marrow. He was some fort)' years of age, slim and quite attractive, immaculately dressed, well groomed. His eyes were brown, deep-set and drawn, as if unutterably weary, with little pouches under them. His shoulders sagged as if the weight the}' bore was too much for them. His hair was almost wholly gray. "Beaten" was the only adjective to modify him.
"I think perhaps you knew my parents, Doctor Trowbridge," he began. "My father was James Balderson."
I nodded. Jim Balderson had been a senior when I entered college, and his escapades were bywords on the campus. Nothing but the tolerance which stamps
a rich youth's viciousness as merely indication of high spirits had kept him from dismissal since his freshman year, and faculty and townsfolk sighed with relief when he took his sheepskin and departed simultaneously. The Balderson and Aid-ridge fortunes were combined when he married Bronson Aldridge's sole heir and daughter, and though he settled down in the walnut-paneled office of the Farmers Loan & Trust Company, his sons had carried on his youthful zest for getting into trouble. Drunken driving, divorce cases, scandals which involved both criminal and civil courts, were their daily fare. Two of them had died by violence, one in a motor smash-up, one when an outraged husband showed better marksmanship than self-restraint One had died of poison liquor in the Prohibition era. We had just saved die sole survivor from attempted suicide. "Yes, I knew your father," I responded.
"Do you remember Horton Hall?" he asked.
I bent my brows a moment. "Wasn't that the school down by the Shrewsbury where they had a scandal?—something about the headmaster committing suicide, or "
"You're right. That's it. I was in die last class there. So were Eldridge, Trivers and Atkins.
"I was finishing my junior year when the war broke out in 'seventeen. Dad got bulletproof commissions for the older boys, but wouldn't hear of my enlisting in the Navy. 'You've a job to do right there at Horton,' he told me. 'Get your certificate; then we'll see about your joining up.' So back I went to finish out my senior year. Dad didn't know what he was doing to me. Things might have turned out differently if I'd gone in the service.
"Everyone who could was getting in the Army or the Navy. We'd lost most
INCENSE OF ABOMINATION
of our faculty when I went back in 'eighteen, and they'd put a new headmaster in, a Doctor Herbules. Fellows were leaving right and left, enlisting from the campus or being called by draft boards, and I was pretty miserable. One day as I was walking back from science lab., I ran full-tilt into old Herbules.
" 'What's the matter, Ba'derson?' he asked. You look as if you'd lost your last friend.*
" 'Well. I have, almost," I answered. "With so many fellows off at training-camp, having all kinds of excitement '
" 'You want excitement, eh?' he interrupted. 'I can give it to you; such excitement as you've never dreamed of. I can
make you ' He stopped abruptly, and
it seemed to me he looked ashamed of something, but he'd got my curiosity roused.
" 'You're on, sir,' I told him. What is it, a prize-fight?'
"Herbules was queer. Evcrybo so. He couldn't have been much past thirty; yet his hair was almost snow-white and there was a funny sort o' peaceful expression on his smooth face that reminded me of something that I couldn't cruite identify. He had the schoolmaster's trick of speaking with a sort of pedantic precision, and he never raised his voice; yet when he spoke in chapel we could understand him perfectly, no matter how far from the platform we were sitting. I'd never seen him show signs of excitement before, but now he was breathing hard and was in such deadly earnest that his lips were fairly trembling. 'What do you most want from life?' he asked me in a whisper.
" 'Why, I don't know, just now I'd
like best of all to get into the Army; I'd
go to France and bat around with
the mademoiselles, and get drunk any
time I wanted '
"
"I think perhaps you knew my parents, Doctor Trowbridge," he began. "My father was James Balderson."
I nodded. Jim Balderson had been a senior when I entered college, and his escapades were bywords on the campus. Nothing but the tolerance which stamps
a rich youth's viciousness as merely indication of high spirits had kept him from dismissal since his freshman year, and faculty and townsfolk sighed with relief when he took his sheepskin and departed simultaneously. The Balderson and Aid-ridge fortunes were combined when he married Bronson Aldridge's sole heir and daughter, and though he settled down in the walnut-paneled office of the Farmers Loan & Trust Company, his sons had carried on his youthful zest for getting into trouble. Drunken driving, divorce cases, scandals which involved both criminal and civil courts, were their daily fare. Two of them had died by violence, one in a motor smash-up, one when an outraged husband showed better marksmanship than self-restraint One had died of poison liquor in the Prohibition era. We had just saved die sole survivor from attempted suicide. "Yes, I knew your father," I responded.
"Do you remember Horton Hall?" he asked.
I bent my brows a moment. "Wasn't that the school down by the Shrewsbury where they had a scandal?—something about the headmaster committing suicide, or "
"You're right. That's it. I was in die last class there. So were Eldridge, Trivers and Atkins.
"I was finishing my junior year when the war broke out in 'seventeen. Dad got bulletproof commissions for the older boys, but wouldn't hear of my enlisting in the Navy. 'You've a job to do right there at Horton,' he told me. 'Get your certificate; then we'll see about your joining up.' So back I went to finish out my senior year. Dad didn't know what he was doing to me. Things might have turned out differently if I'd gone in the service.
"Everyone who could was getting in the Army or the Navy. We'd lost most
INCENSE OF ABOMINATION
of our faculty when I went back in 'eighteen, and they'd put a new headmaster in, a Doctor Herbules. Fellows were leaving right and left, enlisting from the campus or being called by draft boards, and I was pretty miserable. One day as I was walking back from science lab., I ran full-tilt into old Herbules.
" 'What's the matter, Ba'derson?' he asked. You look as if you'd lost your last friend.*
" 'Well. I have, almost," I answered. "With so many fellows off at training-camp, having all kinds of excitement '
" 'You want excitement, eh?' he interrupted. 'I can give it to you; such excitement as you've never dreamed of. I can
make you ' He stopped abruptly, and
it seemed to me he looked ashamed of something, but he'd got my curiosity roused.
" 'You're on, sir,' I told him. What is it, a prize-fight?'
"Herbules was queer. Evcrybo so. He couldn't have been much past thirty; yet his hair was almost snow-white and there was a funny sort o' peaceful expression on his smooth face that reminded me of something that I couldn't cruite identify. He had the schoolmaster's trick of speaking with a sort of pedantic precision, and he never raised his voice; yet when he spoke in chapel we could understand him perfectly, no matter how far from the platform we were sitting. I'd never seen him show signs of excitement before, but now he was breathing hard and was in such deadly earnest that his lips were fairly trembling. 'What do you most want from life?' he asked me in a whisper.
" 'Why, I don't know, just now I'd
like best of all to get into the Army; I'd
go to France and bat around with
the mademoiselles, and get drunk any
time I wanted '
"
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