Now, I defy any one to make mind pictures under such conditions, and I became my practical self at once. I shut off the romantic stop with a thud, and turning on the business pipe, proceeded to answer my mail. Most of the circulars went into the waste basket; receipted bills into one compartment, unpaid into another. I answered a few of the routine letters, and then oddly enough I broke my rule, and took up the black-bordered letter again.
Who was this candidate for athletic fame? His name was not even mentioned in the letter. Evidently the son of Margaret Lee Fairfax was supposed to be too well known to need any further title. A reference to my list gave me among the freshmen, "Richard Spotswood Fairfax, The Oaks, Fairfax Co., Va.," but this did not help me at all. He had certainly not appeared on track or field, or I should have remembered him, and he had even neglected a physical examination. He was probably bandy-legged, big-waisted, round-shouldered, and hollow-chested. He might be a sufferer from dyspepsia and heart disease; there were chances that he had a fancy for Greek roots, and thought football brutal. I have been asked by doting parents to make champion sprinters and weight putters out of just such timber,—although the age of miracles is past.
I had a conventional way of answering such letters, and prepared to go through the usual forms. A modest request it was indeed! "I should consider a second place no better than absolute failure." Little did she realize what a combination of excellences go to make up a winner, nor how many good men train faithfully for four years without getting a place.
Give him "especial care and attention"? Well, hardly, if he does not care enough about himself even to have his chart made out.
I had taken the sheet of paper and written the "Dear Madam," when there came a knock at the door, and at my "Come in," it swung leisurely open. Just how I came to the conclusion I cannot tell, but I knew the first moment I set eyes on my visitor that it was Richard Spotswood Fairfax himself. He was not at all the monstrosity I had painted him; in fact, he was a mighty good-looking fellow. He was a little above average height, with a dark oval face, brown hair, and a wide smile that "wud timpt a man to borry a dollar," as Paddy once said. His tailor knew his business, though his suit of brown tweed fitted a trifle more loosely than our Northern style would have permitted. He also wore a low roll-collar, that showed a firm, round neck to advantage. He smiled when he entered, and sank into a chair by the side of my desk with a sigh of content and another smile. He was in no hurry to speak, and as I learned after was never in a hurry to do anything. He looked me over a moment with his handsome sleepy blue eyes, and then spoke in that melodious drawl which is taught nowhere else but in "ole Virginny." I do not remember how he introduced the subject, for I was too much taken with his voice to notice. I cannot begin to describe it, or the easy way in which the words followed each other, divorced from all such aggressive letters as r, g, and t.
He told me he wished to be examined, and assigned some branch of sport to which he could give his attention; in effect, just what his mother had written, except that he omitted to say anything about winning or a first place. I asked him if he had ever done anything in athletics, and he said that barring a little gunning, a moderate amount of riding, and considerable fishing, he had done nothing at all in sports. He expressed a decided preference for the fishing, which I thought was characteristic.
To my question as to whether he had any choice whatever concerning work on track or cinder-path, he answered, none at all, except that which called for the least exertion would best suit his book. I decided that his mother had written truly when she said he "lacked ambition in this direction," and might have said that he lacked ambition in any other. It was surprising that I did not take a dislike to one who professed such a decided aversion to manly sports, but the boy was so open and frank about it that the impression was not at all disagreeable.
After Fairfax had told his story and answered a few questions, I ordered him in a short, Yankee fashion (that seemed almost brutal compared with his easy tones) to strip and I would take his measurements. At my direction he rose slowly, went over to the corner, leisurely took off coat and vest, and when he got down to the buff, and I looked up from my writing, as I live, I had answered three letters, and the clock had ticked off a full five minutes. (Two is usually enough to transform a shackled slave of Fashion to the freedom of a state of nature.) I laid my pen aside, and taking tape in hand began to look him over. I confess I could hardly restrain an exclamation of surprise. His languid ways and slow movements had not prepared me for any such development as he showed. The conventional costume of the nineteenth century is a wonderful disguise, designed by some man-milliner to hide the imperfections of a degenerate race. The trained athlete and the flabby dude look much alike in loose trousers and padded coats.
Now, Dick was neither athlete nor dude, though if I ever saw a man cut out for the former, he was the one. His skin was dark, but clear and velvety. He stood easily, with every muscle relaxed, and was as symmetrical as a demi-god. There was nothing out of proportion, no fat, no unused muscle, and no over-development. Indeed, I surmised, what afterward proved true, that he was the best specimen of an embryo athlete that it had ever been my good fortune to see.
I took him to the standard and found his height five feet ten and one-half inches. He lifted the scales at one hundred and fifty-eight, and then I put my tape on him and began my measurements. As I marked down one after another my admiration grew, and when I had finished and he had dressed and left me, I could not deny myself the pleasure of making out his chart, even before I finished the mail. A wonderful chart it was, too. The average percentage was not as high as that of one or two fellows who had the advantages of intelligent handling by good men at first-class preparatory schools, but when it came to symmetrical development, there was not one in the same class with him. The line was almost straight, a slight advantage only showing in measurements below the waist.