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The table was piled high with all sorts of books, and you could just hear McTurkle's wheels go round. When we walked in he slipped the glasses from his nose by wriggling his eyebrows and turned around and looked at us blinking. McTurkle was a funny genius. He was forever grinding. When he wasn't grinding he was causing strange, painful sounds to emanate from his room.
McTurkle went fourteen, or I'll eat my hat! Why, the way he put that thing through its paces was a caution! And as for er variations and such! well, you ought to have heard him, that's all I've got to say! Out into the avenue we turned, through the Square and down Boylston Street.
Nobody except a few of us knew who McTurkle was, but everyone cheered gloriously. We conducted McTurkle gently but firmly up the steps, and when the crowd got a good look at him they simply went crazy. McTurkle was deeply affected. So was the crowd. "Speech! speech!" they yelled. "Spe-e-eech!" McTurkle, embarrassed but courageous, his voice faint and tremulous with emotion, spoke.
And when silence had fallen about us he swept his hand dramatically toward McTurkle. "Gentlemen," he cried, "the band!" "A-a-a-aye!" they cheered. "Band! band!" "Where's the band?" called those further down the line, and the news traveled fast until from far down by Thayer came wild paeans of delight.
"Yes, for the game. You're going, of course, McTurkle?" He shook his head, beaming affably through his glasses. "No, no, I'm not going to attend the ah game." He waved a hand toward the book-covered table. "I shall be quite busy this afternoon, quite busy. But you have my my best wishes. May the ah the mantle of victory fall upon the shoulders " Well, we got licked that day.
His face glowed; he leaped to his feet; a Greek lexicon crashed to the floor; McTurkle was transformed. "I'll go!" he said, with majestic simplicity. We cheered. McTurkle feverishly wrested his French horn from its green bag, settled his glasses upon his aquiline nose, turned up the collar of his plaid lounging coat, and strode to the door. We followed in triumph.
When we went in Bud winked at us to leave the negotiations in his hands. We did so, drawing up in a semicircle behind him and looking very grave. "McTurkle," said Bud, "we have come to you on behalf of the university." McTurkle blinked harder than ever and looked a bit scared. "Out there" Bud waved his hand toward the window "out there our college your college the college we all love awaits you."
McTurkle, beaming delightedly through his glasses, his head held back inspiritingly and the folds of his plaid jacket waving in the November wind, placed the French horn to his lips, took a mighty breath and the procession moved forward to the strains of "Annie Laurie!"
The line was so long that the cars were held up for ten minutes, and Bud was for circling back and holding them up ten minutes more. And all the while McTurkle, thin, gaunt, but impressive, marched at the head and informed us startlingly and with convincing emphasis that for Bonnie Annie Laurie he'd lay him down and dee. And we took up the refrain, and hurled it back to the gray November sky.
"I appreciate the honor you have done me," continued McTurkle, warming to his work. "And it has been a pleasure, a great pleasure, as well as a privilege, to lead you this evening in your interesting ah exercises." "A-a-a-aye!" yelled the audience. "There is to be, I understand," said McTurkle, "a game to-morrow, a contest between this college and ah Yale." Laughter and deafening applause.
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