Page:Weird Tales volume 31 number 03.djvu/10

 of our faculty when I went back in 'eighteen, and they'd put a new headmaster in, a Doctor Herbules. Fellows were leaving right and left, enlisting from the campus or being called by draft boards, and I was pretty miserable. One day as I was walking back from science lab., I ran full-tilt into old Herbules.

What's the matter, Balderson?' he asked. You look as if you'd lost your last friend.'

Well. I have, almost," I answered. "With so many fellows off at training-camp, having all kinds of excitement'

You want excitement, eh?' he interrupted. 'I can give it to you; such excitement as you've never dreamed of. I can make you' He stopped abruptly, and it seemed to me he looked ashamed of something, but he'd got my curiosity roused.

"'You're on, sir,' I told him. What is it, a prize-fight?'

"Herbules was queer. Everybody said so. He couldn't have been much past thirty; yet his hair was almost snow-white and there was a funny sort o' peaceful expression on his smooth face that reminded me of something that I couldn't cruite identify. He had the schoolmaster's trick of speaking with a sort of pedantic precision, and he never raised his voice; yet when he spoke in chapel we could understand him perfectly, no matter how far from the platform we were sitting. I'd never seen him show signs of excitement before, but now he was breathing hard and was in such deadly earnest that his lips were fairly trembling. 'What do you most want from life?' he asked me in a whisper.

Why, I don't know, just now I'd like best of all to get into the Army; I'd go to France and bat around with the mademoiselles, and get drunk any time I wanted'

You'd like that sort of thing?' he laughed. 'I can give it to you. and more; more than you ever imagined. Wine and song and gayety and women—beautiful, lovely, cultured women, not the street-trulls that you'd meet in France—you can have all this and more, if you want to, Balderson.'

Lead me to it,' I replied 'When do we start?'

"Ah, my boy, nothing's given for nothing. There are some things you'll have to do, some promises to make, something to be paid"

All right; how much?' I asked. Dad was liberal with me. I had a hundred dollars every month for spending money, and I could always get as much again from Mother if I worked it right.

No, no; not money,' he almost laughed in my face. 'The price of all this can't be paid in money. All we ask is that you give the Master something which I greatly doubt you realize you have, my boy.'

"It sounded pretty cock-eyed to me, but if the old boy really had something up his sleeve I wanted to know about it. Count me in,' I told him. "What do I do next?"

"There was no one within fifty yards of us, but he bent until his lips were almost in my ear before he whispered: "Next Wednesday at midnight, come to my house.'

Private party, or could I bring a friend or two?'

"His features seemed to freeze. 'Who is the friend?' he asked.

Well, I'd like to bring Eldridge and Trivers, and maybe Atkins, too. They're all pretty good eggs, and I know they crave excitement'

Oh, by all means, yes. Be sure to bring them. It's agreed, then? Next Wednesday night at twelve, at my house.'