So Johnny pursued his way through the two or three days before commencement, absorbed in meeting friends, embarrassed at times by their manner, but taking obstinately the modest place in the class which he had filled in college.  It did not enter his mind that anything he had done could alter his standing with the “fellows.”  Moreover, he did not spend time considering that.  So he was one of two hundred Buster Browns who marched to Yale Field in white Russian blouses with shiny blue belts, in sailor hats with blue ribbons, and when the Triennials rushed tempestuously down Trumbull Street in the tracks of the gray-beards of thirty-five years before, Johnny found himself carried forward so that he stood close to the iron fence which guards the little yard from the street.  There is always an afternoon tea at the president’s house after the game, to let people see the classes make their call on the head of the University.  The house was full of people; the yard was filled with gay dresses and men gathered to see the parade.

On the high stone steps under the arch of the doorway stood the president and close by him the white, light figure of a little girl, her black hair tied with a big blue bow.  Clustered in the shadow behind them were other figures.  Johnny McLean saw the little maid and then his gaze was riveted on the president.  It surely was good to see him again; this man who knew how to make them all swear by him.

“What will he have to say to us,” Johnny wondered.  “Something that will please the whole bunch, I’ll bet.  He always hits it.”

“Men of the class of -,” the president began, in his deep, characteristic intonations, “I know that there is only one name you want to hear me speak; only one thought in all the minds of your class.”

A hoarse murmur which a second’s growth would have made into a wild shout started in the throats of the massed men behind the class banner.  The president held up his hand.

“Wait a minute.  We want that cheer; we’ll have it; but I’ve got a word first.  A great speaker who talked to you boys in your college course said a thing that came to my mind to-day.  ‘The courage of the commonplace,’ he said, ’is greater than the courage of the crisis.’”

Again that throaty, threatening growl, and again the president’s hand went up—­the boys were hard to hold.

“I see a man among you whose life has added a line to that saying, who has shown to the world that it is the courage of the commonplace which trains for the courage of the crisis.  And that’s all I’ve got to say, for the nation is saying the rest-except three times three for the glory of the class of -, the newest name on the honor roll of Yale, McLean of the Oriel mine.”