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Page 58
MY FRIEND GEORGE RANDALL.
Since his own days at the university George Randall had always had a
friend or two among the students who came after him. I remember how in
my Freshman year I used to see Tom Wayward going up the stairs in the
Academy of Music building to his office, and how I used to envy Billy
Wylde when I met him arm in arm with George on one of the campus malls.
It was occasionally whispered about that Randall's influence on these
young men was not of the very best, and that he used to have a
never-empty bottle of remarkably smooth whiskey in his closet, along
with old letter-files and brief-books; and it is undoubtedly true that
Perry Tomson and I used to consider George's friends as models in the
manner of smoking a pipe, or ordering whiskey-and-soda at Bertrand's to
give us an appetite for our mutton-chops or our _bifteck aux
pommes_, and in the delightful self-sufficiency with which in the
pleasant spring days they would cut recitations and loll on the grass
smoking cigarettes right under the nose, almost, of the professor. But
they are both married now, and settled down to respectable conventional
success; and Billy Wylde, as I happen to know, has repaid the money
which George lent him wherewith to finish his education in Germany. The
estimable matrons of Lincoln who made so much ado over George's ruining
these young men,--who had such bright intellects and might have been
expected to do something but for that dreadfully well read lawyer's
awful influence,--these women do not consider it worth their while now,
in the face of the facts as they have turned out, to remember their
predictions, but confine themselves to making their dismal prophecies
anew in regard to the three young fellows whom George has of late taken
up. But then I remember how they went on about Perry Tomson and me in
the early part of our Junior year, when we began to enjoy the favor of
George's friendship; and if their miserable croaking never does any
good, I fancy it will never work any very great harm: so one might as
well let them croak in peace. In fact, one would more easily dam the
waters of Niagara than stop them, and George, I know, doesn't care the
cork of an empty beer-bottle what they say of him.
I have never tried to analyze the influence for good George had over us,
or account for it in any way, nor do I care to. I have always considered
his friendship for me as one of the pleasantest and most profitable
experiences of my life in Lincoln. Perry and I were always more close
and loving friends, and cared for George with a silent but abiding sense
of gratitude in addition to the other sources of our affection for him,
after he showed us the boyish foolishness of our quarrel about Lucretia
Knowles. Of course I ought not to have grown angry at Perry's
good-natured cynicism; for how could he have imagined that I cared for
her? Though I sometimes think, even now, that Perry was indeed anxious
lest I should fall in love with her, and wanted to ridicule me out of
the notion, and I fear, in spite of his acquaintance, that he
disapproves of our engagement. I wonder if he will ever get over his
prejudice against women. The dear old fellow! if he would only consent
to know Lucretia better I am sure he would.
One night in the winter before we graduated, Perry and I went with
George to the Third House, which is a mock session of the legislature
that the political wags of the State take advantage of to display their
wit and quickness at repartee and ability to make artistic fools of
themselves. If it happens to be a year for the election of a senator, as
it was in this case, the different candidates are in turn made fun of
and held up to ridicule or approval; and the chief issues of the time
are handled without gloves in a way that is always amusing and often
worth while in showing the ridiculous nature of some of them. The Third
House is usually held on some evening during the first or second week of
the session, and is opened by the Speaker calling the house to order
with a thundering racket of the gavel--"made from the wood of trees
grown on the prairies of the State"--and announcing the squatter
governor. Since the State was a territory, this announcement, after due
formalities, has been followed by the statement that, as the squatter
governor is somewhat illiterate, his message will be read by his private
secretary. After this personage has read his score or more pages of
jokes, sarcastic allusions, and ridiculous recommendations, the
discussion of the message takes place, during which any one who thinks
of a bright remark may get up and fire it at the gallery; and many very
lame attempts pass for good wit, and much private spite goes for
harmless fooling.
George got us seats in the gallery next to old Billy Gait, the
bald-headed bachelor, who owns half a dozen houses which he rents for
fifty dollars a month each, and who lives on six hundred a year,
investing the surplus of his income every now and then in another house.
William, as usual, had a pretty girl at his elbow, and we heard him
telling her how he could never get interested in George Eliot's novels,
and how it beat him to know why he ever wrote such tedious books. The
young lady smiled over her fan at Randall, and said that she supposed
Mr. Eliot had a great deal of spare time on his hands, but of course he
had no business to employ it in writing tiresome novels.
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