The Second Generation. David Graham Phillips
do you mean by associations—and life—and—all that?"
"I can't explain exactly," replied Arthur. "It would take a long time."
"I haven't asked you to be brief."
"I can't put it into words."
"Why not?"
"You would misunderstand."
"Why?"
Arthur made no reply.
"Then you can't tell me what you go to college for?"
Again the young man looked perplexedly at his father. There was no anger in that tone—no emotion of any kind. But what was the meaning of the look, the look of a sorrow that was tragic?
"I know you think I've disgraced you, father, and myself," said Arthur. "But it isn't so—really, it isn't. No one, not even the faculty, thinks the less of me. This sort of thing often occurs in our set."
"Your 'set'?"
"Among the fellows I travel with. They're the nicest men in Harvard. They're in all the best clubs—and lead in supporting the athletics and—and—their fathers are among the richest, the most distinguished men in the country. There are only about twenty or thirty of us, and we make the pace for the whole show—the whole university, I mean. Everybody admires and envies us—wants to be in our set. Even the grinds look up to us, and imitate us as far as they can. We give the tone to the university!"
"What is 'the tone'?"
Again Arthur shifted uneasily. "It's hard to explain that sort of thing. It's a sort of—of manner. It's knowing how to do the—the right sort of thing."
"What is the right sort of thing?"
"I can't put it into words. It's what makes you look at one man and say,
'He's a gentleman'; and look at another and see that he isn't."
"What is a 'gentleman'—at Harvard?"
"Just what it is anywhere."
"What is it anywhere?"
Again Arthur was silent.
"Then there are only twenty or thirty gentlemen at Harvard? And the catalogue says there are three thousand or more students."
"Oh—of course," began Arthur. But he stopped short.
How could he make his father, ignorant of "the world" and dominated by primitive ideas, understand the Harvard ideal? So subtle and evanescent, so much a matter of the most delicate shadings was this ideal that he himself often found the distinction quite hazy between it and that which looked disquietingly like "tommy rot."
"And these gentlemen—these here friends of yours—your 'set,' as you call 'em—what are they aiming for?"
Arthur did not answer. It would be hopeless to try to make Hiram Ranger understand, still less tolerate, an ideal of life that was elegant leisure, the patronage of literature and art, music, the drama, the turf, and the pursuit of culture and polite extravagance, wholly aloof from the frenzied and vulgar jostling of the market place.
With a mighty heave of the shoulders which, if it had found outward relief, would have been a sigh, Hiram Ranger advanced to the hard part of the first task which the mandate, "Put your house in order," had set for him. He took from the inside pocket of his coat a small bundle of papers, the records of Arthur's college expenses. The idea of accounts with his children had been abhorrent to him. The absolute necessity of business method had forced him to make some records, and these he had expected to destroy without anyone but himself knowing of their existence. But in the new circumstances he felt he must not let his own false shame push the young man still farther from the right course. Arthur watched him open each paper in the bundle slowly, spread it out and, to put off the hateful moment for speech, pretend to peruse it deliberately before laying it on his knee; and, dim though the boy's conception of his father was, he did not misjudge the feelings behind that painful reluctance. Hiram held the last paper in a hand that trembled. He coughed, made several attempts to speak, finally began: "Your first year at Harvard, you spent seventeen hundred dollars. Your second year, you spent fifty-three hundred. Last year—Are all your bills in?"
"There are a few—" murmured Arthur.
"How much?"
He flushed hotly.
"Don't you know?" With this question his father lifted his eyes without lifting his shaggy eyebrows.
"About four or five thousand—in all—including the tailors and other tradespeople."
A pink spot appeared in the left cheek of the old man—very bright against the gray-white of his skin. Somehow, he did not like that word "tradespeople," though it seemed harmless enough. "This last year, the total was," said he, still monotonously, "ninety-eight hundred odd—if the bills I haven't got yet ain't more than five thousand."
"A dozen men spend several times that much," protested Arthur.
"What for?" inquired Hiram.
"Not for dissipation, father," replied the young man, eagerly.
"Dissipation is considered bad form in our set."
"What do you mean by dissipation?"
"Drinking—and—all that sort of thing," Arthur replied. "It's considered ungentlemanly, nowadays—drinking to excess, I mean."
"What do you spend the money for?"
"For good quarters and pictures, and patronizing the sports, and club dues, and entertainments, and things to drive in—for living as a man should."
"You've spent a thousand, three hundred dollars for tutoring since you've been there."
"Everybody has to do tutoring—more or less."
"What did you do with the money you made?"
"What money, father?"
"The money you made tutoring. You said everybody had to do tutoring. I suppose you did your share."
Arthur did not smile at this "ignorance of the world"; he grew red, and stammered: "Oh, I meant everybody in our set employs tutors."
"Then who does the tutoring? Who're the nobodies that tutor the everybodies?"
Arthur grew cold, then hot. He was cornered, therefore roused. He stood, leaned against the table, faced his father defiantly. "I see what you're driving at, father," he said. "You feel I've wasted time and money at college, because I haven't lived like a dog and grubbed in books day in and day out, and filled my head with musty stuff; because I've tried to get what I believe to be the broadest knowledge and experience; because I've associated with the best men, the fellows that come from the good families. You accept the bluff the faculty puts up of pretending the A fellows are really the A fellows, when, in fact, everybody there and all the graduates and everyone everywhere who knows the world knows that the fellows in our set are the ones the university is proud of—the fellows with manners and appearance and—"
"The gentlemen," interjected the father, who had not changed either his position or his expression.
"Yes—the gentlemen!" exclaimed Arthur. "There are other ideals of life besides buying and selling."
"And working?" suggested Hiram.
"Yes—and what you call working," retorted Arthur, angry through and through. "You sent me East to college to get the education of a man in my position."
"What is your position?" inquired Hiram—simply an inquiry.
"Your son," replied the young man; "trying to make the best use of the opportunities you've worked so hard to get for me. I'm not you, father. You'd despise me if I didn't have a character, an individuality, of my own. Yet, because I can't see life as you see it, you are angry with me."
For answer Hiram only heaved his great shoulders in another