An Alumni Dinner

________________________________________________
Title:     An Alumni Dinner
Author: Charles Kellogg Field [More Titles by Field]

"And it's we who have to rustle
In the cold, cold world!"

Dr. Williamson's landlady would not listen any further. She stood on the threshold of her lodger's combination of bedroom and office and said, with an offensively clear enunciation:

"You haven't any patients, and no more have I any longer, and I want that money to-morrow or I rent the room."

The door closed.

Williamson listened to her footsteps, as hard and uncompromising as her voice, and when they had ceased he got up from his chair, a despairing soul. After all, this was the rope's end. He would have to own up to a failure.

If Williamson had been a man of more force he would not have acknowledged so much, perhaps; but he had been conscientious and faithful to the limit of his understanding, patient to the verge of philosophy, and the result discouraged him.

He drew out his last clean collar and put it on, with the vague idea of going somewhere and doing something--what, he could not have told. His eyes fell on a framed document hanging near his mirror, a small but ornate instrument, setting forth that the Faculty and Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University, by virtue of the authority in them vested, etc., conferred the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry on Philip Howard Williamson.

His thoughts turned back toward a morning over four years gone, when he walked down the platform bearing that "last of his childhood's toys," and in imagination P.H. Williamson, M. D., held conversation with Philip Howard Williamson, A. B.

Williamson, A. B., standing just the other side of the mirror, spoke and said:

"It looks as though you were up against it."

Williamson, M. D., arranging his tie so as to hide his soiled shirt, answered:

"I am up against it. And it's your fault."

Williamson, A. B., did not seem to see it. But he was a conceited creature, anyway.

"It's more than half your fault," went on the man on the real side of the mirror. "You dug and worked, and you thought that if you only kept ahead of your class in Physiology you had a clean card to success. How many fellows did you know in college?"

"Some. I never went in for being popular. There were Trueman, and Miller, and Rodney--"

"And how many of them were of the sort to help you? Trueman, without family or brains, and Miller, who lived in the East, and little Rod--"

"They were the best I could meet. They were the only ones who understood that I really wanted people. No one understood how I loved the college and wanted to be in things. I wasn't good at telling; and besides, I had my work to do. They knew the way I used to look across the campus on Spring nights--"

Williamson, M. D., checked him at this point. That impractical creature thought that they were talking of friendship, when it was only a question of Pull. He conveyed that point to the Bachelor.

"Why didn't you find some friends who would be of use to Me?" he asked, savagely. "While you were following out sutures and involuntary reactions, what was Marshall doing? Running for class president and making the Mandolin Club and getting acquainted with people of some use to him. He isn't one-two-six with me for ability and never was; but he has patients to give away, and I--"

Williamson, A. B., came to bat.

"You do mightily well to reproach me with all this. How have you done in making friends? Did you work up any connections at Columbia those three years? Have you tried to find anyone here in town? What friends have you except Stanford men? What have you done for yourself, anyway?"

The other weakly quoted what the Head Demonstrator had said of his surgery.

Williamson, A. B., held him to the point: "I also was called the keenest student of my time," said he; "but it isn't bringing you patients."

The M. D. broke sullenly away, leaving the A. B. frowning back of the mirror. These dead selves are so crude! He ended the interview by slamming out of the house.

For the twentieth time that week he cast up accounts with himself, as the electric car sped toward civilization. Assets, one dollar and five cents, just reduced by a grinding monopoly from a dollar-ten; liabilities, a laundry bill and six weeks' rent. Truly, a squalid failure. If he could only hold out a little longer! There was in sight a situation as consulting physician to a lodge in his father's Order, which would mean a living at least. He had the promise of it in a month's time. A loan of twenty-five dollars now would save him, but no good angel occurred to him, think as he might, and he had nothing he could afford to pawn.

Troubled in spirit, he sauntered listlessly up Post street from Kearny. The mid-day rain had not yet dried from the pavements, and the air was clear and fresh. Against the last of a January sunset, the tops of the city were growing indistinct. The personnel of the crowd on the streets had changed; the promenaders and the cocktail-route procession had dwindled to a few stragglers. There was less of a press now, and most of the people were of the class that work until six, belated bookkeepers and girls from shops and sewing rooms. He watched these toilers with a vague feeling of envy; he dragged the feeling to the light and found that he was coveting the day's work just passed. What would not he have given to be tired at the end of a day of profitable toil? It was the hour when comfortable people sit down to dinner.

In front of an art store he saw Lincoln, the Chronicle man, idly studying the pictures. Williamson had known him as well as he had known any man at Palo Alto, but he walked by without a word, feeling in no mood for companionship. A few steps further he turned, and went back and stood behind his friend.

"Hello, Phil!" said Lincoln, in cheery surprise. "Well, you are a stranger! Been keeping pretty close to your office, haven't you?"

"Yes," answered Williamson, without going into particulars.

"I haven't happened to get a detail out in your direction and my health has been unfortunately good, so I haven't seen you for moons, not since the night at the Zink, last Thanksgiving."

"You newspaper men see more of the fellows than a man in my profession can hope to do," said the physician. "It isn't ethics for me to hunt them up, you know."

"How is the practice, so far?"

"Well," answered Williamson, hiding the bitterness of it with a laugh; "the practice is about all I have got out of it."

"Not so bad as that, I'll bet," protested Lincoln. "Are you going down for Commencement, or the Ball, or anything?"

"No, I shan't be able to get down," answered the other, turning in his fingers the lonely dollar in his pocket. "That's the worst of the medical profession," he added, equivocally.

His thoughts came fast as they stood there in the fading daylight before the picture-shop. It was entirely probable that Lincoln would lend him the money he needed, and would lend it gladly. Their college friendship had been sincere, and a few years do not change a thing like that. He knew that the man had a good position on the Chronicle and that he saved a large portion of his money--he had been economical at the University. Fortune could never smile upon Lincoln sufficiently to work any material change in his dress; he had always looked like a pauper; to-day, poverty showed in the journalist rather than in the carefully-dressed physician.

Williamson's heart grew lighter. This Stanford man, rising before him in his hour of desperation, should tide him over his temporary trouble. Of all the men at the University there had been none who had spoken so often and so sincerely of the Stanford spirit as Lincoln. Here was a chance to put it to a test. He knew his man. Williamson felt himself filled with a faith in Divine Providence.

But it was not easy to ask the loan. To suggest such a thing is less difficult to some people than to others. To Williamson it was anything but a simple thing. He could never broach the subject there on the sidewalk. The matter must be led up to in some way; to brace in cold blood was impossible. He moved his fingers in nervous irresolution, and the dollar touched them significantly.

"Say, Lew, let's not stand here all night; come to dinner with me, can't you? We'll have a good Alumni chat; we don't bump into each other very often."

He felt horribly hypocritical, yet this was the only way.

"You haven't had dinner, have you?" he went on, when Lincoln hesitated a bit.

"No. I'll be glad to, thank you, Phil. Where do you go?"

"Let's try Sanguinetti's for the fun of the thing. We can talk down there, and it won't break us, either."

They found a corner table in the restaurant. The room wore the quiet look of Monday evening, the calm that follows the storm of Sunday, when the place rocks with post-picnic revelry. A squat negro, perched on the edge of a serving-table by the wall, sang vociferously to a resonant banjo. Now and then a party of swarthy Latins joined in mildly when the selections incurred their favor.

The two college men found it easy chatting. Williamson's dollar had brought a very good dinner, particularly the chicken and the tortillas; the claret was abundant and not half bad when jollied with seltzer. He was trusting to Lincoln for tobacco.

Still the physician could not bring himself to the point toward which the dinner was intended to smooth the road. The "Dago red" had mellowed them both and they talked merrily of the days at Palo Alto, bringing up one good memory after another, drifting gradually to an exchange of Alumni personals of which the newspaper man furnished the larger part. They talked of the men their young University had sent into the distant parts of the world, youngsters running mines in the Antipodes, with fat salaries to keep up their courage; of the little Stanford colony in Western Australia and the Pioneers in China. There were a good many for so new a college. Then there were the commonplaces who were doing well at home. The thought of bringing the serious side of his own case into this chat gave Williamson a chill. It was a foolish bit of pride, but it was getting harder every minute to down it. He deftly turned the subject his way.

"It isn't all prosperity, though. I've noticed that some of them seem to be up against it lately--just hard luck stories, I suppose. There's Rawdon, for example."

Lincoln leaned back comfortably in his chair.

"Let me tell you a case that has come under my notice lately and see what you think of it," he said. "I won't mention names, but it's about a man we both knew at College. He had a place on the paper, the Chronicle, and during the political season did very well; after that there came a slump and the city editor let him out; the other papers had no room for him, of course--they were dropping men--and he couldn't get a thing of any sort to do, though he rustled hard. You know Coles and Harrison, the boys call them the Stanford Employment Bureau, they have found quite a number of places for the fellows; but this particular man was evidently up against it, and there wasn't the smallest symptom of a job. He managed to get something in the Sunday supps, but barely enough to keep him alive, and nothing certain. Meanwhile he pawned his things gradually and grew pretty well discouraged. I remember I heard him say once, and his laugh covered more than I guessed at the time, that Jewish holidays ought to be prohibited by state law, since closed doors under the three balls meant some Stanford man's going hungry. He got down to bedrock and finally reached the point where he had gone without three successive meals. Pretty rough, wasn't it?"

"I should say so," answered Williamson. His own distress was trivial beside a trouble like this.

Lincoln fed the alcohol flame burning around the omelet just brought them.

"It seems to me," he went on, "that there is a case in which a man is justified in asking help; he ought to ask it long before he gets to such a pass as that; if he lets his pride prevent him it's his own fault. We certainly have carried away from the University something of the spirit we learned there. I know for my part that such a man has a claim on whatever help I can give him, and as a Stanford man he has a right to seek it. Don't you agree with me?"

Williamson had been waiting through the course of the dinner for a chance to advance an identical theory. He could not have hoped for a better opening.

"Indeed I do," he said. "You have the old Stanford spirit as strong as ever, haven't you, Lew? Now I want to tell you a story."

At a table near them a woman who looked as though she had a history, one that dated far back at that, began to sing--one of those ballads about home and the wandering boy. The two men tipped back in their chairs and listened to the song. Williamson was planning what he should say as soon as it was ended. It would be better to tell the whole thing.

During the applause that followed, Lincoln dropped his cigarette into his coffee cup and started to speak. Williamson, unwilling that another subject should follow the last words they had exchanged, interrupted him.

"I have a story, too, Lew, and it's about myself. I don't doubt this is rather a surprise to you," he went on, noticing the look on the other's face, "although you know the way of the young physician is hard. The fact is, I have got to the point where I must get a little temporary lift or give up the struggle for a while, and I can't bear the thought of that."

Then he went on swiftly, ignoring his friend's attempts at interruption, until he had told the whole story of his uphill work and his defeat.

"You asked me just now, Lew, if I didn't think one Stanford man should help another who really needed help, if he could. I put up my last coin for an opportunity to ask you the same question, but with a different purpose."

Lincoln's eyes were moist as he reached across the table and grasped Williamson's hand.

"I think you know me well enough, old man, to know my answer to that question. But you did not let me finish my story. You see, I--er--I'm the man I was telling you about."

[The end]
Charles Kellogg Field's short story: Alumni Dinner

________________________________________________



GO TO TOP OF SCREEN