The Little Lady of the Big House / Маленькая хозяйка большого дома. Книга для чтения на английском языке. Джек Лондон
a hiring and firing[105]. He was not frugal in the matter. For one that he retained a month, or three months, he discharged a dozen on the first day, or the first week. And invariably he paid such dischargees a full month although their attempts to teach him might not have consumed an hour. He did such things fairly and grandly, because he could afford to be fair and grand.
He, who had eaten the leavings from firemen’s pails in round-houses and “scoffed” mulligan-stews at water-tanks, had learned thoroughly the worth of money. He bought the best with the sure knowledge that it was the cheapest. A year of high school physics and a year of high school chemistry were necessary to enter the university. When he had crammed his algebra and geometry, he sought out the heads of the physics and chemistry departments in the University of California. Professor Carey laughed at him… at the first.
“My dear boy,” Professor Carey began.
Dick waited patiently till he was through. Then Dick began, and concluded.
“I’m not a fool, Professor Carey. High school and academy students are children. They don’t know the world. They don’t know what they want, or why they want what is ladled out to them[106]. I know the world. I know what I want and why I want it. They do physics for an hour, twice a week, for two terms, which, with two vacations, occupy one year. You are the top teacher on the Pacific Coast in physics. The college year is just ending. In the first week of your vacation, giving every minute of your time to me, I can get the year’s physics. What is that week worth to you?”
“You couldn’t buy it for a thousand dollars,” Professor Carey rejoined, thinking he had settled the matter.
“I know what your salary is – ” Dick began.
“What is it?” Professor Carey demanded sharply.
“It’s not a thousand a week,” Dick retorted as sharply. “It’s not five hundred a week, nor two-fifty a week – ” He held up his hand to stall off interruption. “You’ve just told me I couldn’t buy a week of your time for a thousand dollars. I’m not going to. But I am going to buy that week for two thousand. Heavens! – I’ve only got so many years to live —”
“And you can buy years?” Professor Carey queried slyly.
“Sure. That’s why I’m here. I buy three years in one, and the week from you is part of the deal.”
“But I have not accepted,” Professor Carey laughed.
“If the sum is not sufficient,” Dick said stiffly, “why name the sum you consider fair[107].”
And Professor Carey surrendered. So did Professor Barsdale, head of the department of chemistry.
Already had Dick taken his coaches in mathematics duck hunting for weeks in the sloughs of the Sacramento and the San Joaquin. After his bout with physics and chemistry he took his two coaches in literature and history into the Curry County hunting region of southwestern Oregon. He had learned the trick from his father, and he worked, and played, lived in the open air, and did three conventional years of adolescent education in one year without straining himself. He fished, hunted, swam, exercised, and equipped himself for the university at the same time. And he made no mistake. He knew that he did it because his father’s twenty millions had invested him with mastery. Money was a tool. He did not over-rate it, nor under-rate it. He used it to buy what he wanted.
“The weirdest form of dissipation I ever heard,” said Mr. Crockett, holding up Dick’s account for the year. “Sixteen thousand for education, all itemized, including railroad fares, porters’ tips, and shot-gun cartridges for his teachers.”
“He passed the examinations just the same,” quoth Mr. Slocum.
“And in a year,” growled Mr. Davidson. “My daughter’s boy entered Belmont at the same time, and, if he’s lucky, it will be two years yet before he enters the university.”
“Well, all I’ve got to say,” proclaimed Mr. Crockett, “is that from now on what that boy says in the matter of spending his money goes.”
“And now I’ll have a snap,” Dick told his guardians. “Here I am, neck and neck again[108], and years ahead of them in knowledge of the world. Why, I know things, good and bad, big and little, about men and women and life that sometimes I almost doubt myself that they’re true. But I know them.
“From now on, I’m not going to rush. I’ve caught up, and I’m going through regular. All I have to do is to keep the speed of the classes, and I’ll be graduated when I’m twenty-one. From now on I’ll need less money for education – no more coaches, you know – and more money for a good time.”
Mr. Davidson was suspicious.
“What do you mean by a good time?”
“Oh, I’m going in for the frats, for football, hold my own, you know – and I’m interested in gasoline engines. I’m going to build the first ocean-going gasoline yacht in the world —”
“You’ll blow yourself up,” Mr. Crockett demurred. “It’s a fool notion all these cranks are rushing into over gasoline.”
“I’ll make myself safe,” Dick answered, “and that means experimenting, and it means money, so keep me a good drawing account – same old way – all four of us can draw.”
Chapter VI
Dick Forrest proved himself no prodigy at the university, save that he cut more lectures[109] the first year than any other student. The reason for this was that he did not need the lectures he cut, and he knew it. His coaches, while preparing him for the entrance examinations, had carried him nearly through the first college year. Incidentally, he made the Freshman team, a very scrub team, that was beaten by every high school and academy it played against.
But Dick did put in work that nobody saw. His collateral reading was wide and deep, and when he went on his first summer cruise in the ocean-going gasoline yacht he had built no gay young crowd accompanied him. Instead, his guests, with their families, were professors of literature, history, jurisprudence, and philosophy. It was long remembered in the university as the “high-brow” cruise[110]. The professors, on their return, reported a most enjoyable time. Dick returned with a greater comprehension of the general fields of the particular professors than he could have gained in years at their class-lectures. And time thus gained, enabled him to continue to cut lectures and to devote more time to laboratory work.
Nor did he miss having his good college time. College widows made love to him, and college girls loved him, and he was indefatigable in his dancing. He never cut a smoker, a beer bust, or a rush, and he toured the Pacific Coast with the Banjo and Mandolin Club.
And yet he was no prodigy. He was brilliant at nothing. Half a dozen of his fellows could out-banjo and out-mandolin him. A dozen fellows were adjudged better dancers than he. In football, and he gained the Varsity in his Sophomore year, he was considered a solid and dependable player, and that was all. It seemed never his luck to take the ball and go down the length of the field while the Blue and Gold host tore itself and the grandstand to pieces. But it was at the end of heart-breaking, grueling slog in mud and rain, the score tied, the second half imminent to its close, Stanford on the five-yard line, Berkeley’s ball, with two downs and three yards to gain – it was then that the Blue and Gold arose and chanted its demand for Forrest to hit the center and hit it hard.
He never achieved super-excellence at anything. Big Charley Everson drank him down at the beer busts[111]. Harrison Jackson, at hammer-throwing, always exceeded his best by twenty feet. Carruthers out-pointed him at boxing. Anson Burge could always put his shoulders to the mat, two out of three, but always only by the hardest work. In English composition a fifth of his class excelled him. Edlin, the Russian Jew, out-debated him on the contention that property was robbery.
such a hiring and firing – (
what is ladled out to them – (
why name the sum you consider fair – (
neck and neck again – (
cut more lectures – (
the “high-brow” cruise – (
drank him down at the beer busts – (