"Look here," said John seriously, "did you go through that period?"
K. Stuyvesant looked sheepish, then he laughed. "Sure," he said; "I was a real devil at twenty. I couldn't stand girls because I thought they laughed at me, so I decided to drink myself to death. My proud ideal was to be the heaviest drinker in New York, and to be so pointed out. Sometimes I stayed out as late as two."
John laughed with him, although his inclinations were far from laughter. Coarse hands were despoiling his altar, and, worse, laughing at it, as an echo of childhood.
K. Stuyvesant had seated himself on a folding chair that smelled of a hearse. John settled by him. "These chairs always make me think of Uncle Keefer's funeral," said Stuyvesant. "Mother went, draped in eighteen yards of crape. She mourned him deeply until she heard the will, then she tore off the weeds and had 'em burned."
John was far away, so the subject of Uncle Keefer's funeral was abandoned.
"Did—did you collect girls' photographs?" asked John.
"Girls never liked me," said Stuyvesant, "and guns weren't allowed. I did use to have a gallery of second-rate actresses decorating my boudoir. I bought the pictures at a photographer's. The less they wore the better. Lord, what a calf period! Hiccoughing, little asses! Makes me sick to think of it!" Real disgust was written on K. Stuyvesant's face. John pushed his hair away from his forehead. He felt very hot. If some one else had spoken, he would not have noticed. But K. Stuyvesant—chased by most of New York! Honestly liked by the fellows, as a good sport. Owner of several cups for several achievements. Rated as "damned indifferent, but a bully chap!"
John felt weak and little,—worse,—he felt terribly young. He looked away from K. Stuyvesant. Perhaps K. Stuyvesant sensed something of his misery, for he laid a big hand on John's shoulder. The hand was cheering.
"Where you going to college?" he asked. John explained that he had not thought of going, that he hated work, and that a certain amount of study seemed necessary for school.
K. Stuyvesant talked persuasively. "If you studied this winter you could enter next fall," he said; "you have all of the year to do it in. I'll look up some decent tutors, and help all I can, but I'm darned stupid, myself. Wish I weren't. All I could do would be to root. I'd do that!"