Читать книгу Center Rush Rowland - Ralph Henry Barbour - Страница 6

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“Now I guess you’ll behave yourself,” exclaimed the landlady triumphantly. “Here’s the young man that’s taken the room.”

“He hasn’t any right to it,” declared the boy on the trunk, gripping the bag on his knees more firmly. “You gave me the refusal of it! I told you I’d be back! It’s my room, and I mean to keep it!”

Ira looked inquiringly at Mrs. Magoon, but she silently referred him to the claimant in the doorway.

“What’s wrong?” Ira asked of the latter.

“Why, I came here this afternoon and looked at this room and I asked this—this lady if she’d give me the refusal of it until evening and she said she would. I agreed to come back in any case and say whether I’d take it or not. And now, when I send my trunk here, she tells me she’s rented it to you!”

“I gave him no refusal,” exclaimed Mrs. Magoon irately. “He said he’d be back, yes, but he didn’t know whether he wanted it or didn’t want it. And I can’t be losing the chance to rent my rooms while he’s making up his mind.”

“Well, if you didn’t have a refusal,” said Ira mildly, “I don’t see what claim you have. I found the room for rent and took it this afternoon, and paid two weeks in advance. I’m sorry, but I guess you’ll have to look somewhere else.”

“I have looked!” cried the other. “There aren’t any rooms left. This is all there is. I’ve been all over the crazy place.”

“Oh, I guess you can find one tomorrow,” said Ira soothingly. “Why don’t you get a lodging for tonight somewhere and then start fresh in the morning? I’ve got a list of houses here——”

“I’ve been all through the list. Everyone’s full up. Anyway, this is my room, and I mean to have it. She did give me the refusal of it, and she knows plaguey well she did!”

“The idea!” exclaimed Mrs. Magoon in shrill tones. “Calling me a liar to my face, are you? If you don’t get right out of here this very minute I’ll call a policeman, I will so!”

“Wait a minute,” counselled Ira. “He didn’t mean it that way. Now I tell you what we’ll do.” He glanced across the corridor to where a door had just opened to emit a large youth who was now regarding them with his hands in his pockets and a broad smile on his face. “You let this chap and me talk it over quietly, Mrs. Magoon. We’ll settle it between us. There’s no reason to get excited about it, is there? Just you go on down, ma’am, and it’ll be all right.”

“There’s only one way it can be settled,” replied the landlady irately, “and that’s for him to take himself and his trunk out of my house!”

“But there’s no hurry, Mrs. Magoon. Besides, we’re disturbing the others with all this racket. Shove that trunk inside, please, and we’ll close the door first of all.”

Mrs. Magoon grunted, hesitated and finally went grumbling off down the stairs, and Ira, taking affairs into his own hands, pushed the small trunk out of the way of the door, its owner grudgingly vacating his strategic position atop, and closed the portal, to the disappointment of the neighbour across the way.

“Now,” said Ira pleasantly, “sit down and be comfortable. Try the armchair. What’s your name? Mine’s Rowland.”

“Mine’s Nead,” replied the other, not very amiably. “Names haven’t anything to do with it, though.”

“Just wanted to know what to call you. Now, honest-to-goodness, Nead, did Mrs. Magoon say she’d hold this room until you had decided?”

“She did! If it’s the last word I ever utter——”

“All right! And, if you don’t mind telling me, how much were you to pay for it?”

“Thirteen dollars and a half a month.”

Ira did some mental calculating and smiled. “That’s about three dollars a week, isn’t it?” he asked. “You’re certain that was the price?”

“Of course I’m certain. Three dollars was all I wanted to pay, and I told her so. She wanted four at first. Four dollars for this—this old poverty-stricken attic!”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be hard on it,” said Ira pleasantly. “I like it pretty well.”

“But it isn’t yours! Now you look here, Boland——”

“Rowland. And don’t let’s have any melodrama, please. We can come to a settlement if we don’t shout, I guess. What you agreed to and what Mrs. Magoon agreed to is no business of mine. That’s between you two. She says the room is mine. You say it’s yours. I’ve got it!”

“You haven’t any right——”

“Well, there’s the right of possession,” chuckled Ira. “Mind you, I’m inclined to believe your account of what took place, because—well, I’m beginning to doubt Mrs. Thingamabob’s—er—memory. But I think you left it pretty late to decide, Nead. If I’d been Mrs. Magoon I’d have considered myself released from that refusal by six o’clock; by seven, anyway. You couldn’t have got here until half-past, I guess.”

“I had to get something to eat and then find a man to fetch my trunk——”

“Yes, but you could have dropped around before and told her you’d take it. You see, Nead, if you hadn’t wanted it, and she had stood by her bargain until nearly eight, she might not have rented it at all. There’s that to consider.”

“Oh, you make me tired! You talk like a—like a lawyer! She said I could have the room and I’ve come for it and that’s all there is to it!”

“Well, what about me?” inquired Ira mildly.

“You can find another one. You can do what you told me to do. If you think it’s so easy, just take a try at it!”

“If I thought you really had a right to this room I’d do it,” answered Ira, “but I don’t. At least, not a convincing one. Tell you, though, what I will do, Nead. I’ll get Mrs. Magoon to fix up some sort of a cot or something and you can stay here until tomorrow. It’s pretty late to go room hunting now and that’s a fact. Or maybe she has another room that she will let you have overnight. We’ll go down and ask her.”

“But I tell you it’s my room, Boland! I don’t care whether you think I have any right to it or not. I know that I have. I know that I was given a refusal of it until evening——”

“What do you call evening?” interrupted Ira.

“Oh, if you’re going to split hairs——”

“I’m not, but if I said evening I’d have some time like sunset in mind. The fact is, Nead, you didn’t make sure that there was nothing better until just before you came around here. And if you had found anything better you would never have shown up here again. And you know that’s so, too. I’m perfectly willing to share the room with you tonight, but I’m not going to get out of it. I’m sorry the misunderstanding happened, but it isn’t any fault of mine. Now, what do you say to making the best of things and bunking out here until morning?”

Nead observed Ira gloweringly, and for a long moment made no answer, and in that moment Ira had a good look at him. He was at least a full year younger than Ira, a thin, rather peevish looking youth with a poor complexion. His features were not bad, and he had rather nice eyes, but there was something unpleasant about his expression. He wore good clothes, but wore them carelessly, and Ira noted that his tan shoes looked as if they had not seen polish for many days. On the whole, Ira felt no enthusiasm about having Nead for a roommate even overnight.

“Well, I’ll stay here, I suppose,” said Nead ungraciously. “But I’m not giving up my claim on the room. Tomorrow I mean to go to the Principal and tell him about it. I guess he will see that I get what belongs to me.”

“All right! That’s settled for the present, anyway. Now I’ll go down and interview Mrs. Magoon. If she hasn’t an empty room she can probably find us a cot or a mattress. You can come along if you like,” he ended questioningly.

But Nead shook his head. “She will only get mad again if I go,” he said. “Besides,” he added, tossing his hat to the table and stretching himself more comfortably in the plush chair, “it’s not up to me. I’m at home already.”

“Glad you feel that way,” replied Ira gravely. “I’ll be back in a shake.”

He found Mrs. Magoon more complaisant than he had expected. There was, she recalled, a cot in the attic, but he would have to bring it down himself. And having an extra person in the room would be fifty cents a day. Ira, however, gently but firmly negated that, pointing out that she had got herself into the fix and that it was nothing to do with him, and finally the landlady agreed to waive remuneration. Ten minutes later, not very enthusiastically aided by Nead, he had the cot set up. There was a rather sketchy mattress on it and Mrs. Magoon grudgingly furnished two sheets and a blanket. By that time Nead had got over his grouch to some extent and was displaying a few human qualities.

“I thought I was going to have a room in one of the dormitories,” he explained, divesting himself of his outer clothing and depositing it helter-skelter around the room. “I wouldn’t have come if I’d known I had to room off the campus. Why, you can get a fine study in Leonard Hall for a hundred and twenty-five for the year, and that’s only about three dollars a week. They ought to have enough dormitories here and not make fellows live around in dives like this. Gee, some of the prices they talked today would make your hair stand up! One place I went to asked six dollars for a room not half the size of this. It was furnished, though, which you can’t say of this place. She’s put some more things in here since I saw it, though.”

“Bought ’em myself,” said Ira.

“Bought them! But they look second-hand!”

“N-no, I don’t guess so. Third-hand, maybe, or fourth, but hardly second, Nead. Still, they’re all right, aren’t they? How do you like the window seat?”

“Window seat? Is that what you call it?” Nead laughed. “Say, what’s the matter with it? Why does it shoot out like that?”

“It used to be straight,” answered Ira soberly, “but it’s rather old and has rheumatism. That explains the crook in it.”

“Huh! It looks mighty silly. If you expect me to buy this trash off you you’ve got another guess coming.”

“I don’t, thanks. It’s not for sale. Especially the window seat. I’m sort of fond of that.” He chuckled. “It’s so—so foolish looking!”

Nead viewed him in puzzlement. “Well, if you like foolish things, all right,” he said finally, dipping into his bag for his pyjamas. “I don’t, though. Say, where do you come from?”

“Maine. How about you?”

“Buffalo.”

“Dakota?” inquired Ira blandly.

“Dakota! Of course not, you idiot! There isn’t any Buffalo in Dakota. New York, of course.”

“There used to be. Maybe they’re all killed now, though. Buffalo’s quite a big place, I suppose.”

“It’s big enough, anyway. And it’s the best city in the country.”

“Sort of like this place, then, I guess.”

“What!”

“Well, you said it was a city in the country, didn’t you?” asked the other innocently. “And that’s what this is. I’d call it that, at least.”

“You go and see Buffalo some time,” advised Nead disgustedly. “I guess you live in the country, all right.” He grinned at the nightgown that Ira was getting into. “Don’t they have pyjamas up in Maine?”

“Not many. There’s a few raccoons left, though.”

“Oh, gee, you’re a smart guy, aren’t you? Well, I’m going to turn in. Hope you’ll find that cot comfortable, but it doesn’t look it!”

“Oh, you’re taking the bed, are you?”

“Sure,” chuckled Nead. “It’s mine, isn’t it?”

“It’s yours for tonight,” was the answer. “If I have the nightmare, just yell. I usually wake up. Good night.”

Ira slept soundly in spite of the discomforts of that wobbly, creaking cot, and when he awoke the early sunlight was slanting in at the windows behind the new curtains. Across the room Nead was still asleep. Reference to his watch showed the time to be but a few minutes past six. Ira turned over stiffly and tried to slumber again, but after ten minutes of unsuccessful effort he gave it up, rolled over on his back, put his arms over his head, fixed his gaze on an interesting crack that travelled from one side of the ceiling to the other with as many ramifications as a trunk-line railway and faced the problem presented by the unconscious form on the bed.

There was a freshness and coolness in the morning air that made for well-being, and Ira felt extremely kindly toward the world, even including Nead and the pugnacious Gene Goodloe. He wondered whether the latter would see fit to follow up the little affair of yesterday, and remembered that he hadn’t sent him word of his whereabouts. He would write Goodloe a note as soon as he got dressed. As far as he was personally concerned, he was ready to call quits. It was much too wonderful a day for fighting! Then he speculated about Mart Johnston and wondered whether Mart would look him up. He didn’t care a whole lot. Mart was a cheerful sort of idiot, but he wasn’t exactly restful! And Mart had so many friends, besides that chap “Brad,” that it wasn’t likely he would recall the existence of the boy who was thinking of him except, perhaps, to laugh at him. And, finally, there was Nead.

Nead was a problem, and Ira scowled at the crack in the ceiling and tried to solve it. Perhaps, after all, Nead did have a good claim on that room. Ira tried to see the affair from Nead’s point of view. It was rather puzzling. He didn’t quite know what he ought to do. Of course, he might follow Nead’s idea and leave the decision to the faculty, but it seemed a trivial affair to bring to its attention. Or he might——

He brought his gaze suddenly from the ceiling and stared blankly at the window for a moment. Then he turned and regarded the sleeping countenance of the boy across the room. In slumber Nead didn’t look so unpleasant, he thought. And living alone would be, perhaps, rather lonesome. Certainly, could he have his choice of roommates the choice wouldn’t fall of Nead, but he couldn’t. And maybe Nead would improve on acquaintance. Ira had already discovered that first impressions are frequently erroneous. There was, too, the advantage of having someone share the expense, although Ira wasn’t greatly concerned about that. He weighed the question for some time, lying in bed there, and finally made up his mind. He would make the proposition to Nead. If Nead wasn’t agreeable, why, Nead could find another room. Ira considered that he would then have done all that was required of him. He plunged out of bed and, gathering up towel and sponge and soap, made his descent on the bathroom.