Percy Marks - The Plastic Age

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THE PLASTIC AGE

BY

PERCY MARKS

ILLUSTRATED WITH SCENES
FROM THE PHOTOPLAY
A PREFERRED PICTURE

GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

[Illustration: "SHE'S _MY_ GIRL! HANDS OFF!"]

Made in the United States of America

1924
THE CENTURY Co.
PRINTED IN U. S. A.

To
MY MOTHER

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

"SHE'S _MY_ GIRL! HANDS OFF!"
"LOOK! FLANNELS FOR MAMMA'S BOY!"
"COME ON--I KNOW WHERE THERE'S LIQUID REFRESHMENT!"
"THAT'S CYNTHIA DAY--A REAL HOTSY-TOTSY!"
"DANCE, SALOME!"
HUGH'S POPULARITY IS ESTABLISHED AFTER THE FIRST ATHLETIC TRY-OUTS.
"ONE TURN, HUGH, AND WE'LL QUIT THESE JOINTS FOR GOOD!"
CARL FORGETS HIS ANIMOSITY IN HONEST ADMIRATION FOR HUGH.

THE PLASTIC AGE

CHAPTER I

When an American sets out to found a college, he hunts first for a hill.
John Harvard was an Englishman and indifferent to high places. The
result is that Harvard has become a university of vast proportions and
no color. Yale flounders about among the New Haven shops, trying to rise
above them. The Harkness Memorial tower is successful; otherwise the
university smells of trade. If Yale had been built on a hill, it would
probably be far less important and much more interesting.

Hezekiah Sanford was wise; he found first his hill and then founded his
college, believing probably that any one ambitious enough to climb the
hill was a man fit to wrestle with learning and, if need be, with Satan
himself. Satan was ever before Hezekiah, and he fought him valiantly,
exorcising him every morning in chapel and every evening at prayers. The
first students of Sanford College learned Latin and Greek and to fear
the devil. There are some who declare that their successors learn less.

Hezekiah built Sanford Hall, a fine Georgian building, performed the
duties of trustees, president, dean, and faculty for thirty years, and
then passed to his reward, leaving three thousand acres, his library of
five hundred books, mostly sermons, Sanford Hall, and a charter that
opened the gates of Sanford to all men so that they might "find the true
light of God and the glory of Jesus in the halls of this most liberal
college."

More than a century had passed since Hezekiah was laid to rest in
Haydensville's cemetery. The college had grown miraculously and changed
even more miraculously. Only the hill and its beautiful surroundings
remained the same. Indian Lake, on the south of the campus, still
sparkled in the sunlight; on the east the woods were as virgin as they
had been a hundred and fifty years before. Haydensville, still only a
village, surrounded the college on the west and north.

Hezekiah's successors had done strange things to his campus. There were
dozens of buildings now surrounding Sanford Hall, and they revealed all
the types of architecture popular since Hezekiah had thundered his last
defiance at Satan. There were fine old colonial buildings, their windows
outlined by English ivy; ponderous Romanesque buildings made of stone,
grotesque and hideous; a pseudo-Gothic chapel with a tower of
surpassing loveliness; and four laboratories of the purest factory
design. But despite the conglomerate and sometimes absurd
architecture--a Doric temple neighbored a Byzantine mosque--the campus
was beautiful. Lawns, often terraced, stretched everywhere, and the
great elms lent a dignity to Sanford College that no architect, however
stupid, could quite efface.

This first day of the new college year was glorious in the golden haze
of Indian summer. The lake was silver blue, the long reflections of the
trees twisting and bending as a soft breeze ruffled the surface into
tiny waves. The hills already brilliant with color--scarlet, burnt
orange, mauve, and purple--flamed up to meet the clear blue sky; the
elms softly rustled their drying leaves; the white houses of the village
retreated coyly behind maples and firs and elms: everywhere there was
peace, the peace that comes with strength that has been stronger than
time.

As Hugh Carver hastened up the hill from the station, his two suit-cases
banged his legs and tripped him. He could hardly wait to reach the
campus. The journey had been intolerably long--Haydensville was more
than three hundred miles from Merrytown, his home--and he was wild to
find his room in Surrey Hall. He wondered how he would like his
room-mate, Peters.... What's his name? Oh, yes, Carl.... The registrar
had written that Peters had gone to Kane School.... Must be pretty fine.
Ought to be first-class to room with.... Hugh hoped that Peters wouldn't
think that he was too country....

Hugh was a slender lad who looked considerably less than his eighteen
years. A gray cap concealed his sandy brown hair, which he parted on the
side and which curled despite all his brushing. His crystalline blue
eyes, his small, neatly carved nose, his sensitive mouth that hid a shy
and appealing smile, were all very boyish. He seemed young, almost
pathetically young.

People invariably called him a nice boy, and he didn't like it; in fact,
he wanted to know how they got that way. They gave him the pip, that's
what they did. He guessed that a fellow who could run the hundred in 10:
2 and out-box anybody in high school wasn't such a baby. Why, he had
overheard one of the old maid teachers call him sweet. Sweet! Cripes,
that old hen made him sick. She was always pawing him and sticking her
skinny hands in his hair. He was darn glad to get to college where there
were only men teachers.

Women always wanted to get their hands into his hair, and boys liked him
on sight. Many of those who were streaming up the hill before and behind
him, who passed him or whom he passed, glanced at his eager face and
thought that there was a guy they'd like to know.

An experienced observer would have divided those boys into three groups:
preparatory school boys, carelessly at ease, well dressed, or, as the
college argot has it, "smooth"; boys from city schools, not so well
dressed perhaps, certainly not so sure of themselves; and country boys,
many of them miserably confused and some of them clad in Kollege Kut
Klothes that they would shamefacedly discard within a week.

Hugh finally reached the top of the hill, and the campus was before him.
He had visited the college once with his father and knew his way about.
Eager as he was to reach Surrey Hall, he paused to admire the
pseudo-Gothic chapel. He felt a little thrill of pride as he stared in
awe at the magnificent building. It had been willed to the college by an
alumnus who had made millions selling rotten pork.

Hugh skirted two of the factory laboratories, hurried between the Doric
temple and Byzantine mosque, paused five times to direct confused
classmates, passed a dull red colonial building, and finally stood
before Surrey Hall, a large brick dormitory half covered by ivy.

He hurried up-stairs and down a corridor until he found a door with 19
on it. He knocked.

"What th' hell! Come in." The voice was impatiently cheerful.

Hugh pushed open the door and entered the room to meet wild
confusion--and his room-mate. The room was a clutter of suit-cases,
trunks, clothes, banners, unpacked furniture, pillows, pictures,
golf-sticks, tennis-rackets, and photographs--dozens of photographs, all
of them of girls apparently. In the middle of the room a boy was on his
knees before an open trunk. He had sleek black hair, parted meticulously
in the center, a slender face with rather sharp features and large black
eyes that almost glittered. His lips were full and very red, almost too
red, and his cheeks seemed to be colored with a hard blush.

"Hullo," he said in a clear voice as Hugh came in. "Who are you?"

Hugh flushed slightly. "I'm Carver," he answered, "Hugh Carver."

The other lad jumped to his feet, revealing, to Hugh's surprise, golf
knickers. He was tall, slender, and very neatly built.

"Hell!" he exclaimed. "I ought to have guessed that." He held out his
hand. "I'm Carl Peters, the guy you've got to room with--and God help
you."

Hugh dropped his suit-cases and shook hands. "Guess I can stand it," he
said with a quick laugh to hide his embarrassment. "Maybe you'll need a
little of God's help yourself." Diffident and unsure, he smiled--and
Peters liked him on the spot.

"Chase yourself," Peters said easily. "I know a good guy when I see one.
Sit down somewhere--er, here." He brushed a pile of clothes off a trunk
to the floor with one sweep of his arm. "Rest yourself after climbing
that goddamn hill. Christ! It's a bastard, that hill is. Say, your
trunk's down-stairs. I saw it. I'll help you bring it up soon's you've
got your wind."

Hugh was rather dazzled by the rapid, staccato talk, and, to tell the
truth, he was a little shocked by the profanity. Not that he wasn't used
to profanity; he had heard plenty of that in Merrytown, but he didn't
expect somehow that a college man--that is, a prep-school man--would use
it. He felt that he ought to make some reply to Peters's talk, but he
didn't know just what would do. Peters saved him the trouble.

"I'll tell you, Carver--oh, hell, I'm going to call you Hugh--we're
going to have a swell joint here. Quite the darb. Three rooms, you know;
a bedroom for each of us and this big study. I've brought most of the
junk that I had at Kane, and I s'pose you've got some of your own."

"Not much," Hugh replied, rather ashamed of what he thought might be
considered stinginess. He hastened to explain that he didn't know what
Carl would have; so he thought that he had better wait and get his stuff
at college.

"That's the bean," exclaimed Carl, He had perched himself on the
window-seat. He threw one well shaped leg over the other and gazed at
Hugh admiringly. "You certainly used the old bean. Say, I've got a hell
of a lot of truck here, and if you'd a brought much, we'd a been
swamped.... Say, I'll tell you how we fix this dump." He jumped up, led
Hugh on a tour of the rooms, discussed the disposal of the various
pieces of furniture with enormous gusto, and finally pointed to the
photographs.

"Hope you don't mind my harem," he said, making a poor attempt to hide
his pride.

"It's some harem," replied Hugh in honest awe.

Again he felt ashamed. He had pictures of his father and mother, and
that was all. He'd write to Helen for one right away. "Where'd you get
all of 'em? You've certainly got a collection."

"Sure have. The album of hearts I've broken. When I've kissed a girl
twice I make her give me her picture. I've forgotten the names of some
of these janes. I collected ten at Bar Harbor this summer and three at
Christmas Cove. Say, this kid--" he fished through a pile of
pictures--"was the hottest little devil I ever met." He passed to Hugh a
cabinet photograph of a standard flapper. "Pet? My God!" He cast his
eyes ceilingward ecstatically.

Hugh's mind was a battle-field of disapproval and envy. Carl dazzled and
confused him. He had often listened to the recitals of their exploits by
the Merrytown Don Juans, but this good-looking, sophisticated lad
evidently had a technique and breadth of experience quite unknown to
Merrytown. He wanted badly to hear more, but time was flying and he
hadn't even begun to unpack.

"Will you help me bring up my trunk?" he asked half shyly.

"Oh, hell, yes. I'd forgotten all about that. Come on."

They spent the rest of the afternoon unpacking, arranging and
rearranging the furniture and pictures. They found a restaurant and had
dinner. Then they returned to 19 Surrey and rearranged the furniture
once more, pausing occasionally to chat while Carl smoked. He offered
Hugh a cigarette. Hugh explained that he did not smoke, that he was a
sprinter and that the coaches said that cigarettes were bad for a
runner.

"Right-o," said Carl, respecting the reason thoroughly. "I can't run
worth a damn myself, but I'm not bad at tennis--not very good, either.
Say, if you're a runner you ought to make a fraternity easy. Got your
eye on one?"

"Well," said Hugh, "my father's a Nu Delt."

"The Nu Delts. Phew! High-hat as hell." He looked at Hugh enviously.
"Say, you certainly are set. Well, my old man never went to college, but
I want to tell you that he left us a whale of a lot of jack when he
passed out a couple of years ago."

"What!" Hugh exclaimed, staring at him in blank astonishment.

In an instant Carl was on his feet, his flashing eyes dimmed by tears.
"My old man was the best scout that ever lived--the best damned old
scout that ever lived." His sophistication was all gone; he was just a
small boy, heartily ashamed of himself and ready to cry. "I want you to
know that," he ended defiantly.

At once Hugh was all sympathy. "Sure, I know," he said softly. Then he
smiled and added, "So's mine."

Carl's face lost its lugubriousness in a broad grin. "I'm a fish," he
announced. "Let's hit the hay."

"You said it!"

CHAPTER II

Hugh wrote two letters before he went to bed, one to his mother and
father and the other to Helen Simpson. His letter to Helen was very
brief, merely a request for her photograph.

Then, his mind in a whirl of excitement, he went to bed and lay awake
dreaming, thinking of Carl, the college, and, most of all, of Helen and
his walk with her the day before.

He had called on her to say good-by. They had been "going together" for
a year, and she was generally considered his girl. She was a pretty
child with really beautiful brown hair, which she had foolishly bobbed,
lively blue eyes, and an absurdly tiny snub nose. She was little, with
quick, eager hands--a shallow creature who was proud to be seen with
Hugh because he had been captain of the high-school track team. But she
did wish that he wasn't so slow. Why, he had kissed her only once, and
that had been a silly peck on the cheek. Perhaps he was just shy, but
sometimes she was almost sure that he was "plain dumb."

They had walked silently along the country road to the woods that
skirted the town. An early frost had already touched the foliage with
scarlet and orange. They sat down on a fallen log, and Hugh gazed at a
radiant maple-tree.

Helen let her hand drop lightly on his. "Thinking of me?" she asked
softly.

Hugh squeezed her hand. "Yes," he whispered, and looked at the ground
while he scuffed some fallen leaves with the toe of his shoe.

"I am going to miss you, Hughie--oh, awfully. Are you going to miss me?"

He held her hand tightly and said nothing. He was aware only of her
hand. His throat seemed to be stopped, choked with something.

A bird that should have been on its way south chirped from a tree near
by. The sound made Hugh look up. He noticed that the shadows were
lengthening. He and Helen would have to start back pretty soon or he
would be late for dinner. There was still packing to do; his mother had
said that his father wanted to have a talk with him--and through all his
thoughts there ran like a fiery red line the desire to kiss the girl
whose hand was clasped in his.

He turned slightly toward her. "Hughie," she whispered and moved close
to him. His heart stopped as he loosened her hand from his and put his
arm around her. With a contented sigh she rested her head on one
shoulder and her hand on the other. "Hughie dear," she breathed softly.

He hesitated no longer. His heart was beating so that he could not
speak, but he bent and kissed her. And there they sat for half an hour
more, close in each other's embrace, speaking no words, but losing
themselves in kisses that seemed to have no end.

Finally Hugh realized that darkness had fallen. He drew the yielding
girl to her feet and started home, his arm around her. When they reached
her gate, he embraced her once more and kissed her as if he could never
let her go. A light flashed in a window. Frightened, he tried to leave,
but she clung to him.

"I must go," he whispered desperately.

"I'm going to miss you awfully." He thought that she was weeping--and
kissed her again. Then as another window shot light into the yard, he
forced her arms from around his neck.

"Good-by, Helen. Write to me." His voice was rough and husky.

"Oh, I will. Good-by--darling."

He walked home tingling with emotion. He wanted to shout; he felt
suddenly grown up. Golly, but Helen was a little peach. He felt her arms
around his neck again, her lips pressed maddeningly to his. For an
instant he was dizzy....

* * * * *

As he lay in bed in 19 Surrey thinking of Helen, he tried to summon that
glorious intoxication again. But he failed. Carl, the college,
registration--a thousand thoughts intruded themselves. Already Helen
seemed far away, a little nebulous. He wondered why....

CHAPTER III

For the next few days Carl and Hugh did little but wait in line. They
lined up to register; they lined up to pay tuition; they lined up to
shake hands with President Culver; they lined up to talk for two quite
useless minutes with the freshman dean; they lined up to be assigned
seats in the commons. Carl suggested that he and Hugh line up in the
study before going to bed so that they would keep in practice. Then they
had to attend lectures given by various members of the faculty about
college customs, college manners, college honor, college everything.
After the sixth of them, Hugh, thoroughly weary and utterly confused,
asked Carl if he now had any idea of what college was.

"Yes," replied Carl; "it's a young ladies' school for very nice boys."

"Well," Hugh said desperately, "if I have to listen to about two more
awfully noble lectures, I'm going to get drunk. I have a hunch that
college isn't anything like what these old birds say it is. I hope not,
anyway."

"Course it isn't. Say, why wait for two more of the damn things to kill
you off?" He pulled a flask out of his desk drawer and held it out
invitingly.

Hugh laughed. "You told me yourself that that stuff was catgut and that
you wouldn't drink it on a bet. Besides, you know that I don't drink. If
I'm going to make my letter, I've got to keep in trim."

"Right you are. Wish I knew what to do with this poison. If I leave it
around here, the biddy'll get hold of it, and then God help us. I'll
tell you what: after it gets dark to-night we'll take it down and poison
the waters of dear old Indian Lake."

"All right. Say, I've got to pike along; I've got a date with my faculty
adviser. Hope I don't have to stand in line."

He didn't have to stand in line--he was permitted to sit--but he did
have to wait an hour and a half. Finally a student came out of the inner
office, and a gruff voice from within called, "Next!"

"Just like a barber shop," flashed across Hugh's mind as he entered the
tiny office.

An old-young man was sitting behind a desk shuffling papers. He glanced
up as Hugh came in and motioned him to a chair beside him. Hugh sat down
and stared at his feet.

"Um, let's see. Your name's--what?"

"Carver, sir. Hugh Carver."

The adviser, Professor Kane, glanced at some notes. "Oh, yes, from
Merrytown High School, fully accredited. Are you taking an A.B. or a
B.S.?"

"I--I don't know."

"You have to have one year of college Latin for a B.S. and at least two
years of Greek besides for an A.B."

"Oh!" Hugh was frightened and confused. He knew that his father was an
A.B., but he had heard the high-school principal say that Greek was
useless nowadays. Suddenly he remembered: the principal had advised him
to take a B.S.; he had said that it was more practical.

"I guess I'd better take a B.S.," he said softly. "Very well." Professor
Kane, who hadn't yet looked at Hugh, picked up a schedule card. "Any
middle name?" he asked abruptly.

"Yes, sir--Meredith."

Kane scribbled H.M. Carver at the top of the card and then proceeded to
fill it in rapidly. He hastily explained the symbols that he was using,
but he did not say anything about the courses. When he had completed the
schedule, he copied it on another card, handed one to Hugh, and stuck
the other into a filing-box.

"Anything else?" he asked, turning his blond, blank face toward Hugh for
the first time.

Hugh stood up. There were a dozen questions that he wanted to ask. "No,
sir," he replied. "Very well, then. I am your regular adviser. You will
come to me when you need assistance. Good day."

"Good day, sir," and as Hugh passed out of the door, the gruff voice
bawled, "Next!" The boy nearest the door rose and entered the sanctum.

Hugh sought the open air and gazed at the hieroglyphics on the card.
"Guess they mean something," he mused, "but how am I going to find out?"
A sudden fear made him blanch. "I bet I get into the wrong places. Oh,
golly!"

* * * * *

Then came the upper-classmen, nearly seven hundred of them. The quiet
campus became a bedlam of excitement and greetings. "Hi, Jack. Didya
have a good summer?"... "Well, Tom, ol' kid, I sure am glad to see you
back."... "Put her there, ol' scout; it's sure good to see you."
Everywhere the same greetings: "Didya have a good summer? Glad to see
you back." Every one called every one else by his first name; every one
shook hands with astonishing vigor, usually clutching the other fellow
by the forearm at the same time. How cockily these lads went around the
campus! No confusion or fear for them; they knew what to do.

For the first time Hugh felt a pang of homesickness; for the first time
he realized that he wasn't yet part of the college. He clung close to
Carl and one or two other lads in Surrey with whom he picked up an
acquaintance, and Carl clung close to Hugh, careful to hide the fact
that he felt very small and meek. For the first time _he_ realized that
he was just a freshman--and he didn't like it.

Then suddenly the tension, which had been gathering for a day or so,
broke. Orders went out from the upper-classmen that all freshmen put on
their baby bonnets, silly little blue caps with a bright orange button.
From that moment every freshman was doomed. Work was their lot, and
plenty of it. "Hi, freshman, carry up my trunk. Yeah, you, freshman--you
with the skinny legs. You and your fat friend carry my trunk up to the
fourth floor--and if you drop it, I'll break your fool necks."...
"Freshman! go down to the station and get my suit-cases. Here are the
checks. Hurry back if you know what's good for you."... "Freshman! go
up to Hill Twenty-eight and put the beds together."... "Freshman! come
up to my room. I want you to hang pictures."

Fortunately the labor did not last long, but while it lasted Hugh was
hustled around as he never had been before. And he loved it. He loved
his blue cap and its orange button; he loved the upper-classmen who
called him freshman and ordered him around; he loved the very trunks
that he lugged so painfully up-stairs. He was being recognized, merely
as a janitor, it is true, but recognized; at last he was a part of
Sanford College. Further, one of the men who had ordered him around the
most fiercely wore a Nu Delta pin, the emblem of his father's
fraternity. He ran that man's errands with such speed and willingness
that the hero decided that the freshman was "very, very dumb."

That night Hugh and Carl sat in 19 Surrey and rested their aching bones,
one on a couch, the other in a leather Morris chair.

"Hot stuff, wasn't it?" said Hugh, stretching out comfortably.

"Hot stuff, hell! How do they get that way?"

"Never mind; we'll do the ordering next year."

"Right you are," said Carl decisively, lighting a cigarette, "and won't
I make the little frosh walk." He gazed around the room, his face
beaming with satisfaction. "Say, we're pretty snappy here, aren't we?"

Hugh, too, looked around admiringly. The walls were almost hidden by
banners, a huge Sanford blanket--Hugh's greatest contribution--Carl's
Kane blanket, the photographs of the "harem," posters of college
athletes and movie bathing-girls, pipe-racks, and three Maxfield Parrish
prints.

"It certainly is fine," said Hugh proudly. "All we need is a barber pole
and a street sign."

"We'll have 'em before the week is out." This with great decision.

CHAPTER IV

Carl's adviser had been less efficient than Hugh's; therefore he knew
what his courses were, where the classes met and the hours, the names of
his instructors, and the requirements other than Latin for a B.S.
degree. Carl said that he was taking a B.S. because he had had a year of
Greek at Kane and was therefore perfectly competent to make full use of
the language; he could read the letters on the front doors of the
fraternity houses.

The boys found that their courses were the same but that they were in
different sections. Hugh was in a dilemma; he could make nothing out of
his card.

"Here," said Carl, "give the thing to me. My adviser was a good scout
and wised me up. This P.C. isn't paper cutting as you might suppose;
it's gym. You'll get out of that by signing up for track. P.C. means
physical culture. Think of that! You can sign up for track any time
to-morrow down at the gym. And E I, 7 means that you're in English I,
Section 7; and M is math. You re in Section 3. Lat means Latin, of
course--Section 6. My adviser--he tried pretty hard to be funny--said
that G.S. wasn't glorious salvation but general science. That meets in
the big lecture hall in Cranston. We all go to that. And H I, 4 means
that you are in Section 4 of History I. See? That's all there is to it.
Now this thing"--he held up a printed schedule--"tells you where the
classes meet."

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