The Chair of Philanthromathematics

by O. Henry

　　

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"I see that the cause of Education has received the princely gift ofmore than fifty millions of dollars," said I. I was gleaning the stray items from the evening papers while JeffPeters packed his briar pipe with plug cut. "Which same," said Jeff, "calls for a new deck, and a recitation bythe entire class in philanthromathematics." "Is that an allusion?" I asked. "It is," said Jeff. "I never told you about the time when me and AndyTucker was philanthropists, did I? It was eight years ago in Arizona.Andy and me was out in the Gila mountains with a two-horse wagonprospecting for silver. We struck it, and sold out to parties inTucson for $25,000. They paid our check at the bank in silver--athousand dollars in a sack. We loaded it in our wagon and drove east ahundred miles before we recovered our presence of intellect. Twenty-five thousand dollars doesn't sound like so much when you're readingthe annual report of the Pennsylvania Railroad or listening to anactor talking about his salary; but when you can raise up a wagonsheet and kick around your bootheel and hear every one of 'em ringagainst another it makes you feel like you was a night-and-day bankwith the clock striking twelve. "The third day out we drove into one of the most specious and tidylittle towns that Nature or Rand and McNally ever turned out. It wasin the foothills, and mitigated with trees and flowers and about 2,000head of cordial and dilatory inhabitants. The town seemed to be calledFloresville, and Nature had not contaminated it with many railroads,fleas or Eastern tourists. "Me and Andy deposited our money to the credit of Peters and Tucker inthe Esperanza Savings Bank, and got rooms at the Skyview Hotel. Aftersupper we lit up, and sat out on the gallery and smoked. Then was whenthe philanthropy idea struck me. I suppose every grafter gets itsometime. "When a man swindles the public out of a certain amount he begins toget scared and wants to return part of it. And if you'll watch closeand notice the way his charity runs you'll see that he tries torestore it to the same people he got it from. As a hydrostatical case,take, let's say, A. A made his millions selling oil to poor studentswho sit up nights studying political economy and methods forregulating the trusts. So, back to the universities and colleges goeshis conscience dollars. "There's B got his from the common laboring man that works with hishands and tools. How's he to get some of the remorse fund back intotheir overalls? "'Aha!' says B, 'I'll do it in the name of Education. I've skinned thelaboring man,' says he to himself, 'but, according to the old proverb,"Charity covers a multitude of skins."' "So he puts up eighty million dollars' worth of libraries; and theboys with the dinner pail that builds 'em gets the benefit. "'Where's the books?' asks the reading public. "'I dinna ken,' says B. 'I offered ye libraries; and there they are. Isuppose if I'd given ye preferred steel trust stock instead ye'd havewanted the water in it set out in cut glass decanters. Hoot, for ye!' "But, as I said, the owning of so much money was beginning to give mephilanthropitis. It was the first time me and Andy had ever made apile big enough to make us stop and think how we got it. "'Andy,' says I, 'we're wealthy--not beyond the dreams of average; butin our humble way we are comparatively as rich as Greasers. I feel asif I'd like to do something for as well as to humanity.' "'I was thinking the same thing, Jeff,' says he. 'We've been gougingthe public for a long time with all kinds of little schemes fromselling self-igniting celluloid collars to flooding Georgia with HokeSmith presidential campaign buttons. I'd like, myself, to hedge a betor two in the graft game if I could do it without actually banging thecymbalines in the Salvation Army or teaching a bible class by theBertillon system. "'What'll we do?' says Andy. 'Give free grub to the poor or send acouple of thousand to George Cortelyou?' "'Neither,' says I. 'We've got too much money to be implicated inplain charity; and we haven't got enough to make restitution. So,we'll look about for something that's about half way between the two.' "The next day in walking around Floresville we see on a hill a big redbrick building that appears to be disinhabited. The citizens speak upand tell us that it was begun for a residence several years before bya mine owner. After running up the house he finds he only had $2.80left to furnish it with, so he invests that in whiskey and jumps offthe roof on a spot where he now requiescats in pieces. "As soon as me and Andy saw that building the same idea struck both ofus. We would fix it up with lights and pen wipers and professors, andput an iron dog and statues of Hercules and Father John on the lawn,and start one of the finest free educational institutions in the worldright there. "So we talks it over to the prominent citizens of Floresville, whofalls in fine with the idea. They give a banquet in the engine houseto us, and we make our bow for the first time as benefactors to thecause of progress and enlightenment. Andy makes an hour-and-a-halfspeech on the subject of irrigation in Lower Egypt, and we have amoral tune on the phonograph and pineapple sherbert. "Andy and me didn't lose any time in philanthropping. We put every manin town that could tell a hammer from a step ladder to work on thebuilding, dividing it up into class rooms and lecture halls. We wireto Frisco for a car load of desks, footballs, arithmetics, penholders,dictionaries, chairs for the professors, slates, skeletons, sponges,twenty-seven cravenetted gowns and caps for the senior class, and anopen order for all the truck that goes with a first-class university.I took it on myself to put a campus and a curriculum on the list; butthe telegraph operator must have got the words wrong, being anignorant man, for when the goods come we found a can of peas and acurry-comb among 'em. "While the weekly papers was having chalk-plate cuts of me and Andy wewired an employment agency in Chicago to express us f.o.b., sixprofessors immediately--one English literature, one up-to-date deadlanguages, one chemistry, one political economy--democrat preferred--one logic, and one wise to painting, Italian and music, with unioncard. The Esperanza bank guaranteed salaries, which was to run between$800 and $800.50. "Well, sir, we finally got in shape. Over the front door was carvedthe words: 'The World's University; Peters & Tucker, Patrons andProprietors. And when September the first got a cross-mark on thecalendar, the come-ons begun to roll in. First the faculty got off thetri-weekly express from Tucson. They was mostly young, spectacled, andred-headed, with sentiments divided between ambition and food. Andyand me got 'em billeted on the Floresvillians and then laid for thestudents. "They came in bunches. We had advertised the University in all thestate papers, and it did us good to see how quick the countryresponded. Two hundred and nineteen husky lads aging along from 18 upto chin whiskers answered the clarion call of free education. Theyripped open that town, sponged the seams, turned it, lined it with newmohair; and you couldn't have told it from Harvard or Goldfields atthe March term of court. "They marched up and down the streets waving flags with the World'sUniversity colors--ultra-marine and blue--and they certainly made alively place of Floresville. Andy made them a speech from the balconyof the Skyview Hotel, and the whole town was out celebrating. "In about two weeks the professors got the students disarmed andherded into classes. I don't believe there's any pleasure equal tobeing a philanthropist. Me and Andy bought high silk hats andpretended to dodge the two reporters of the Floresville Gazette. Thepaper had a man to kodak us whenever we appeared on the street, andran our pictures every week over the column headed 'EducationalNotes.' Andy lectured twice a week at the University; and afterward Iwould rise and tell a humorous story. Once the Gazette printed mypictures with Abe Lincoln on one side and Marshall P. Wilder on theother. "Andy was as interested in philanthropy as I was. We used to wake upof nights and tell each other new ideas for booming the University. "'Andy,' says I to him one day, 'there's something we overlooked. Theboys ought to have dromedaries.' "'What's that?' Andy asks. "'Why, something to sleep in, of course,' says I. 'All colleges have'em.' "'Oh, you mean pajamas,' says Andy. "'I do not,' says I. 'I mean dromedaries.' But I never could make Andyunderstand; so we never ordered 'em. Of course, I meant them longbedrooms in colleges where the scholars sleep in a row. "Well, sir, the World's University was a success. We had scholars fromfive States and territories, and Floresville had a boom. A newshooting gallery and a pawn shop and two more saloons started; and theboys got up a college yell that went this way: "'Raw, raw, raw,Done, done, done,Peters, Tucker,Lots of fun,Bow-wow-wow,Haw-hee-haw,World University,Hip, hurrah!' "The scholars was a fine lot of young men, and me and Andy was asproud of 'em as if they belonged to our own family. "But one day about the last of October Andy comes to me and asks if Ihave any idea how much money we had left in the bank. I guesses aboutsixteen thousand. 'Our balance,' says Andy, 'is $821.62.' "'What!' says I, with a kind of a yell. 'Do you mean to tell me thatthem infernal clod-hopping, dough-headed, pup-faced, goose-brained,gate-stealing, rabbit-eared sons of horse thieves have soaked us forthat much?' "'No less,' says Andy. "'Then, to Helvetia with philanthropy,' says I. "'Not necessarily,' says Andy. 'Philanthropy,' says he, 'when run on agood business basis is one of the best grafts going. I'll look intothe matter and see if it can't be straightened out.' "The next week I am looking over the payroll of our faculty when I runacross a new name--Professor James Darnley McCorkle, chair ofmathematics; salary $100 per week. I yells so loud that Andy runs inquick. "'What's this,' says I. 'A professor of mathematics at more than$5,000 a year? How did this happen? Did he get in through the windowand appoint himself?' "'I wired to Frisco for him a week ago,' says Andy. 'In ordering thefaculty we seemed to have overlooked the chair of mathematics.' "'A good thing we did,' says I. 'We can pay his salary two weeks, andthen our philanthropy will look like the ninth hole on the Skibo golflinks.' "'Wait a while,' says Andy, 'and see how things turn out. We havetaken up too noble a cause to draw out now. Besides, the further Igaze into the retail philanthropy business the better it looks to me.I never thought about investigating it before. Come to think of itnow,' goes on Andy, 'all the philanthropists I ever knew had plenty ofmoney. I ought to have looked into that matter long ago, and locatedwhich was the cause and which was the effect.' "I had confidence in Andy's chicanery in financial affairs, so I leftthe whole thing in his hands. The University was flourishing fine, andme and Andy kept our silk hats shined up, and Floresville kept onheaping honors on us like we was millionaires instead of almost bustedphilanthropists. "The students kept the town lively and prosperous. Some stranger cameto town and started a faro bank over the Red Front livery stable, andbegan to amass money in quantities. Me and Andy strolled up one nightand piked a dollar or two for sociability. There were about fifty ofour students there drinking rum punches and shoving high stacks ofblues and reds about the table as the dealer turned the cards up. "'Why, dang it, Andy,' says I, 'these free-school-hunting, gander-headed, silk-socked little sons of sap-suckers have got more moneythan you and me ever had. Look at the rolls they're pulling out oftheir pistol pockets?' "'Yes,' says Andy, 'a good many of them are sons of wealthy miners andstockmen. It's very sad to see 'em wasting their opportunities thisway.' "At Christmas all the students went home to spend the holidays. We hada farewell blowout at the University, and Andy lectured on 'ModernMusic and Prehistoric Literature of the Archipelagos.' Each one of thefaculty answered to toasts, and compared me and Andy to Rockefellerand the Emperor Marcus Autolycus. I pounded on the table and yelledfor Professor McCorkle; but it seems he wasn't present on theoccasion. I wanted a look at the man that Andy thought could earn $100a week in philanthropy that was on the point of making an assignment. "The students all left on the night train; and the town sounded asquiet as the campus of a correspondence school at midnight. When Iwent to the hotel I saw a light in Andy's room, and I opened the doorand walked in. "There sat Andy and the faro dealer at a table dividing a two-foothigh stack of currency in thousand-dollar packages. "'Correct,' says Andy. 'Thirty-one thousand apiece. Come in, Jeff,'says he. 'This is our share of the profits of the first half of thescholastic term of the World's University, incorporated andphilanthropated. Are you convinced now,' says Andy, 'that philanthropywhen practiced in a business way is an art that blesses him who givesas well as him who receives?' "'Great!' says I, feeling fine. 'I'll admit you are the doctor thistime.' "'We'll be leaving on the morning train,' says Andy. 'You'd better getyour collars and cuffs and press clippings together.' "'Great!' says I. 'I'll be ready. But, Andy,' says I, 'I wish I couldhave met that Professor James Darnley McCorkle before we went. I had acuriosity to know that man.' "'That'll be easy,' says Andy, turning around to the faro dealer. "'Jim,' says Andy, 'shake hands with Mr. Peters.'"

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The Chair of Philanthromathematics was featured as TheShort Story of the Day on Sun, Mar 14, 2021

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