It was the happiest of those last irresponsible days before he struck into
his work in the world and became a failure. To-night he saw the picture as
plainly as if it were yesterday; no reminiscence had risen so keenly
before his eyes for years: pretty Mrs. Van Skuyt sitting beside him--
pretty Mrs. Van Skuyt and her roses! What had become of her? He saw the
crowd of friends waiting on the pier for their arrival, and the dozen or
so emblazoned classmates (it was in the time of brilliant flannels) who
suddenly sent up a volley of college cheers in his honor--how plainly the
dear, old, young faces rose up before him to-night, the men from whose
lives he had slipped! Dearest and jolliest of the faces was that of Tom
Meredith, clubmate, classmate, his closest friend, the thin, red-headed
third baseman; he could see Tom's mouth opened at least a yard, it seemed,
such was his frantic vociferousness. Again and again the cheers rang out,
"Harkless! Harkless!" on the end of them. In those days everybody
(particularly his classmates) thought he would be minister to England in a
few years, and the orchestra on the Casino porch was playing "The
Conquering Hero," in his honor, and at the behest of Tom Meredith, he
knew.
There were other pretty ladies besides Mrs. Van Skuyt in the launch-load
from the yacht, but, as they touched the pier, pretty girls, or pretty
women, or jovial gentlemen, all were overlooked in the wild scramble the
college men made for their hero.
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