"Oh, dear, no," Rattleton protested, lazily, "that would be too hard work for any of this crowd—except me."
"A war would be a good thing to stir you up. I almost wish the war times would come again," exclaimed Gray, hotly.
"Now you are getting right down to work," laughed Hudson. "What a rise we are getting out of our earnest young man to-night."
"You let your feelings get away with you, Gray," added Holworthy. "I don't believe it was all glory and enthusiasm in those days. You forget there was another side to it. For instance, Jack Randolph's governor was not cheered out of the Yard when he left for the war."
"Yes, there was another side to it," came a voice from the other end of the room, and a big arm-chair, that had been facing the fire with its back to the knot of men, was pushed around so as show its occupant. He was evidently one of that wide class known to the undergraduate as the "Old Grads." An old grad. attains his title as soon as he ceases to be a very young grad.; there is no transition degree. In this case he seemed about middle aged, perhaps fifty, with hair turning gray, and a rather deeply marked brown face. The latter was just then a little flushed, and had the expression often seen on a face that has just been looking a long time into a fire and a long way through it.
The lounging students started a little at this sudden interruption, and stirred as young men do on finding themselves suddenly in the presence of an older one. Rattleton took his long legs down from their supporting chair, Hudson pushed his hat back from his nose to its proper place, Dixey took his hands out of his pockets and sat up straight, while Dick Stoughton paused in the act of relighting Mary Jane, and when the match burnt his fingers forbore to swear. As the cause of the disturbance rose and came towards them they stood up. Hollis Holworthy showed signs of positive uneasiness. He turned bright red in the face, as he recognized the man whom he had just described as "an interesting old cock."
"I—I beg your pardon, sir," he began, "I had no idea——"
"That the old cock was present?" laughed the older man. "I assure you, my boy, that I was not in the least offended, and even had I cause for offence, I deserved it. Your remark was a retribution, a striking repetition of history. I remember once asking Holworthy of '61 who the bully old boy in the beaver hat was, and the bully old boy proved to be Holworthy '32. Thirty years are like a spy-glass—your views depend upon the end through which you look."
The thirty years melted at once beneath the laugh that followed this introduction, and, as the stranger took a chair among the group, the smoke went up again from Mary Jane and other pipes.
"Then you were in college with my father?" asked Holworthy. "You must have been here just in the time of which we were speaking."