Cartwright, happily, is one of the forward-looking Institutes, and stunt night, crowded with most excellent fooling, produced two or three creditable and thought-provoking performances.  One of them deserves remembering for its own sake.  Besides, it is a part of this story.

The home missions class furnished the inspiration for it, and called it “Scum o’ the Earth,” an impromptu immigration pageant.  A boy who had memorized Schauffler’s poem stood off stage and recited it, while group after group of “immigrants” in the motley of the steerage passed slowly through the improvised Ellis Island sifting process.  It was all make-believe, of course, all but one tense moment.  Then Phil Khamis stepped on the platform, incarnating in his own proper person the poet’s apostrophised Greek boy: 

“Stay, are we doing you wrong,
  Young fellow from Socrates’ land? 
You, like a Hermes so lissome and strong,
  Fresh from the master Praxiteles’ hand? 
So you’re of Spartan birth? 
  Descended, perhaps, from one of the band—­
Deathless in story and song—­
Who combed their long hair at Thermopylae’s pass? 
Ah, I forget the straits, alas! 
  More tragic than theirs, more compassion-worth,
That have doomed you to march in our ‘immigrant class’
 Where you’re nothing but ‘scum o’ the earth!’”

The audience was caught unaware.  It had been vastly interested in the spectacle, as a spectacle, the more because the unusual Americanization class which produced it had attracted general attention.  But, Phil Khamis, everybody’s friend, standing there, an immigrant of the immigrants, smiling his wistful friendly smile, was a picture as dramatic as it was unexpected.  First there were ejaculations of astonishment and surprise.  Then came the moment of understanding, and a shining-eyed stillness fell on all.  Then, what a shout!  J.W. led off, the unashamed tears falling from his brimming eyes.

On Saturday morning J.W. was sitting beside Phil Khamis at Morning Watch.  The leader had asked for answers to the question “Why did I come to the Institute?” getting several responses of the conventional sort.  Suddenly Phil nudged J.W. and whispered, “Shall I tell why I came?” and J.W. with the memory of stunt night’s thrill not yet dulled, said promptly, “Sure, go ahead.”

When Phil got up an attentive silence fell upon them all.  The Greek boy had made many friends, as much by his engaging frankness and anxiety to learn as by his perpetual eagerness to have a hand in every bit of hard work that turned up.  Since the stunt night incident he was everybody’s favorite.