“Well, what word was it that caused his downfall because he didn’t know how to say it?” asked Bingham impatiently.
“It was the word ‘No,’” explained Ready.
“There are lots of men right here at Yale who do not know how to say that word,” asserted Frank, who had been listening to the chatter of the others.
“Alas! too true,” sighed Ready. “Now, there’s Carker, who bunks with me in Durfee. I’ve seen the time when he found great difficulty in correctly pronouncing numerous words in the English language.”
“You’re another!” exclaimed Greg warmly.
“The earthquake rumbles,” grunted Browning.
“It’s true,” asserted Ready, with assumed earnestness. “Why, I remember the night he came in at two o’clock, walking cross-legged and stumbling over his own feet. He knew my virtuous abhorrence of such conduct, and he was naturally a trifle timid. I sat up and sternly said: ‘Carker, what is the meaning of this? You have been drinking’. Then he steadied himself with considerable trouble, and answered: ‘’Tain’t sho! I’m all ri’, thash whas I am. Nozzen massher wish me.’ ‘If you haven’t been drinking,’ said I, ‘why do you talk as if you had your mouth full of mush?’ ‘Caush,’ said he, ‘a shoft anshwer turnsh away wrath, ol’ boy.’ Then he lost his balance, fell down, and drove his head under the bookcase so hard that I had to take all the books off the shelves and lift the bookcase before I could get him out.”
“Gentlemen,” said Greg stiffly, in the face of their grins, “the man who will believe him on oath is an idiot, and so his lies do not worry me in the least.”
But Carker could not take a joke pleasantly, and the laughter of the others caused him to flush and look disturbed.
“Frivolous—all frivolous!” he exclaimed. “That’s the way with Americans to-day. They laugh and joke, regardless of the fact that the country is making gigantic strides toward imperialism—regardless of the fact that every sign points to the setting up of an empire——”