THE TALLY-HO’S DIGNIFIED DINNER
The Tally-ho Tea-Shop was going to open a regular catering department.
That was Betty’s “lovely new idea,” which had been her principal reason
for coming back to Harding. Through the desperately busy first days
of the term it had slumbered; the single-handed management of Montana
Marie O’Toole had kept it in the background; the pathetic episode of
the Jones sisters had delayed it still further. But when the B. C.
A.’s stepped forward to share in the tutoring of Montana Marie, and
when Jim Watson appeared to take Betty off on long, refreshing rides,
and to remind her, by many small and tactful attentions, that at least
one person in the world was tremendously interested in all her ideas
and plans and achievements,--then at last did the lovely new idea for
the Tally-ho get its innings. Betty took a day off from her freshman
and her secretaryship, to think the whole thing over. Then she
called a business meeting of “resident owners,” which was Madeline’s
high-sounding name for herself and Babbie and Betty. Then she wrote to
Mr. Morton, and saw to it that Babbie stopped thinking about Mr. Thayer
and “the” wedding long enough to write to Mrs. Hildreth. And the next
thing, since everybody heartily agreed about the splendor of the new
idea, was to begin.
In this connection Betty enunciated another of her amusing business
theories. “It’s easy enough to make grand and elegant plans,” she
declared. “But there’s a perfectly awful gap between planning and
doing. And in business it’s only the doing that counts.”
“Yes,” agreed Babbie solemnly. “Of course we want to wait until we are
perfectly sure what is the very best way of starting in.”
Betty sighed despairingly. “Oh, Babbie, that’s just what I didn’t mean!
I meant that the longer we think and consider and wonder how to begin,
the longer,--we don’t begin,” she ended forlornly.
Madeline patted her shoulder comfortingly. “I understand, if Babbie,
the lady of leisure, doesn’t. Of course she doesn’t! How can she, when
she never has to make an opportunity, and then cram herself down its
unwilling throat? Begin any old way, Betty. Only begin. I know the
catering department will be a big success.”
And so Betty began--with Miss Raymond’s dinner. Miss Raymond had moved
off the campus, and had a dear little house of her own, away up on the
top of Oak Hill. Fräulein Wendt lived there with her, and a fat old
French woman kept house for them--exactly as she pleased. And just as
Betty was ready to open her catering establishment, a famous author
from London came to Harding to deliver a lecture, and also to see Miss
Raymond, whom he had met years before in England and wanted to meet
again. Miss Raymond was giving a dinner for him. Celine’s cooking would
do beautifully, she told Betty, coming to her to ask if Nora or Bridget
knew of a waitress that she could have in for the great occasion. But
Celine’s waiting and Celine’s table-laying--they would strike terror to
his orderly English soul.
“I remember the dinners his sister used to give,” she went on. “Such
perfect ones, with the loveliest flowers and the daintiest menu
cards--you know they use menu cards over there, or they used to, where
we should have place-cards--and after dinner just one lovely song or
some other fascinating bit of entertainment to start the good talk
going. If only I weren’t so busy! I simply can’t think of anything so
frivolous as a dinner. Why couldn’t that provoking man have waited till
the proofs of my new book were finished?”
Betty murmured polite sympathy, and then, when Miss Raymond had once
more remembered her errand and looked suggestively at the door that led
to Bridget and Nora, she bravely made the fatal plunge. Miss Raymond
was a dreadful person to begin a thing on. She was hard to please. She
never made allowances. She never explained what she wanted; she merely
expected you to grasp her ideas with no help at all from her. But, as
Madeline would have said, Miss Raymond was Opportunity knocking on the
door of the Tally-ho Catering Department. A beginning was a beginning.
So Betty plunged.
She explained the idea, and then timidly suggested that the new
Catering Company should attempt to supply Celine’s deficiencies in
the matter of decoration and service. And Miss Raymond, with a gasp
of relief and a vague, “You know just the sort of charming thing I
want,” fled joyously back to her neglected proofs, leaving Betty in a
very perturbed, very mixed state of mind. She had got her longed-for
chance to begin, but experimenting on Miss Raymond and a great English
novelist certainly had its little drawbacks. Even Madeline was somewhat
over-awed by the great name of the novelist, and Babbie Hildreth was
frankly aghast at Betty’s daring.
“Couldn’t we have started in with a freshman spread?” she asked. “Then,
after a year or so, we could work up to the grandeur of Miss Raymond.
Aren’t you scared to death, Betty, for fear things will go wrong?
Imagine how she’d glare at a waitress who didn’t pass things to suit
her! The poor creature would probably drop her dishes and flee for her
very life.”
“Not Nora,” said Betty stoutly. “I’m going to do the table myself, and
I shall stay on in the kitchen during dinner to make sure that things
are sent in looking right. Emily Davis will attend to that part later,
but for this first time----”
“You are scared to death,” cried Babbie triumphantly. “But you needn’t
be. It will be a howling success, that dinner. I feel it in my bones.
And when Miss Raymond is pleased, she is very, very pleased. It will
be the making of the Tally-ho Catering Department, Betty Wales, and I
shall write Mother that you are the boldest and most fearless caterer
in the whole country, and that she’d better engage you for our wedding
without further delay.”
Betty laughed. “What you will really do without delay, Miss Hildreth,
is to advise me about the flowers for the table, and the place-cards.
Of course, for such a terribly intellectual party, our usual Tally-ho
ideas are all out of the way.”
Babbie nodded thoughtfully. “Of course. She wants a perfectly dignified
dinner. Keynote: expensive simplicity. Roses in a tall glass vase,
and place-cards engraved with her family crest if she has one.
Color scheme depending upon her china. Or has Celine smashed so much
china that we shall have to use ours? You’ll have to conciliate the
autocratic Celine, Betty; so you’d better be brushing up your French in
your idle moments.”
“Don’t bother with French, but take me on your preliminary scouting
trip,” amended Madeline. “I have yet to discover the fat foreign cook
that I can’t conciliate. I love them so, that I instantly win their
foolish hearts.”
The scouting trip disclosed the fact that Celine was good-natured, if
set in her ways. Also, she had not smashed any of the gold and white
Raymond-heirloom china. Instead she kept it under lock and key, and
Miss Raymond and Fräulein Wendt were compelled to be satisfied with
a plebeian, modern blue and white set purchased by command of the
thrifty Celine, who had an obsession to the effect that some day Miss
Raymond would marry and have a real home of her own. For this happy
consummation Celine insisted upon hoarding the ancestral silver, china,
and mahogany, sternly refusing to waste what she shrewdly recognized
as real treasures upon this make-believe, makeshift housekeeping,
divided between a drab little German lady and a distrait and
absent-minded professor in petticoats, whom Celine adored and scolded
by turns.
“And for ze grand partie, it is all as you wish,” she assured Betty
magnificently. “It will do them gut--dis grand partie. I will make food
for ze god, mam’selle, chust as you wish. Ze mam’selle, she is busy
to-day--no count to disturb. She say do as ze little mam’selle wish,
and all goes well. Voilà!”
So Babbie bought long-stemmed yellow roses, and borrowed Mary’s tallest
and slenderest wedding-present vase to put them in. And when Betty
demurred a little at the formidable price of engraved crests, Madeline
painted the design in red and gold. Then, to amuse herself, she made
another set of Tally-ho-ish cards with clever, flippant pictorial
take-offs of the guests as decoration, and below leading questions,
“just to start the good talk going,” she mimicked Miss Raymond gaily.
“I’d like to plan the great Mr. Joram a dinner,” she declared, “a real
live American-college-girl dinner, that would make him sit up and like
us all. I say, Betty, wouldn’t Miss Raymond stand for a little gleam of
originality?”
Betty considered, looking troubled. “Of course those cards are terribly
clever, and she might like them, but--if she didn’t----”
“Exactly,” Babbie took up the tale. “If she didn’t, the Tally-ho
Catering Department would be done for. Miss Raymond is a woman of the
world, Madeline. She met Mr. Joram in formal London society, and she
wants to----”
“Do a perfectly good return engagement,” finished Madeline calmly.
“All right, only she’s wasting the chance of a lifetime. Tell her so,
please, Betty, with my compliments. To pay for a Tally-ho-ish dinner,
and then get yellow roses and crests and regular food--it doesn’t
strike me as a square deal. But if that’s what they want, that’s what
we furnish. I must design a Tally-ho Catering Department folder,
explaining that we are all things to all men, from a dignified dinner
without features for Miss Raymond to a Stocking Factory Twelfth Night
Masque, all features, for Mr. Thayer. By the way, Betty, we ought by
rights to have begun on Mr. Thayer.”
“He’s too busy getting ready to be married,” laughed Betty. “He isn’t
interested in factory parties this year.”
“Oh, dear, that’s because of me,” explained Babbie sadly. “But even a
philanthropist has to be absorbingly interested in his new house and
his approaching wedding and his honeymoon. After that,”--Babbie sighed
joyously,--“after that you’ll have to help us and the Stocking Factory
to live happy ever after. And we shall give lots of stunty parties, and
we shall need lots of catering, with features.”
“Catering without features charged extra,” Madeline read from the
folder she was busily composing, “to compensate the company for the
loss of their customary diversions.”
“Madeline!” sighed Babbie resignedly. “What perfect foolishness! You
know features are great bothers to think up.”
“Also great fun,” retorted Madeline. “And I’ll bet you a cookie--a
frosted one of Cousin Kate’s--that even the intellectual Miss Raymond
would like some features, if she only stopped to consider the matter.”
“But we can’t be sure that she would,” Betty explained again patiently.
“And so isn’t it safer to act like any other Catering Company and stick
to the Dignified Dinner program?”
“Certainly,” Madeline agreed promptly. “Keeping my terribly clever
place-cards concealed about your person, and my latest Palmist and
Crystal-gazer stunt on the other end of the Tally-ho’s telephone line.
But I bet you a dozen Cousin Kate’s cookies that if she is given her
choice, Miss Raymond will vote for the features.”
“I probably shan’t see her until after dinner,” Betty explained. “So
she can’t be given her choice. But I’ll take the clever place-cards
along. And if you can read palms, Madeline Ayres, begin on mine.”
“Oh, please do mine first,” begged Babbie, “and tell me all about my
wedding and after. Why didn’t you tell us before that you could read
palms?”
“Because I learned only last week,” Madeline defended herself coolly,
and then proceeded to read all Babbie’s future in the lines of
her soft little hands in a manner that Babbie and Betty agreed in
characterizing as “just perfectly wonderful.”
The Dignified Dinner was to be at seven. At six Betty arrived to
arrange the yellow roses, dispose the crested place-cards according to
Miss Raymond’s orders, and make sure that Celine was doing her part and
that Nora understood what hers was to be.
“My mam’selle is making ze letter in ze libraire,” Celine told her
disconsolately. “She belong in ze chambre making ze toilette. Voilà!
What is it to be done?”
“The salad--for us,” laughed Betty, and Celine joined in
good-naturedly, only stopping now and then in the construction of the
salad to reconnoiter in her mam’selle’s quarters and to lament that “ze
toilette” was even yet not begun.
But at quarter to seven Miss Raymond, “ze toilette” completed, though
rather sketchily, hurried into the kitchen.
“Oh, Miss Wales,” she began, “is everything ready? Did I tell you about
the seating? Did I tell you that Professor Francis isn’t coming? So
now I want Mrs. Merwin opposite Mr. Joram.” She swept back to the
table. “It’s very pretty,” she said, gazing absently from the roses to
the crests. “These cards are beautifully done. Did I ask you to plan
music or something of the sort for later? But of course that’s not
catering. I’m as nervous to-night as a freshman before mid-years--and
as stupid. I simply haven’t had one minute to think since last Sunday.
Do I look fit to be seen, Miss Wales? Oh, thank you. Hooking the
hostess up isn’t catering either, but you do it so well. I’ll run
up and find a pin to put into that lace in one minute. But first
tell me, are any of my guests musical? Have they any parlor tricks?
Intellectual dinners are such bores, Miss Wales, unless they’re made to
be distinctive somehow.”
Overwhelmed by the tide of questions, Betty ran over the guest-list
without finding any one whose “parlor trick” she knew.
“I’m sorry,” she faltered. “I didn’t know you wanted me to plan any
entertainment. I thought----”
“Oh, never mind,” Miss Raymond cut in abruptly. “The table is very nice
and Celine’s cooking--it’s all right, Miss Wales, only I’d dreamed of
something--what is it that you girls say?--stunty. Something that would
be like your tea-shop, and that would give Mr. Joram a whiff of the
informal, amusing college atmosphere. I ought to have said so plainly.
I never make myself clear.” Miss Raymond sank into the nearest chair
with an air of complete discouragement.
For one little minute Betty hesitated. Then she flew to the kitchen and
returned with the terribly clever place-cards, which had been packed in
the basket with Mary’s vase.
“I’ll bring you down a pin,” she volunteered, “if you’ll tell me
where to find one. Meanwhile look these over and see if you care to
use them. Madeline--Miss Ayres--sent them on the chance. And if you
wanted a splendid palmist and crystal-gazer for after dinner, you
could have her. The costume is East Indian, with a mystic veil. We
would have asked sooner, only we thought--we were afraid----” Betty
fled, blushing. There was no use waiting for directions about the pin,
because Miss Raymond was bestowing her undivided attention upon the new
place-cards.
[Illustration: SHE PEEPED CAUTIOUSLY IN AT THE DOOR]
When Betty came back five minutes later she peeped cautiously in at the
door to discover Miss Raymond happily engaged in rearranging the table,
chuckling softly to herself as she moved about. Betty, who had found
Fräulein Wendt and a pearl and amethyst pin, came timidly forward. Miss
Raymond looked up at her with an expression of girlish gaiety that made
you forget that she was ever cold and distant and hard to please.
“My dear child,” she said, “you’ve made my dinner! These cards hit them
all off to the life. Nothing else will matter after such a good start,
but bring on your crystal-gazing palmist. Put her in the little red
sitting-room. Arrange things as you like. And--Mr. Joram will want to
meet Miss Ayres. Couldn’t you ask her to come up later this evening?”
Betty started to explain that Miss Raymond must choose between Madeline
and the crystal-gazing palmist, and then remembered the point Madeline
had made of the mystic veil that was to keep her interestingly
anonymous.
So, “I’m afraid she can’t come to-night, Miss Raymond,” Betty
explained demurely. “That is, not until very late. I--I think she’s
engaged for to-night.”
“Then I want to engage your catering company for another dinner next
week, when Mr. Joram comes back. I’ll let you know the night, and Miss
Ayres must come then for dinner.”
Three hours later Betty, tired but triumphant, was assisting the
crystal-gazing palmist to extract the pins from the entangling meshes
of her mystic veil. The crystal-gazing palmist was also triumphant.
Nobody had pierced the disguise of the mystic veil. Miss Raymond had
told Mr. Joram all about that queer amusing Miss Ayres, who stopped
writing plays for Agatha Dwight to design candle shades for the
Tally-ho Tea-Shop. Mr. Joram had inquired sotto voce of the palmist if
faculty dinners at Harding were always like this one. Miss Ferris had
blushed ignominiously when the palmist found a wedding within a year in
her hand. Best of all, George Garrison Hinsdale--Mary fortunately was
spending the week with Babe--had assured the palmist solemnly that her
character readings were “simply stunning.”
“It wasn’t a very dignified dinner,” said Betty, pulling out the last
pin, just as a fresh burst of laughter floated out from the rooms in
front.
Madeline smiled. “Rather not--nor intellectual. But they’ve had a
good time. By the way, may I collect my cookies as I go home? I’ve
decided to sit up and write for a while, and I shall need midnight
refreshments.”
“Of course you can have them or anything else we’ve got,” Betty
promised gratefully. “Oh, Madeline, you are a jewel! Just suppose we
hadn’t had any substitutes for crests and--and--dignity.”
Madeline yawned. “Before I write the play that I’m going to do
to-night,” she announced casually, “I’ll amend our advertising
circular. I’m going to cross out ‘Catering without Features charged
extra,’ and say ‘Catering without Features may be had elsewhere.’”
“But that will sound fearfully unbusinesslike,” Betty protested.
“Business,” began Madeline dogmatically, “is the art of putting your
best foot forward. Our best foot is features. Business is giving the
people what they want. They all want features, even the touch-me-not
Raymonds and the high and mighty Jorams. Ergo----” she waved her mystic
veil convincingly. “You began with features, Betty. You’re therefore
committed to features. And I, crystal-gazing palmist and seeress of
renown, prophesy that the Tally-ho Catering Department will succeed
beyond our wildest dreams, with features. Now come and help me find
those cookies.”