"Yes, Muffins, indeed they do, every one, whether they can swim or not," replied Harry seriously. (Oswald was called Muffins because he was considered by his playmates to look like one. This reason usually did not satisfy older people, but after all, they did not know him as well as those of his own age, and had no kick coming, at all.)
"I say, Harry, it's awfully decent of you to tell us all these things beforehand, so that we shall be warned when the time comes!" This from Jack, who was twelve and dark and looked like his father.
"Harold Wimbourne, what on earth have you been telling those children about Yale College?" was Aunt Cecilia's indignant comment on his powers of fiction. "Neither of them slept a wink last night, for thinking about what the sophomores would do to them; and Jack asked me quite seriously if he thought his father would mind much if he went to Harvard instead, because he didn't think he could ever swim well enough to live through his freshman year! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!"
Harry laughed unfeelingly, and refused to abate one jot of the horrors of hazing. He even wished it were all true, that these innocent and happy boys might have to go through with it all, that some one would ever be miserable in college beside himself. He scarcely spoke to James during the last few days, though James remained cordial and cheery enough toward him. But he was unnaturally cordial and forbearing, and that drove Harry into despair, especially as there was copious reason why James, under normal conditions, should be neither cordial nor forbearing. Harry had, a fortnight or so before Commencement, just after training was broken up, taken part in one of those engagements with the forces of law and order with which undergraduates are wont to relieve the monotony of their humdrum existence. First there had been strong drink, and plenty of it, after which came a period of vague but delightful irresponsibility, culminating in much broken glass, a clash with policemen and two or three arrests.
Harry had escaped this latter ignominy, but as his name enjoyed equal publicity with those of the more unfortunate revelers, it did him little good. Nothing could possibly be less to the liking of such a person as James, as Harry realized perfectly at the time. He participated in the affair neither because he liked strong drink nor because he disliked policemen, but chiefly with a sort of desperate desire to force James' hand, to make his brother take him severely to task and end their mutual coolness in one rousing scene of recrimination and forgiveness.
But no such thing happened; James did not make the slightest reference to the business! Harry also remained silent on the subject, at first because of his amazement, then out of obstinacy, and finally because he was genuinely hurt. If James preferred that they should be strangers to each other, strangers they should be. Meanwhile James remained silent, of course, not because he did not take enough interest in his brother, but because he took too much. He refrained from mentioning the row because he was afraid that a discussion of it would merely bring on another quarrel, which he wished of all things to avoid.
So the two brothers bade good-by to each other for the summer in misunderstanding and mistrust, though their outward behavior was cordial and brotherly enough. James, who was starting almost immediately for the West, smiled as he shook the hand of his brother, who was going abroad for the holidays and said, "Well, so long; look out for yourself and don't take any wooden money." Harry, also smiling, replied in the same vein; but the smile died on his lips and the words turned to gall in his mouth as he thought what a bitter travesty this was of former partings, when their gaiety was either natural or intended to hide the sorrow of parting, and not, as now, wholly forced and affected to conceal the relief that each could not but feel in being far from the other.
CHAPTER XII
AN ACT OF GOD