They haled him forth, set him on high,
bore him on their shoulders, shouting "Skal to the Viking!" and carried
him up the wooded bluff to the Casino. He heard Mrs. Van Skuyt say, "Oh,
we're used to it; we've put in at several other places where he had
friends!" He struggled manfully to be set down, but his triumphal
procession swept on. He heard bystanders telling each other, "It's that
young Harkless, 'the Great Harkless,' they're all so mad about"; and while
it pleased him a little to hear such things, they always made him laugh a
great deal. He had never understood his popularity: he had been chief
editor of the university daily, and he had done a little in athletics, and
the rest of his distinction lay in college offices his mates had heaped
upon him without his being able to comprehend why they did it. And yet,
somehow, and in spite of himself, they had convinced him that the world
was his oyster; that it would open for him at a touch. He could not help
seeing how the Freshmen looked at him, how the Sophomores jumped off the
narrow campus walks to let him pass; he could not help knowing that he was
the great man of his time, so that "The Great Harkless" came to be one of
the traditions of the university. He remembered the wild progress they
made for him up the slope that morning at Winter Harbor, how the people
baked on, and laughed, and clapped their hands.
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