XXI
EVE’S CHOICE
MEANWHILE Allen Blynn, packing up his belongings at the end of the term, was far from either decision or content. The faculty of Holden College had divided bitterly on the question of the introduction of “electives.” Nowadays electives are accepted so serenely that one forgets how sinful they were some twenty or more years ago; but we shall not here touch the terrible battle which waged over the contention of the conservatives that a college senior could not hope to be a gentleman unless he had read the “Pseudolus” of Maccius Plautus. It is enough to know that, led by the example of Eliot of Harvard, Blynn had joined the sinful radicals and was openly preaching the “new education.”
This young man, who could be so eloquent with Gorgas Levering on the subject of Conservatism in Private Conduct, found himself an unwilling Public Reformer in Education. In his private thoughts he bound the law rigorously upon himself, but in public he was an impatient radical demanding that Holden College should cease weeping sentimentally over its eighteenth century past and begin to do its duty toward the children of the present year of grace. He did not know that that sort of inconsistency is alarmingly common. A man may be in favor of freedom as regards his country, but not as regards the goings and comings of his wife; a man may love his neighbor as himself on Sundays, yet unmercifully send promissory notes to protest on Mondays.
Naturally the students were solid for the electives and against Maccius Plautus and all his tribe, and with bonfires and shoutings they lauded their spokesman on the faculty. But it was the newspapers that shot the controversy out of its local setting and made it semi-national and glaringly notorious. And it was not all due to the managing of Diccon. Some men are naturally dramatic; all that they do is already good “news”; and once in the headlines it is almost impossible to keep out. Let a lawyer win a scandalous case or a clergyman defy his bishop; for the remainder of his days he cannot so much as visit the zoological garden without having the matter publicly heralded. The papers gave space to the Holden reforms because Blynn was back of them. Blynn could be counted on for spectacular things. “The Lady of the Interruption” had made him a perpetual headliner!
It was a heavy-hearted young man, therefore, who travelled toward Mount Airy the next morning, unable to escape some of the congratulations or to avoid seeing his picture flaring on the inside page of newspapers held by fellow passengers. He assumed the guilty skulk of an embezzling cashier, fearful lest he should find some casual eye comparing him with the photograph. He wondered what dreadful things they had said about him, but dared not read. The newspaper “boys” liked him—all boys did; they showed their affection by writing him up as if he were a pedagogic Luther, and it made him almost ill. “Rumors” of the resignation of President Galt and the election of President Blynn had been heard by the astute scribe. Dear old Rumor, patron saint of reporters!
Diccon did his share in the home town; he wrote beautiful imitation telegrams to his paper, briefly summing up the essential matter in dispute and making out a clear victory for their fellow-townsman, whose call to an important post in another city had been thus so thoroughly justified.
Blynn protested, but Diccon claimed to be powerless. “You’re ‘news’ now, old man,” he explained. “Nothing on earth could keep you from publicity. When newspapers begin to give you four or five thousand dollars’ worth of free advertising, it is because they think it pays. Once they have made you famous—”
“Infamous!” suggested Blynn.
“Same thing”; Diccon was undisturbed; “they’d do the same by you if you scuttled a hospital and got off with the job. When they go in to make you known to thousands of readers they have created customers for that sort of news. Every time you’re mentioned after that, they are assured of satisfied nods from their patrons. You are a continued story, a never-ending serial.... And you can’t expect me to howl, can you? You have made good, as I knew you would. Well, that cleans my slate. No one can say I pulled for a friend. You happened to be my friend, but also you happened to be the best man for the job.”
“Accident! accident!” cried Blynn; “accident and the absurdity of news values.”