Читать книгу Little Man - George Herbert Sallans - Страница 14

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"Therefore if any man can show just cause, why these two may not lawfully be joined in holy wedlock, let him speak now or else hereafter for ever hold his peace."

George sat uneasily in the front pew of the little church. There were flowers on either side of the pulpit. To George's right sat Hal. To his left, at the aisle, was Daddy, looking suddenly haggard and old.

Jean getting married! Jean with her long white dress and the veil and the brave little bouquet of garden flowers. In another minute now she would be Mrs. Henderson, the same Henderson who had taught school here ever since they came. Plain Howard Henderson to them now, and he was going away at last to his native Kentucky, and taking Jean with him.

He looked sleek, complacent, sure of himself, a stocky little thoroughbred, his hair waved gracefully and brushed in back of his ears toward the reverse pompadour that men wore those days. The back of his neck glowed pink and fresh from the razor. Just above the weather line a thin white stripe showed where the barber had shaved him. He looked smart now, in his dark suit, a flower in his button hole, and he held his head high.

George eyed Jean with a new interest. Funny how a fellow would live with his sister all his life and never notice her. Why, he had hardly noticed even her romance, until it suddenly bloomed and ripened. Jean stood there slim and serene, but happy in her way, he conceded with lordly compassion.

Little Charlotte Warner was the flower girl. She walked so importantly up the aisle. Then came the Burroughs girl and the older Wilbur girl, Effie, as bridesmaids. Jean, then, her face radiant with a flashing smile which she bestowed on everyone with a conscious generosity. Jean holding to Daddy's arm.

And Daddy with his long-tailed black coat that he had brought from Ontario, the coat he wore to church on Sundays, the coat with the pocket in the tail where he put his handkerchief. Daddy with a wing collar high enough to choke an ostrich, with the few remaining hairs on his head spread thinly and pasted down against the bald spot.

"Who giveth this woman in marriage?"

"I, her father," Daddy had said. And his work was done. In three words, after twenty years, Daddy had given up Jean for ever, to a man who once used to hit George over the knuckles with his ruler. Daddy had turned and sat down silently beside George. Mr. Munson, the pastor, began to read from his little book.

George wondered how Daddy felt, sitting there. How he must have remembered the old days when he, too, stood up and declared his love before the world. Was Daddy thinking now of his sainted wife who lay with her fathers in a far field? Mother—Margaret was her name. The same as Pitch's. Pitch had been named after her, and they said Pitch looked like her.

Pitch sat up in the choir now, her hair astonishingly black above the dainty white she wore. In contrast to the usual high collar of that time, with its stiff supports coming up under each ear, Pitch's dress was low, cool, inviting, with a small V at the neck, gathered in a light, mysterious ruffle. Pitch's black eyes looked alertly over the church, alight with a strange power, as the stars are alight.

George wondered if they were on him. He tried to look away, lest she think he was staring, found he could not, then tried to look full at her, but felt his eyes wavering under that impersonal, friendly scrutiny that might not be for him at all.

"—To love, honour and obey—Till death do us part."

Aunt Sadie behind him blew her nose, a subdued blast. Aunt Anna blew hers with a hearty, honest explosion that skewed her hat over one ear. Then Jean, Howard and Daddy went with the preacher to the corner of the church beyond the pulpit to sign and witness the contract. The little organ in the opposite corner began playing. Swiftly Pitch stood up, the folds of her dress straightened themselves, and she was to George a sudden vision out of a white mist. He caught his breath. Pitch was smiling slightly, so astoundingly confident. His heart beat riotously as he thought of his own last miserable appearance at a school concert, how his whole frame shook with fright.

His eyes were glued to Pitch now in fascination. The little organ rose to full voice, then softened. Pitch's white-gloved hands were joined lightly before her.

"I hear you calling me," Pitch began, in the quiet, matter-of-fact opening of that unforgettable song. It was as if she had simply said it to him. A pause, almost as if she expected him to answer. And then the song was rising in volume, and George understood dimly what Pitch's years of study, facing the ridicule of her ignorant young friends, including himself, had meant.

Her voice picked up the measure of her solo while the organist seemed merely straying on the keys. It rose with the ease of a bird into the higher notes. George's throat filled, and some sort of fogginess clouded his eyes at the beauty of it. Forgotten now Jean and Howard. Forgotten all but Pitch, a black-eyed, impish mite with a voice that sent chills of ecstasy into his heart.

"—You called me when the moon had gone to rest."

He thought writhingly of that night two years ago as the moon had slid down into the mocking horizon. Had she really called him that night when he went home in such misery? He shook the thought out of his mind in shame at his own conceit. Of course she hadn't. Glad enough to be rid of him, she'd been.

The song was ended. Pitch sat down with an easy grace, as if she floated down to rest in her chair, dainty, unafraid, a challenge even in silence. He wanted to applaud frantically, to yell 'Core as they always did at a concert.

Then a signal from Mr. Munson. The organ pealed reedily and bravely into Mendelssohn's triumphant chords. There was a vast rustle of silk as people stood up. Down the aisle came Jean and Howard now, two people who belonged to each other. George had a fleeting look at Howard. The fellow was actually handsome, smiling like that. Jean held his arm, and beamed on everyone. A great surge of affection filled George. Gad, a sister didn't have much fun after all. He forgot now the hundreds of little resentments he'd known, and thought of all the uncountable things Jean had done for him. He would have liked to rush out and hug her right in the aisle.

It was the effect of Pitch's song, maybe. He would tell her what a swell singer she was. But he would say, as they said on the stage: "Mamselle, you were beeyootiful."

They met briefly as she passed him. Pitch dazzled him with her smile, and said simply: "Hello, Georgie."

George would go late to college that fall. Threshing must come first, to provide the money. Harry was already a year ahead of him, for he had to stay another year on the farm. His father simply could not afford it. Even now it would be slim going, he felt, but he would make extra money with his stories. The manuscripts were there at home now. He thought often of them, with a yearning anxiety. One was still in the publisher's hands. He made up his mind not to think of it, talk about it or hope for it. If that brain child came back it would, he knew, badly strain his heart.

The magazine he had sent it to came to the house every month. It was a small magazine, but it was George's Valhalla. He read its stories, saw the names of its writers in italic letters at the tops of the pages, and projected himself into that coming rapture when his own should appear. He had already exhausted the thrill of writing for The Westview Bugle. It had earned him much fun, and also a lot of scolding over the rural telephone where everyone listened when you called your neighbour. The editor, of course, paid him no money for it.

It was the year of the big election, the most incredible election, Daddy had said, that was ever held. It was a fight between the low-tariff Liberals and the high-tariff Conservatives over Reciprocity with the United States. It got to such extreme absurdities as "No truck nor trade with the Yankees." The phrase was spawned by the demand of Eastern industrialists for tariffs high enough so that they could charge up a profit for themselves over competing American goods.

The tariff did not apply to wheat, which the farmer had to sell, but it did apply to all the implements and everything else which he had to buy. So for the occasion the Western prairies were strongly Liberal. So was Charley Battle. He showed George, in black and white, how the resulting increase in the Battle income for a year would more than pay George's expenses in college. George secretly agreed, but he took the high tariff side, with which he had no sympathy at all, for the sake of argument.

He backed down hastily, though, when he tried the same tactics with Pitch. "Don't you want to go to college?" she demanded scornfully.

"Of course. Who said I didn't?"

She sniffed. "If you don't show any more sense than that, you'll be just wasting your time in college. Now, if you were I, going to Toronto where they believe in that nonsense you're talking, I'd be able to tolerate you."

George laughed uncertainly. "And who's going to take you to Toronto? You'd be lost away down there. You ought to come to Winnipeg and let me take care of you."

She tilted her chin. "Oh, you'll have enough to do looking after Hattie."

"Hattie! Why? Is she going? What for?"

"Now I suppose you ask me to think you didn't know!"

"I didn't. What's she going there for?"

"She thinks she has a career in dancing, I suppose." Pitch frowned. "But why should I be telling you? She'll have you corralled one of these days. Maybe this time she'll force you to climb some haystack—and watch her dance."

"Ah, haystack your grandmother!"

"A grandmother'd have more sense. George, tell me, have you ever kissed Hattie since?"

"I never did—Now, say, you can't prove that on me."

"No need to," she said coolly. "You've proved it yourself. And don't worry about me. I'm only your cousin."

"You ought to be my grandmother," he objected. "You're good enough at lecturing, anyway."

"Hmph! If I were a grandmother I'd pick my grandsons."

"Well, I didn't pick you for a cousin, did I?"

"Neither did I have to be born your cousin."

"Well, why were you then? Answer me that!"

She toyed with an idea. "Oh, I don't know. If I'd been born just anybody, no relation—" she looked at him under long lashes, "you'd probably have met me and fallen in love with me, and then I wouldn't have had the heart to turn you down, you see?"

He laughed scornfully, a little louder than necessary to make it sound convincing. "Turn me down! I like that! And what if I didn't propose?"

She waved it off airily. "Then I probably would have, out of sympathy, because you're such a helpless little fellow."

He opened his mouth to protest, but she was ahead: "Of course now that isn't necessary," she sighed, and then flashed her best smile at him. George came short of appreciating it.

"But you said you were going to Toronto?"

"So I am, later on," Pitch was unabashed at being caught. "I'm going to Winnipeg this fall to stay with Aunt Kitty, and study with Professor Oleano. He's a very famous teacher."

"Oh!" George said.

His first story came in a magazine, at last. He was sitting in the kitchen, reading notes he'd made, when his father unfolded a magazine he was reading, chuckled, showed the magazine to Aunt Mary. "That's a cute little story, Mary."

Aunt Mary read it, sour-faced at first, then gave the magazine back to Daddy and agreed. "I've read worse," said Aunt Mary.

George pricked up his ears at the mention of a story. An author had to keep abreast of his contemporaries. As casually as he could, he laid aside his notes, walked over to the door, looked out, stretched, contrived to see the page folded over in the magazine, sauntered back, picked up the magazine where Daddy had laid it, and pretended to turn the pages idly, but kept his thumb at the marked page.

Suddenly his eyes were focused on it. Swiftly he looked down the page. The story took just two even columns in the page. He was slightly surprised to find how short it was, for in longhand it had seemed much more than that. His name wasn't even on it, but down at the bottom, after a dash, were his initials, "G. B."

He clenched the magazine tightly, conquered the tendency of the page to swim before his eyes, and read it through every word. They had printed it exactly as he had written it! Yet now that his triumph had arrived he found it curiously difficult to be thrilled. Now if his full name had been there—

As it was, he had either to tell the family, and take the chance of their believing him, or else let the story go unheralded into obscurity. Daddy would take it matter-of-fact, as he took everything. Harold would take his nose out of his book long enough to say: "Good, I'll read it in a minute." Aunt Mary would sniff and say, that young men like George would be better occupied doing their chores than scribbling trash like that.

George hesitated, but resist he could not. The thing had to be done.

"Hmph, that's funny," he began. No one paid attention. A thing could be funny or just queer in the Battle family. George sidled over to Harold's shoulder. "Funny," he repeated, and then blurted out: "I wrote that!" And he held the magazine before Harold's face.

Harold looked up with faint interest, glanced at the magazine. "Good," he said, looked back at his book, suddenly realized what George had said, and snapped back: "Hey? What's that? You did!" Harold sat bolt upright. "Gimme that!" He spread the magazine on his knee, and ran over it rapidly. "Hey! Did you hear that? George wrote a story! Our George is an author! Dad! Aunt Mary! Listen!"

George flushed with embarrassment. "What's that!" Daddy was staring in amazement. "You wrote that? Did you hear that, Mary?" But Aunt Mary was already behind George's and Harold's shoulders, gulping down the print with eager eyes that shone in her faded face. In an incredibly short time, long before she could have read it, she whirled on George and threw her bony arms around his neck in the biggest hug he could remember since he was five years old in the forest shack.

"My little Georgie, a real author!" cried Aunt Mary, and he saw tears in her eyes, and he forgot and forgave the times she had scolded him.

Harold was on his feet stamping in excitement. "An author in the house! Say, I think I'll phone somebody. I'll phone everybody!"

It was all over the community by next day. George Battle had a story in The Horizon magazine. Some people said they always knew George was cut out for something. Others said you never knew where talent would spring up next; imagine one of Charley Battle's brats grown up and writing stories.

The notoriety was agony and sweetness to George. He wondered what Pitch thought of it, and if she was sorry now for all the smart things she had said to him. Now, he dreamed he would walk down the street and everyone would point at him, only now he would be an author, and not an actor.

"What did you think of it?" he finally got the nerve to ask Pitch when he was next alone with her.

"Of what, Georgie?" she asked innocently.

"Oh, nothing much," he said shortly. "Sorry I bothered you."

"It's no bother, I'm sure, but I'm no good at riddles."

"It's no riddle," he said roughly. "I just thought you might have taken the trouble to read it. But then you're so busy—"

"Oh, you mean that little story? Quite good. Just like those compositions you used to write in school. You really did write it, didn't you? A little amateurish, of course. But I suppose writing is just like singing, a lot of hard and not very interesting lessons. I think, though, that you have the makings of a writer, if you'll practise."

George knew her speech was too well phrased to have been involuntary. "Thanks! Well, I won't take any lessons from Professor Oily Annie if that's what you're hinting."

"Oleano, if you please," she flashed. "And don't worry, he's not interested in beginners. Of course I might prevail on him to take you in and train that really good voice of yours."

"Don't mention it," he grumphed. "When I want singing lessons I'll choose my own teacher. And as for writing—"

"Keep it up, Georgie," sweetly. "It's a great hobby. Of course, you have to have something else to do to live on, but it's fun, I imagine. I'm thinking of taking it up myself."

"You!" he jeered. "You couldn't write if you were paid for it."

"I wouldn't write without pay, like some people I know. Or did you get paid yet, Georgie?"

"No," he snapped, "I didn't. They'll send it along." But privately he wondered. "You'd be surprised," he added loftily, "to know what they are paying me for it."

So was he, when the cheque came in the mail next day. Four dollars. He lied to himself that it was more than he'd expected, and immediately mailed them the next manuscript, about the same characters. Long afterward they sent him a cheque for four dollars again, but it must have been conscience money, for he never did see the story in print. He never quite had the heart to write them and ask about it, lest they discover a mistake and demand their money back.

While he waited, Hattie had gone to Winnipeg, and the time had come for Pitch to go. George drove to the station with Harold to see her off. And then it was that she pretended to see and have words for everyone except George, until his face grew so dark and ominous that even she could bear it no more.

"George, you look as if you were going to a funeral!"

So he was, the funeral of his past. A new world was opening, a world he had dreamed about and written about but had never seen. He was glad she was going, he told himself vengefully. Nobody to fight with now, nobody to make him feel defeated and fill him with helpless rage as only Pitch could do. He would never forgive her, he knew.

And neither he did, until his time for college came at last. And then he realized, to his disgust, that his going was the more exciting because he would be near her. He was amazed to find that the thought of Pitch, at Aunt Kitty's, ranked only next to college in his dreams of the coming days.

He had vague ideas about Aunt Kitty, who was a city person of some eminence. Uncle Jim and Aunt Sadie belonged to the kind of a family where aunts were well within the inner circle of the far-flung blood empires, and even great-aunts and forty-second cousins clung tenaciously though precariously to the outer reaches of relationship with all its privileges. Of such was Pitch's world, and he would see her there, he told himself, only when he got around to it. He forgave her when he settled in the train. He forgot her when he shyly faced the college registrar, for once through that ordeal he grew suddenly in mental stature and self-esteem. And only less exciting was the dean of the dormitory, who seemed to be wanted, and to have the gift of being, everywhere at once.

"Well, Battle, come along," said the dean, and told him that he could share a room with one Ed Carson, whom they found at his breakfast in his shirt sleeves.

Ed had a cheap card table set up in the middle of the room, and seemed to take little pleasure out of the prospect of George. He set a loaf of bread on the table, a dish of butter beside it, a small pail of honey beside that. On an electric plate atop a separate stand stood a kettle, sizzling happily. On the dresser, its spout pointed toward the mirror, was Ed's teapot. Ed took the kettle, lifted the lid of the teapot, poured steaming water into it, replaced the lid, eyed it appreciatively, cut two slices from the loaf, buttered them and put honey on them, made a sandwich an inch and a half thick, took a half-moon bite out of it, set it back on a plate, stirred the teapot decisively, rattled out a cup and saucer from the bottom of his bookcase, took sugar out of a paper bag and put it in the cup, poured the tea, dug in under the bureau and brought out a pint bottle of milk, poured some in the tea, stirred the lot together, drank and smacked his lips.

George looked on in dawning disillusionment. Was this college, that he had dreamed about? There was a dry, crisp, humorless, hopeless precision about Ed's doings that fascinated him with its deadly horror.

"This is the way I have my breakfast," said Ed, as if there were some peculiar virtue about it.

"Yes," said George. "It looks nice."

Ed grunted, swallowed a quarter of the sandwich, propped a book in front of him, munched with full chops that reminded George of a gopher putting away its winter supply. "Lecture's in ten minutes. Have to hurry."

"Guess I'll hang up my clothes," George said.

"Lots of room on the other end of the closet. You don't need to disturb mine," Ed suggested.

George set about with dull bewilderment. The room felt stuffy with the same stale, locked-up stuffiness that had hung about the Westview church. An unaired, costive and depressing smell. His heart still drummed at the adventures ahead of him, but the very familiarity and reality of this room atmosphere was unreal. It should be different. Where were the college students he had dreamed and read about, who sang risqué songs and were always yelling rah, rah, filling the sky with boisterous voices? What had they to do with this complacent, toothy, over-aged, uninteresting creature called Ed Carson, who cluttered his bedroom with his breakfast?

His roommate!

George lighted a cigarette and finished unpacking. Ed Carson eyed the cigarette glumly, glanced significantly at the window, gulped down the last of his tea, stacked his dishes, took them out and returned with them clean, put them away with a ghastly neatness on the shelf under his books, put the tea, sugar, bread and butter away, folded the small table and propped it in the clothes closet, smacked his tongue three times on the roof of his mouth, picked up heavy, dull-looking books, went out without a further word.

Ed's bed was next to the window, George's was at the other end of the room near the hall door. George puffed on his cigarette, felt a measure of bravado, wondered if the dormitory dean would be mad to find him smoking, sought a place to put ashes, found none, tugged at the window till he finally got it open, spilled his ashes on the floor in the process, found a piece of paper and scooped them up, threw paper and all out the window, then ducked back in alarm. Then he threw the cigarette after them, put the window down, walked out into the hall, wondered why he was tiptoeing, set his heels down firmly, strode to the end of the hall and through a door onto the fire escape.

There before him were the rows on rows of housetops. The city! George gripped the iron railing, and leaned far out to breathe deeply and delightedly. Here at last! From the halls below came an endless scurrying of feet and clatter of voices. He peeped down the fire escapes. Two below him, one above. Beyond that the blue sky. To his right another college building. He heard a stealthy sound on the fire escape above him, the sound of smothered laughter; his eyes shot upward, and he shrank back from scrutiny. But the intruder had gone, and he leaned out again to watch the city, his city!

Pitch's city, too. What kind of house did she live in? He could think of hanging-lamps with chandeliers, a piano, carpets, walls covered with pictures, aunt and uncle walking around quickly and stiffly on legs that did not seem to bend. Why couldn't your mind imagine people with legs that bend? How would he go and see Pitch—ring the bell, and—

Splosh! He reeled from a terrifying shock. He had fallen into water—no, water had fallen over him. A crash on his head it came, a sleezy, cold thing that rolled down over his ears, his neck and shoulders. There was a short, stifled cackle above. Through the grating he saw a foot being withdrawn, then heard scurrying in the hall above. A burst of falsetto laughter burst out and fell in a cascade over him. In sudden panic he dived for his room. Stealthily he closed the door, turned the key, wrung the wet clothes from him, felt his long woollens dubiously and decided they, too, must come off. He pulled on clean underwear, eyed his second-best suit sadly and drew it on. Then for a while he stood silently, helplessly, staring at his gloomy face in the mirror. "What a rube I look!" he thought.

He tried to look furious. He had to turn his profile a bit, and then he thought maybe his cheeks were getting a little shape to them, a touch of boniness like those friends of Harry's, with their lean, intelligent-looking faces. How could he ever get to look like that? He examined his suit and conceded that it was threadbare and out of date. Thank God, no lectures for him till tomorrow. His other suit would be dry by then.

He explored the hallways, the washroom, obeyed a sign which said, "Pull the chain." His hair stood on end at the commotion it caused, then he turned in sudden fright and bolted for the door. He peered apprehensively down the hall. All clear! Tiptoeing at first, he broke into a panicky run, counting the doors as he went, and too confused to see the numbers. At last his door, fifth from the fire escape. In a frenzy of relief, he ducked in.

A handsome, brown-eyed young man lay on the bed, reading. "Hello!" he said. "Who are you?"

"I'm George—my name is—But, say—" George's eyes found the room's details and he stopped in confusion. "B-but I—this isn't my—"

The young man grinned. "Who're you looking for?"

"M-my room," George stammered. "I guess—"

"What number?"

"Mine's—ours is number 24A."

"Well, this is 24B. Yours is the other end of the hall."

"Oh—I'm s-sorry!" George tripped over the mat, recovered himself and felt for the door.

"Hey, what's your hurry?"

"I've got to—get back."

"Lectures?"

"Yes—that is, no, not just now, but—"

The young man sat up, held out his hand. "I'm Bo Charlton," he said. "Real name's Fred, but it's not working."

George took the hand hesitantly, fearful to trust his own senses, suspicious of some new college prank. This young fellow both charmed and alarmed. He spoke with a faint English accent, mingled with college rah-rah and other pleasant elements. The voice of a man who had been about.

"Name's Battle," George said soberly. "George Battle."

"Glad to know you, George. You the new theolog?"

"Theolog?" George looked blank.

"Sure, you're with Ed Carson, aren't you?"

"Yes. How did you know?"

"Just sleuthing. What you taking?"

"Oh, arts course," George said as if deprecating it.

"First year?" George nodded, and Bo eyed him thoughtfully. "And you rooming with a theolog! Well, you may live it down."

Light dawned on George. "Oh, he's all right," he said generously. "Eats in his room."

"Sure, they all do," said Bo. "They go through college on a hundred dollars flat to the term. Damfi know how they manage. But how in blazes did you come to get in there?"

"I don't know," George confessed.

"Well, get out of it as soon as you can," Bo advised. "You'll go nuts with Ed. Those fellows pick their teeth."

"Guess I can stand it," said George cheerfully.

"It's your own funeral," Bo shrugged. Then: "Tell you what, why don't you move in here?"

"But how can I? I mean—it's very nice of you—"

"Nice! Don't jump to conclusions. My roommate's a prune. Tom Benson. One of those damned intellectuals, quotes Schopenhauer, sleeps in a nightgown, worse than a theolog. Let's wish him and Ed off on each other."

They talked some more about it, and George finally walked back to his room in a whirl, flattered, excited, bewildered that a young man who seemed to him the very epitome of his college ideal should want him, a shy and uninteresting stranger, to room with him. George knew he had no small talk, none of the store of smart stories and witty remarks that Bo had always on tap. And a science senior at that!

Yet there it was. The miracle had come to him. Bo the sophisticated, versatile, resourceful. George the bashful freshman, feeling that his hair wasn't cut right, his collar didn't fit, his country tan was a traitor to him, that his pocket money would never let him mix with others, that the ways of the life he was entering were strange and embarrassing, that he was proficient in no games, no specialty at all.

They found that it was one thing to talk of wishing Benson off on Carson, another to do it. Benson and Carson disliked each other. George found that out by cautiously mentioning Benson to Ed, whose lip curled with a disdain that made George dislike him intensely. Why couldn't the man be reasonable? He envied Bo his easy nonchalance with Benson. But Bo didn't talk about the plan again for a whole day, so George feared he was cooling on it. He gave cautious voice to his anxiety.

"Hell, don't worry. Things'll turn up. They always do," was Bo's cheerful answer. "You can always make yourself so obnoxious they'll be glad to move, you know."

"But you can't live with a man and make a nuisance of yourself."

"Oh, can't you? Now, if I were to drop a large bag of water in through your transom, aiming at you, and were to hit our friend Carson, what would he think?"

"But you can't do that! What would the dean say!"

"I'll bite. What would he say?"

So George and Bo went out to buy paper bags. George had a foolish feeling as they entered a dairy lunch. What a place to buy paper bags! But he was deliriously happy, for he had a friend.

"Squinty, a nickel's worth of those," ordered Bo.

Squinty behind the counter complied with an understanding smile that told of a steady traffic in contraband.

"What! Only five? Price of paper gone up? Come on, come through with the usual six. I'm paying cash."

"Say, if you got cash to buy paper bags you got cash to pay your bills," roared Squinty, with a great and affectionate pretence of fury.

"What you think of a cheap skate like that!" Squinty demanded of George. "A dollar-fifty he's on the cuff already for meals."

"You'll get your cheque every month," said Bo airily.

They divided the bags evenly. George seized a chance that evening when Carson was out, sneaked down the hall to listen at Bo's door, heard voices, saw that Bo had left the transom invitingly open. He dived into the washroom with the paper bag doubled under his coat, looked around, saw no one, turned the tap into the bag, crept hastily back to Bo's door and gently heaved the bag through the transom. It burst with a hollow splosh, and voices arose in a roar. But George was down the hall in a flash to his own door, his heart pounding.

Behind him he heard Bo's profane shout. "There go those damned theologs again! Always throwing paper around." Bo seemed to be having trouble to get the door open.

But there was another voice beside Bo's, a strange one, unlike Benson's piping, thin tones. Footsteps rattled in the hall now. George left his door partly open, grabbed a book, flopped on the bed and propped up his feet. He was not a second too soon, for in burst Bo himself, mopping the water from his forehead and the front of his pants. A scant foot behind him came the dormitory dean.

"Where's that roughneck, Carson?" Bo demanded. "Lemme at him!"

George looked up with a calm that his thumping heart threatened to betray. "Carson? Oh, yes! He just went out."

"The hell he did!" Bo snorted, and tore open the clothes closet door. Then he dropped on his knees to look under the bed. George sat up politely.

"Why do you think it was Carson?" asked the dean severely.

"Because I heard him say he'd drown Benson if he ever got a chance," growled Bo from under the bed, and leaned back on his knees. "I ought to bum your room for just living with a guy like that," he told George savagely, with such realism that George winced.

"Come on," said the dean. "The way to settle with practical jokers like that is to put them together. Are you sure they don't like each other?"

"They're simply poison," said Bo. "And it looks as if I'm the goat for their damn jokes on each other."

"Well, you won't be," said the dean grimly. "Have Battle move in with you and we'll put Benson in here."

He turned back to George from the door. "I'm glad to see you like Horace," he said drily. "It's an ambitious start. I only wish Charlton were half as interested." He was gone, and George looked in amused dismay at Carson's book which he held in his hand.

Later, Bo came back and George said: "Gosh, I'm sorry I hit you. I meant—"

"You so-and-so," said Bo. "You would pick the dean for your first practice throw. You're learning fast. Keep this up and you'll be on the way back to the farm in no time."

"But you said—"

Bo laughed suddenly, and rolled on the bed. "My God!" he roared. "In plain decency to the dean I've got to pretend I'm mad, haven't I? But, boy, didn't it work!"