Читать книгу The Carcellini Emerald, With Other Tales онлайн

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If the Faculty knew anything of these proceedings it was based upon vague rumor only, or came by intuition. They had nothing to take hold of, on which to condemn Carmichael. It was generally believed, among them and the undergraduates, that a few men under Oliver’s leadership had rectified whatever wrong was done; had saved Carmichael from disgrace and exposure; and had then agreed to hush the matter up.

Before graduating, Carmichael took a prize for an uncommonly clever essay, which he delivered with ease and distinction before an audience of whom the strangers applauded him to the echo. When he took his degree, and the class was about to scatter, he was so much alone that nobody thought of asking what he meant to do in the future. When next heard from by his late associates Mr. Carmichael had set out on a journey to Europe to end in the circuit of the globe, as the companion of “Miss Willie,” whose family defrayed all expenses.

About this time Tom Oliver, in a suit of greasy overalls, was beginning his labors in the repair-shops of a great railway in a little Pennsylvania town, to obtain intimate personal knowledge of all parts of the mighty motor that was henceforward to control his destiny. For, at the advice of a friend of his father, he had determined to work up from the bottom of the railroad business to as near the top as ambition and energy might ultimately carry him. Tom had need of all his pluck during the summer of this first apprenticeship to toil. His father, overworried and outworn, was stricken with apoplexy in New York, and suddenly passed away. Simply because he could not tell what better to do for them, Tom transferred his mother and sisters to live in a cottage in the suburbs of the town where he was employed.