make
poverty picturesque. His clothes were old and his shoes were shabby. But
his strength lay in the fact that he did not think of himself as poor.
He had so much, you see, that the rest of us lacked. He was a Randolph.
He had name, position, ancestry. He was, in short, a gentleman!

I do not think he looked upon any of us as gentlemen, not in the Old
Dominion sense. He had come to our small Middle-Western college because
it was cheap and his finances would not compass education anywhere else.

In an older man his prejudices would have been insufferable, but his
youth and charm made us lenient. We contented ourselves with calling him
"Your Highness," and were always flattered when he asked us to his
rooms.

His strong suit was hospitality. It was in his blood, of course. When
his allowance came he spent it in giving the rest of us a good time. His
room was as shabby as himself--a table, an ink-spotted desk, a couch
with a disreputable cover, a picture of Washington, a half-dozen books,
and a chafing-dish.

The chafing-dish was the hump and the hoof of his festivities. He made
rarebits and deviled things with an air that had been handed down from
generations of epicures. I can see him now with his black hair in a
waving lock on his forehead, in worn slippers and faded corduroy coat,
sitting on the edge of the table smoking a long pipe, visualizing
himself as the lord of a castle--the rest of us as vassals of a rather
agreeable and intelligent sort!

It was perfectly natural that he should stage his first love-affair, and
when he was jilted that he should dramatize his despair. For days after
Madge Ballou had declared her preference for Dicky Carson, Randolph
walked with melancholy. He came to my rooms and sat, a very young and
handsome Hamlet, on my fire-bench, with his chin in his hand.

"Why should she like Dicky best?"

"She has no imagination."

"But Dicky's a--beast--"

"With a fat bank-account."

"Money wouldn't count with Madge."

"I'm not so sure--"

"Women are not like that, MacDonald."

I saw, as he went on with his arguments, that she had become to him an
Ophelia, weakly led. Women in his lexicon of romance might be weak but
never mercenary. I think he finally overthrew her in his mind with "_Get
thee to a nunnery!_" I know that he burned her picture; he showed me the
ashes in a silver stamp-box.

He had, of course, his heroes--there were moments when unconsciously he
aped them. It was aft