“How can you trust a man that’s so good? I can trust Davenport because you know what a bounder’s going to do. A pious son of a bitch like Harbord, watch out for his kind. He’d hang me, given the chance, but you wouldn’t understand that.”
“Then explain it.”
“Wait, and I won’t have to explain it. He won’t put a rope around my neck, but I’m not counting on his vote. I voted for him, by the way.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to make it unanimous. Harbord knows how many are in the class, and one vote against him would have caused him loss of sleep. He’ll be a strong class president, very good with the faculty. But he wouldn’t have been quite as good if everybody didn’t love him. At heart a despicable, cruel coward. The infant Jesus protect me from the like of him.”
In due course Harbord cautioned George Lockwood against O’Byrne. “Just don’t be seen with him too often, George. The clubs get the impression that you’re not going to be a good club member if you have a close friend that’s not going to make a club.”
“Isn’t O’Byrne going to make a club?”
“His brother’s club, probably. But not any that you or I want to be in. Your father was a Zeta Psi. Well, that’s what Ivy used to be. A word to the wise, George. After you’re in, see as much of him as you feel like, but take my advice.”
George Lockwood said nothing to O’Byrne, not so much from a desire to spare O’Byrne’s feelings as from a reluctance to concede that O’Byrne had been right about Harbord. O’Byrne’s sardonic accuracy was not an endearing quality, and the friendship very nearly was terminated a few weeks after Harbord’s conversation.
George Lockwood managed to see O’Byrne frequently, but he contrived to have their meetings less public. “Which is it going to be, George? Have you decided?”
“Decided what?”
“Just about the only thing we decide for ourselves here. Is it going to be Ivy, or one of the others?”
“That’s something it’s not good policy to talk about.”
“I know, I keep hearing that. Everybody I’ve talked to says the same thing.”
“If you go around talking about it, you’re going to be left out in the cold.”
“Oh, it’s no problem for me. Either I ride in on my brother Kevin’s broad shoulders or I don’t ride in at all. Kevin’s a wild man, you know. If I don’t get invited to join his club he’ll resign, not that he has a strong feeling of brotherly affection, mind you. No. But we have a younger brother that Kevin wants to go to Princeton, but Jerry thinks he’d like to go to Yale, and if Kevin’s club spurns me, Jerry won’t come here. So you might say I’m in the middle, with nothing to worry about. It’s all up to Kevin. You have a different kind of a problem.”
“Have I?”
“Oh, yes, but if you don’t want to talk about it … I thought it would do you good to get it off your chest.”
“I have a younger brother, too. At St. Bartholomew’s.”
“How old?”
“Four years younger.”
“But four years at St. Bartholomew’s, he may want to go to Yale or Harvard. Or Penn.”
“No, he’s coming here.”
“Ivy or no Ivy?”
“No matter what.”
“Hmm. You won’t even mention the name. That’s good form, George. You must have been taking lessons from Jack Harbord.”
“Oh, go to hell.”
“Very good form. It’ll be Ivy for you, George. I think you can safely count on it. There’s a poker game tonight. Chatsworth’s room. Will you be playing?”
“No.”
“Be glad to take your I. O. U.”
“I’d be glad to take yours, but I have to study. Don’t you ever study?”
“In the mornings, sometimes. I was a day scholar, so I’m used to getting up early. I’ll never like it, but I’m used to it… Oh, I have a bit of friendly advice for you, chum.”
“What?”
“Don’t get too chummy with Davenport, at least till after the club elections. He doesn’t pay his gambling debts. At least he doesn’t pay me, and I’ve been given to understand that he still owes some from last year. That’s going to come up during the club elections, and you don’t want them thinking he’s your bosom companion. As far as that goes, I’m no help to you either, George, but they’ll never be able to say I renege on gambling debts.”
To the eternal confusion of the undergraduate body, at club elections Ezra Davenport and Jack Harbord were taken into Ivy, George Lockwood and Ned O’Byrne into Orchard, and inoffensive Anson Chatsworth got nothing. George Lockwood did not receive an Ivy bid; Ned O’Byrne did not receive a bid from his brother’s club. Lockwood and O’Byrne each had three other bids besides Orchard’s. Davenport’s only bid was from Ivy; Harbord had a bid from every club in the university. “I haven’t seen Kevin,” said O’Byrne. “But I hope he’s holding his temper.”
In George Lockwood’s junior year the contingent of Eastern Pennsylvanians at Princeton were joined by a freshman named David Fenstermacher, from the town and county of Lebanon, and from Mercersburg Academy. George Lockwood did not notice Fenstermacher until they took the same northbound train from Philadelphia during the Christmas holidays. Fenstermacher was very young (but all freshmen looked young) and George Lockwood would not have noticed him even then had it not been for the Princeton-pennant sticker on Fenstermacher’s valise, a bit of ostentation that had never appeared on George Lockwood’s luggage.
The freshman and the junior were standing near each other, waiting for the train platform gate to be opened. Ordinarily George Lockwood would have ignored the younger man, but in the spirit of Christmas he opened the conversation: “I see you go to Princeton.”
David Fenstermacher smiled. “Yes I do, Mr. Lockwood. I’m from Lebanon.”
“I see. Then you change trains at Reading.”
“Yes sir.”
“Take the Fort Penn train there, I guess.”
“Yes sir. I get off at the Outer Station and take the Fort Penn train and I’m home inside of an hour. I’ll be glad to get home.”
“Why? Don’t you like Princeton?”
“Oh, I like it all right but I like home better. I haven’t had a square meal since September.”
“Well, we all have to go through that freshman year. You are a freshman, aren’t you?”
“Yes sir.”
“Where did you go before Princeton?”
“Mercersburg for two years, before that, Lebanon High.”
“Oh, then you have a lot of friends at college. Mercersburg sends a lot of boys to Princeton.”
“Yes. You’re from Swedish Haven, aren’t you?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“You were pointed out to me by a friend of mine, a boy from Gibbsville. Alden Stokes. He was in my class at Mercersburg and I’m going to visit him during the holidays.”
“You going to the Assembly?”
“We’re going to some dance but I don’t think it’s called the Assembly.”
“Oh, yes. The Young Peoples’. Alden Stokes is a cousin of a cousin of mine.”
“I know.”
“How did you know that?”
“He told me.”
“Good Lord, you must have discussed me pretty thoroughly.”
“Well, I guess we did.”
“Good grief!”
“It was mostly very flattering. I guess you won’t be in Swedish Haven much.”
“Why do you guess that?”
“Oh, you’re supposed to spend most of your vacation in Philly and New York. That’s what I heard.”
“You heard wrong. I may go to one or two parties in Philadelphia, but I don’t enjoy them any more. I think a man ought to be home at Christmas. It’s all right to visit friends. You going to Gibbsville. But I guess Gibbsville isn’t very different from Lebanon. I’ve never been to Lebanon.”