Crane, the toastmaster, was rapping for silence.
“Before we break up,” he said, “I want you to drink one more toast with me. We have toasted ourselves and each other, but this toast is to a man who is not here.”
The interest and curiosity of every one was aroused. Even Clews leaned back in his chair to listen; it was plainly going to be a eulogy of some classman who had died.
“Twenty-five years ago, after our last college dinner, there were six men in our class sitting together under a tree in the yard and talking about what we would do. We said we would all be successful at forty-five. If not, we were going to jump into the river. I was one of those men—Billy Drowson was another; Wright was there—he died the next year. Then there was Lapham and Riggs. But there was another. He was a prominent figure in our class—the smartest one of the six—very honorable and good-hearted. I will not name him. He is not here. We all thought he would have a brilliant career. He came out of college and was married, and his father died and left him a mother and two sisters and an inheritance of debts. That cut him off from the professional schools, and he went West, and I have found out that he went into a business where there was no chance in the world of advancement. But it had to be done because that offered a way of bearing the burdens and obligations that were on him. It was just like him. Then he had to take care of a wife and three others besides.
“His health became very bad—he used to work sixteen hours a day sometimes, and when he was forty years old he found himself very much out of order. Then he came back East. Part of his burdens had been removed, but it was too late to start life as he might have started it once. He had burned out in the service like a faithful, honest, well-made candle. His light had been dim, but it had also been steady. I suppose he is alive, although I don’t know. But all of us who knew him best are sure that wherever he is, he is still putting up a good fight, and though he hasn’t got the cheers and the lime-light, he’s pulling mighty well. I know it!”
The room was very still while Crane paused.
“We’ve tried to locate him, but we lost the scent after we found he had come back from Iowa. We had planned to go back to-night, Drowson and Lapham and Riggs and myself and this other man, and sit under the tree in the yard where twenty-five years ago we’d promised to reach success, before we came back to attend this dinner. I feel sure that this missing man—this lost member of the class, I might say, for I can’t find any one who knows where he is—ought to be there. We think he comes as near success as any one of us.
“We learned years ago at the University that faithful duty really counted; the kind of success we are looking for isn’t always gilt-edged; the band isn’t always playing for it to march by! When I looked up this man I found a good, clean, honest story—a story of devotion and loyalty and the kind of courage that holds out when nobody is looking on or waving hats! I think we all ought to be glad he is a ‘Seventy-six’ man, and that we are not so narrow or ignorant as to count him a lost cause and a failure. I want you to drink a toast to him with me—gentlemen, to the man who does his job in a shadow!”
The whole class came to its feet together! Clews realized that toast was to him. Had his head been cool, he would have arisen with the rest unmarked and unknown—it was the old custom of remaining seated when so honored that betrayed him. It left him a second behind the rest, and the speaker’s big blue eyes were upon him at once. Crane lowered his glass and exclaimed, “Good God!”
Clews stumbled back into his chair. “Seventy-six” raised its voice in a great, generous roar. Clews looked up with wet cheeks and smiled like a pleased boy. This was his class, cheering—and for him!