“He is perhaps the only man who has the faculty of inspiring confidence without bestowing it.”
Before the end of the session Dunlevy had left college again and disappeared for parts unknown. I suppose a new fit of restlessness had seized him. He must have been one of those men who are led by successive impulses and are unable to settle upon anything. No excuse was given and no word was left as to whether or no he would come back until finally a storage van appeared at Beck Hall and carted away his effects. Neither did he return to college the following fall. I lost trace of him completely, yet I used to wonder how that man would “finish,” as race-horse men express it; for one may study men as a trainer does a string of horses and bet against them or bank upon them, and it is always interesting to see who loses and who wins, who it is that keeps whipping to the end in the face of certain defeat, and who it is that loses hope, lags behind and drops out before the stretch is reached. I had wagered upon Dunlevy as a man who would some day carry his colors ahead before the judge’s stand. Perhaps I was mistaken about him from the point of view of the world, but, friend, way down in the bottom of your soul don’t you sometimes admit that there are other points of view than that of the WORLD as we call it? In that case, it may be that Dunlevy has won. Who knows?
The day after my class festivities at graduation were over, I was seated in my room which was littered up with the remnants of packing, when there came a knock at my door.
It was only the postman who said that he had a registered letter for me. I signed its receipt, and sat down on my trunk to read it. The handwriting was unfamiliar. I am going to give a copy of its entire contents in order that my position in this matter be made perfectly plain. Secondly, my part is to explain my own connection with the subject of this biography, and thereby to account for its publication. I have before my eyes this letter:
“San Diego, California,
June 22.My Dear Sir:
In the piece of tissue paper which is folded within this letter you will find a little silver key. It opens the lock of a wooden safe which I am forwarding this day to your care.
I am about to ask a favor of you, if I may, as I know of no one else of whom I might make the request concerning which I am now to write you. I have no near relatives, so far as I know; may I therefore take the liberty of forcing you to be my friend, because I want some one to know what became of me.
This little wooden safe contains a book of my private papers. Now I enclose to your order a postal draft for forty dollars, which will pay for keeping this box in some safe-deposit vault for a period of six years. If you do not hear from me on or before the twenty-second day of June of that sixth year from the present you may conclude that I shall have ceased to live. I am confident that if I am ever able to return again to civilization it will be within that period. If not, it will mean that I am gone beyond the hope of return, and in that event, these papers become yours to do with them what you will. I put aside ideas of the future as best I can, and allow myself to be carried along by destiny.
Do not infer from the fact that I wish these documents placed in a vault that I consider them valuable. Such is far from the case. I want merely to be sure that in the event that you should die, they would fall into no other’s hand in case I might return. To be frank, they are scribblings descriptive of personal sensations and remembrances during a long period of time, that is all.
In after years, if I do not return, read these papers, providing you have nothing better to do. May their record awaken within you some apprehension of a similar fate had I given you the receipt for the strong sangaree which you drank at my room in Cambridge on one occasion, when I must have been an object of suspicion to you. Its maker, Sandy, my old body-servant, sails with me today. I may yet overcome myself; but if not, this, then, is my good-bye to you.
W. W. Dunlevy.”
The next morning an express package arrived, and I carried it, box and all, into Boston to a banking house on State Street, where I placed it in their charge, together with the forty dollars for its six years’ safe-keeping.