Illegitimate children -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Middle West -- Fiction
And now, he reflected bitterly, now that the trust fund might be the
means of lightening a burden that would follow him all his life, it
would be the same old story with his father. He would have to make a
full confession of the case. But he could not do this. How could he
tell his father such a yarn? Weren’t his whole family concerned as much
as he? Was there not a question of blood relationship involving them?
Common delicacy and loyal feeling toward them demanded that he conceal
the truth, unless he took the burden upon himself and parted with them
completely. He had thought all this out before and settled it. There
was nothing he could say to his father.
These reflections, repeated over and over again, embroidered upon,
attacked at every angle, adorned with many duplications of the same
phrases, led nowhere. The bill at the “Bucket of Blood” had to be paid,
and nothing was left to do but to get up and go. Well, well, he felt
like moving anyhow. If only there were anything he could do now, right
now, it would be a relief. He started walking rapidly uptown toward the
fraternity house. Then at the corner where Broadway turned into his
own street he stopped abruptly.
“What a fool!” he muttered aloud. “What a triple-plated iron-head! Why
did I send that money to Ellen? Why didn’t I go myself?” He stopped and
began to curse his idiocy with all the eloquence and thoroughness of
which he was capable.
Then he reflected, again aloud: “But is it too late? The jerk-water
goes over to Jamestown in half an hour. I could make it to Jamestown.
But I haven’t enough money to go all the way. Well, I’ve got enough to
go to Jamestown.”
The thought of bluffing his way on the through train with a promise to
pay at the other end rushed into his mind. His name, his identification
by letters in his pocket, his father’s acquaintance with railroad
officials, these might carry him through. He turned and started toward
the station.
“If I can get home I can raise that money. I can raise it on a note. I
can get some Jew like Stern to shave the note. Or maybe I can get it
from Colonel Cobb. I’ll bet Colonel Cobb would let me have it.”
This line of reasoning had to be exhausted with the usual number of
variations and redundancies as he sat in the little branch train of
two cars, with its dusty, worn plush seats, its threadbare blue
trainmen ambling back and forth, and its scattering of anonymous,
unimportant-looking passengers. Fortunately nobody was leaving town
that he knew. That was to be expected six weeks after the opening of
term. For the first time, the thought struck him that he himself was
bolting, perhaps for several days, without the formality of an excuse
from the Dean, without even notifying the men at the house. Ordinarily
this would have been a serious infraction of the rules, punishable by
suspension.
“I can’t help it,” he thought, “I’ve _got_ to go. If they knew why I
guess they’d think so.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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