Page 55 - The Adventures of a Freshman

CHAPTER XII

SERVING TWO MASTERS

Although Deacon Young was trying so hard to do the "dead-game act," the Freshman First Honor prize was
still a matter of daily effort with him. He was really working exceedingly hard for it. He pretended that he was
not working at all.

He was nearly always with the "crowd" in the evenings and was frequently seen wandering around as
aimlessly as the rest of them during the day. That was the way he kept from being called a poler.

[Illustration: 2 A.M. However, after saying good night ... he would sneak off to his room, tie a wet towel
around his head, and pole....]

However, after saying good-night yawningly to the other fellows, he would sneak off to his room, tie a wet
towel around his head, and pole until 2 a.m. He utilized half-holidays when the others were reading or were
off running hare and hounds, or taking long rambles across country, or canoeing up the Millstone, or shooting
with the gun club, or paying visits to the neighboring cities; also he had dropped out of literary Hall work
entirely, took little exercise, and devoted to his curriculum studies even the spare time he had formerly put in
at miscellaneous reading. That was the way he kept up his high stand in class.

So, as the fellows would see him with the idlers until bedtime at night, and then heard of his making
recitations as good as "Poler" Barrows in the morning, it was no wonder that some began to think him a
"phenomenon" like Todd. That was what Young wanted them to think. He thought a great deal about what
others thought about him-- a great deal too much, some of his more intimate associates decided one evening,
while waiting for him in Minerva Powelton's room.

"No, don't begin yet," Powelton was saying. "I promised the Deacon we'd wait for him."

"I don't see why he is always so anxious to get in the game," said Billy Drew, inhaling cigarette-smoke. "I
don't believe he really enjoys it very much."

"The trouble with the Deacon," said Todd, "is that he is too much afraid of your opinion. If he hadn't got so
bored when we called him dignified he wouldn't have made the mistake in the first place of trying to be a
dead-game, you know. It isn't his style to be that, so he was guyed and laughed at. But instead of bracing up
and being like himself, he sticks it on all the harder. He thinks to win favor that way. That's the plain English
of it."

"Aw, you make me tired!" said Lee, good-naturedly. "Somehow, lately, you're always preaching. The Deacon
wants a little recreation, like the rest of us. That's all. He has plenty of good stuff in him."

"Plenty," said Todd. "Trouble is, he doesn't let it out."

The door opened.

"Yea! Deacon," said the others.

"Been doing the poler act on the sly again, have you?" asked Powelton, throwing a sofa cushion at him.

"Naw. Hello there, Lucky! You here? Going to get in the little game this evening, hey?" said Young, smiling.
"Toddie, you are, aren't you?"