100
PARTISAN REYIEJT
Impatiently Howe said, "There it is, plain as day. Are you
here
to complain again?"'
"Indeed I am, sir." There was surprise
in
Blackburn's voice
thlt
Howe should ask the question.
"I shouldn't complain if I were you. You did a thoroughly bad
job on your first quiz. This one is a little, only a very little, better."
This was not true.
If
anything, it was worse.
"That might he a matter of opinion, sir."
"It is a matter of opinion. Of my opinion."
"Another opinion might be different, sir."
"You really believe that?" Howe said.
"Yes." The omission of the "sir" was monumental.
"Whose, for example?"
"The Dean's, for example." Then the fleshy j11w came forward a
little. "Or a certain literary critic's, for example."
It
was colossal and almost too much for Blackburn himself to handle.
The solidity of his face almost crumpled under it. But he withstood
hiJ
own audacity and went on. "And the Dean's opinion might be guided
by the knowledge that the person who gave me this mark is the man
whom a famous critic, the most eminent judge of literature in this country,
called a drunken man. The Dean might
think
twice about whether such
a man is fit to teach Dwight students."
Howe said in quiet admonition, "Blackburn, you're mad," meaning
no more than to check the boy's extravagance.
But Blackburn paid no heed. He had another shot in the locker.
"And the Dean might be guided by the information, of which I have
evidence, documentary evidence,"-he slapped his breastpocket twice–
"that this same person personally recommended to the college literary
society, the oldest in the country, that he personally recommended a
student who is crazy, who threw the meeting into an uproar, a psychiatric
case. The Dean might take that into account."
Howe was never to learn the details of that "uproar." He
had
always to content himself with the dim but passionate picture which
at
that moment sprang into his mind, of Tertan standing on some abstract
height and madly denouncing the multitude of Squill and Scroll who
howled him down.
He sat quiet a moment and looked at Blackburn. The ferocity had
entirely gone from the student's face. He sat regarding his teacher
almost benevolently. He had played a good card and now, scarcely
at
all unfriendly, he was waiting to see the effect. Howe took up the blue–
book and negligently sifted through it. He read a page, closed the book,
struck out the C-minus and wrote an F.
"Now you may take the paper to the Dean," he said. "You may
tell
him that after reconsidering it, I lowered the grade."
The gasp was audible. "Oh sir!" Blackburn cried. "Please!" His
