Outside Doctor Gilman's cottage, among the trees of the campus, paper lanterns like oranges aglow were swaying in the evening breeze.In front of Hallowell the flame of a bonfire shot to the top of the tallest elms, and gathered in a circle round it the glee club sang, and cheer succeeded cheer-cheers for the heroes of the cinder track, for the heroes of the diamond and the gridiron , cheers for the men who had flunked especially for one man who had flunked.But for that man who for thirty years in the class room had served the college there were no cheers.No one remembered him, except the one student who had best reason to remember him.But this recollection Peter had no rancor or bitterness and, still anxious lest he should be considered a bad loser, he wished Doctor Gilman a every one else to know that.So when the celebration was at its height and just before train was due to carry him from Stillwater, ran across the campus to the Gilman cottage say good-by.But he did not enter the cottage He went so far only as half-way up the garden walk.In the window of the study which opened upon the veranda he saw through frame of honeysuckles the professor and wife standing beside the study table.They were clinging to each other, the woman weep silently with her cheek on his shoulder, thin, delicate, well-bred hands clasping arms, while the man comforted her awkward unhappily, with hopeless, futile caresses.
Peter, shocked and miserable at what he had seen, backed steadily away.What disaster had befallen the old couple he could not imagine.The idea that he himself might in any way connected with their grief never entered mind.He was certain only that, whatever the trouble was, it was something so intimate and personal that no mere outsider might dare to offer his sympathy.So on tiptoe he retreated down the garden walk and, avoiding the celebration at the bonfire, returned to his rooms.An hour later the entire college escorted him to the railroad station, and with "He's a jolly good fellow"and "He's off to Philippopolis in the morn--ing" ringing in his ears, he sank back his seat in the smoking-car and gazed at the lights of Stillwater disappearing out of his life.And he was surprised to find that what lingered his mind was not the students, dancing like Indians round the bonfire, or at the steps of the smoking-car fighting to shake his hand, but the man and woman alone in the cottage stricken with sudden sorrow, standing like two children lost in the streets, who cling to each other for comfort and at the same moment whisper words of courage.
Two months Later, at Constantinople, Peter, was suffering from remorse over neglected opportunities, from prickly heat, and from fleas.And it not been for the moving-picture man, and the poker and baccarat at the Cercle Oriental, he would have flung himself into the Bosphorus.In the mornings with the tutor he read ancient history, which he promptly forgot;and for the rest of the hot, dreary day with the moving-picture man through the bazaars and along the water-front he stalked suspects for the camera.
The name of the moving-picture man was Harry Stetson.He had been a newspaper reporter, a press-agent, and an actor in vaudeville and in a moving-picture company.Now on his own account he was preparing an illustrated lecture on the East, adapted to churches and Sunday-schools.Peter and he wrote it in collaboration, and in the evenings rehearsed it with lantern slides before an audience of the hotel clerk, the tutor, and the German soldier of fortune who was trying to sell the young Turks very old battleships.Every other foreigner had fled the city, and the entire diplomatic corps had removed itself to the summer capital at Therapia.
There Stimson, the first secretary of the embassy and, in the absence of the ambassador, CHARGE D'AFFAIRES, invited Peter to become his guest.Stimson was most anxious to be polite to Peter, for Hallowell senior was a power in the party then in office, and a word from him at Washington in favor of a rising young diplomat would do no harm.But Peter was afraid his father would consider Therapia "out of bounds.""He sent me to Constantinople," explained Peter, "and if he thinks I'm not playing the game the Lord only knows where he might send me next-and he might cut off my allowance."In the matter of allowance Peter's father had been most generous.This was fortunate, for poker, as the pashas and princes played it at he Cercle, was no game for cripples or children.But, owing to his letter-of-credit and his illspent life, Peter was able to hold his own against men three times his age and of fortunes nearly equal to that of his father.
Only they disposed of their wealth differently.On many hot evening Peter saw as much of their money scattered over the green table as his father had spent over the Hallowell athletic field.
In this fashion Peter spent his first month of exile--in the morning trying to fill his brain with names of great men who had been a long time dead, and in his leisure hours with local color.To a youth of his active spirit it was a full life without joy or recompense.A Letter from Charley Hines, a classmate who lived at Stillwater, which arrived after Peter had endured six weeks of Constantinople, released him from boredom and gave life a real interest.It was a letter full of gossip intended to amuse.One paragraph failed of its purpose.It read: "Old man Gilman has got the sack.The chancellor offered him up as a sacrifice to your father, and because he was unwise enough to flunk you.He is to move out in September.I ran across them last week when I was looking for rooms for a Freshman cousin.They were reserving one in the same boarding-house.It's a shame, and I know you'll agree.They are a fine old couple, and I don't like to think of them herding with Freshmen in a shine boardinghouse.Black always was a swine."Peter spent fully ten minutes getting to the cable office.
