked cigarettes, and one of them sang softly. Day and night a pair of conscripted sentries kept watchful eyes on the gun. A shout from either of them would bring the whole class tumbling from its slumber in a very few moments. Hugo moved out of their vision. The campus was empty.

He rounded Webster Hall, the mud sucking softly under his feet and the rain dampening his face. From beneath his coat he took a flare and lighted the fuse. He heard the two sophomores running toward it in the thick murk. When they were very close, he stepped on to the stone flagging, looked up into the cloudy sky, gathered himself, and leaped over the three stories of Webster Hall. He landed with a loud thud ten feet from the cannon. When the sophomores returned, after extinguishing the flare, their cherished symbol of authority had vanished.

There was din on the campus. First the loud cries of two voices. Then the screech of raised windows, the babble of more voices, and the rush of feet that came with new gusts of rain. Flash-lights pierced the gloom. Where the cannon had been, a hundred and then two hundred figures gathered, swirled, organized search-parties, built a fire. Dawn came, and the cannon was still missing. The clouds lifted. In the wan light some one pointed up. There, on the roof of Webster Hall, with the numerals of the freshman class painted on its muzzle, was the old weapon. Arms stretched. An angry, incredulous hum waxed to a steady pitch and waned as the sophomores dispersed.

In the morning, theory ran rife. The freshmen were tight-lipped, pretending knowledge where they had none, exulting secretly. Dean Aiken was kidnapped at noon and given a third degree, which extorted no information. The theft of the cannon and its elevation to the roof of the hall entered the annals of Webster legend. And Hugo, watching the laborious task of its removal from the roof, seemed merely as pleased and as mystified as the other freshmen.

So the autumn commenced. The first football game was played and Hugo made a touchdown. He made another in the second game. They took him to New York in November for the dinner that was to celebrate the entrance of a new chapter to Psi Delta.

His fraternity had hired a private car. As soon as the college towers vanished, the entertainment committee took over the party. Glasses were filled with whisky and passed by a Negro porter. Hugo took his with a feeling of nervousness and of excited anticipation. The coach had given him permission to break training--advised it, in fact. And Hugo had never tasted liquor. He watched the others, holding his glass gingerly. They swallowed their drinks, took more. The effect did not seem to be great. He smelled the whisky, and the smell revolted him.

“Drink up, Danner!”

“Never use the stuff. I’m afraid it’ll throw me.”

“Not you. Come on! Bottoms up!”

It ran into his throat, hot and steaming. He swallowed a thousand needles and knew the warmth of it in his stomach. They gave another glass to him and then a third. Some of the brothers were playing cards. Hugo watched them. He perceived that his feet were loose on their ankles and that his shoulders lurched. It would not do to lose control of himself, he thought. For another man, it might be safe. Not for him. He repeated the thought inanely. Some one took his arm.

“Nice work in the game last week. Pretty.”

“Thanks.”

“Woodie says you’re the best man on the team. Glad you went Psi Delt. Best house on the campus. Great school, Webster. You’ll love it.”

“Sure,” Hugo said.

The railroad coach was twisting and writhing peculiarly. Hugo suddenly wanted to be in the air. He hastened to the platform of the car and stood on it, squinting his eyes at the countryside. When they reached the Grand Central Terminal he was cured of his faintness. They rode to the theatre in an omnibus and saw the matinée of a musical show. Hugo had never realized that so many pretty girls could be gathered together in one place. Their scant, glittering costumes flashed in his face. He wanted them. Between the acts the fraternity repaired in a body to the lavatory and drank whisky from bottles.

Hugo began to feel that he was living at last. He was among men, sophisticated men, and learning to be like them. Nothing like the camaraderie, the show, the liquor, in Indian Creek. He was wearing the suit that Lefty Foresman had chosen for him. He felt well dressed, cool, capable. He was intensely well disposed toward his companions. When the show was over, he stood in the bright lights, momentarily depressed by the disappearance of the long file of girls. Then he shouldered among his companions and went out of the theatre riotously.

Two long tables were drawn up at the Raven, a restaurant famous for its roast meats, its beer, and its lack of scruples about the behaviour of its guests. The Psi Deltas took their places at the tables. The dining-room they occupied was private. Hugo saw as if in a dream the long rows of silverware, the dishes of celery and olives, and the ranks of shining glasses. They sat. Waiters wound their way among them. There was a song. The toastmaster, a New York executive who had graduated from Webster twenty years before, understood the temper of his charge. He was witty, ribald, genial.

He made a speech, but not too long a speech. He called on the president of a bank, who rose totteringly and undid the toastmaster’s good offices by making too long a speech. Its reiterated “dear old Websters” were finally lost in the ring and tinkle of glassware and cutlery.

At the end of the long meal Hugo realized that his being had undergone change. Objects approached and receded before his vision. The voice of the man sitting beside him came to his ears as if through water. His mind continually turned upon itself in a sort of infatuated examination. His attention could not be held even on his own words. He decided that he was feverish. Then some one said: “Well, Danner, how do you like being drunk?”

“Drunk?”

“Sure. You aren’t going to tell me you’re sober, are you?”

When the speaker had gone, Hugo realized that it was Chuck. There had been no feeling of recognition. “I’m drunk!” he said.

“Some one give Danner a drink. He has illusions.”

“Drunk! Why, this man isn’t drunk. It’s monstrous. He has a weakened spine, that’s all.”

“I’m drunk,” Hugo repeated. He knew then what it was to be drunk. The toastmaster was rising again. Hugo saw it dimly.

“Fellows!” A fork banged on a glass. “Fellows!” There was a slow increase in silence. “Fellows! It’s eleven o’clock now. And I have a surprise for you.”

“Surprise! Hey, guys, shut up for the surprise!”

“Fellows! What I was going to say is this: the girls from the show we saw this afternoon are coming over here--all thirty of ‘em. We’re going up to my house for a real party. And the lid’ll be off. Anything goes--only anybody that fights gets thrown out straight off without an argument. Are you on?”

The announcement was greeted by a stunned quiet which grew into a bellow of approval. Plates and glasses were thrown on the floor. Lefty leaped on to the table and performed a dance. The proprietor came in, looked, and left hastily, and then the girls arrived.

They came through the door, after a moment of reluctant hesitation, like a flood of brightly colored water. They sat down in the laps of the boys, on chairs, on the edge of the disarrayed tables. They were served with innumerable drinks as rapidly as the liquor could be brought. They were working, that night, for the ten dollars promised to each one. But they were working with college boys, which was a rest from the stream of affluent and paunchy males who made their usual escort. Their gaiety was better than assumed.

Hugo had never seen such a party or dreamed of one. His vision was cleared instantly of its cobwebs. He saw three boys seize one girl and turn her heels over head. A piano was moved in. She jumped up and started dancing on the table. Then there was a voice at his side.

“Hello, good-looking. I could use that drink if you can spare it.”

Hugo looked at the girl. She had brown hair that had been curled. Her lips and cheeks were heavily rouged and the corners of her mouth turned down in a sort of petulance or fatigue. But she was pretty. And her body, showing whitely above her evening dress, was creamy and warm. He gave the drink to her. She sat in his lap.

“Gosh,” he whispered. She laughed.

“I saw her first,” some one said, pulling at the girl’s arm.

“Go ‘way,” Hugo shouted. He pushed the other from them. “What’s your name?”

“Bessie. What’s yours?”

“Hugo.”

The girl accepted two glasses from a waiter. They drained them, looking at each other over the rims. “Got any money, Hugo?”

Hugo had. He carried on his person the total of his cash assets. Some fifty dollars. “Sure. I have fifty dollars,” he answered.

He felt her red lips against his ear. “Let’s you and me duck this party and have a little one of our own. I’ve got an apartment not far from here.”

He could hear the pounding of his heart. “Let’s.”

They moved unostentatiously from the room. Outside, in the hall, she took his hand. They ran to the front door.

There was the echo of bedlam in his whirling mind when they walked through the almost deserted street. She called to a taxi and they were driven for several blocks. At a cheap dance hall they took a table and drank more liquor. When his head was turned, she narrowed her eyes and calculated the effect of the alcohol against the dwindling of his purse. They danced.

“Gee, you’re a swell dancer.”

“So are you, Bessie.”

“Still wanna go home with Bessie?”

“Mmmm.”

“Let’s go.”

Another taxi ride. The lights seethed past him. A dark house and three flights of rickety stairs. The gritty sound of a key in a lock. A little room with a table, a bed, two chairs, a gas-light turned low, a disheveled profusion of female garments.

“Here we are. Sit down.”

Hugo looked at her tensely. He laughed then, with a harsh sound. She flew into his arms, returning his searching caresses with startling frankness. Presently they moved across the room. He could hear the noises on the street at long, hot intervals.

Hugo opened his eyes and the light smote them with pain. He raised his head wonderingly. His stomach crawled with a foul nausea. He saw the dirty room. Bessie was not in it. He staggered to the wash-bowl and was sick. He noticed then that her clothes were missing. The fact impressed him as one that should have significance. He rubbed his head and eyes. Then he thought accurately. He crossed the room and felt in his trousers pockets. The money was gone.