"I haven't absolutely made up my mind," I said suddenly.
But Boller refused to accept such a qualification. He had me firmly by the arm and brought me face to face with the loungers on the step.
"Gentlemen," he said, "allow me to present to you the Reverend Doctor David Malcolm!"
And the loungers on the step saluted me as gravely as if I had been that friend of Mr. Pound's, the Reverend Sylvester Bradley, thrice moderator of the synod.
It was thus that I became the Reverend David Malcolm, and this was all the authority I ever had for so honorable a cognomen. So it was that by the insidious raillery of a moment, Boller shook the foundations laid by Mr. Pound in five years of labor, and it was not long before the whole structure of his building tumbled into ruins. My first violent protest against a nickname which seemed to me to savor of sacrilege served only to fasten it to me more securely. Resigning myself to it, I came to regard it lightly, and the longer I bore it in jest the less I desired to earn it in honor. It was a far cry from Mr. Pound to Boller of '89, but I doffed the vestment and donned the motley that September day, for Boller became my mentor and in all things my model. I was flattered by his condescending treatment. Before a week had passed my engrossing ambition was to wear trousers as wide as his and to crown myself with a "smoky city" derby. Having accomplished this ambition by going into debt, I realized a greater, and pinned to the lapel of my gayly checked coat, the pearl and diamond-studded pin of Gamma Theta Epsilon. That, of course, was Boller's fraternity, and I think he could have persuaded me to join whatever he asked, so wholly was I captured by his kindness.
In the study of Doctor Todd to which he led me, in the presence of the great man, he did not venture any airy presentation. Boller of '89 inside of the study door was quite a different person from the Boller without it. The bold manner fled. He was suppressed, obsequious; even his clothes seemed to shrink and grow humbly dun. We entered so quietly that the doctor, bending over his desk, did not hear us, and we had to cough apologetically to apprise him of our presence.
"David Malcolm, sir--a new freshman," Boller said.