HUGH FINDS A WORD
Half an hour later, having left his new roommate to the business of
unpacking his trunk, Bert was in Number 12, and he and Nick and Guy
Murtha, their host, were talking it over.
“We saw him on the train just after we left the city,” Guy was saying.
“Some of us had been in the diner and when we came back through the
parlor car we saw this chap and the man with him. They had a table
and the kid was eating a lunch out of a box and the chap in the derby
hat was waiting on him, or, anyway, that’s how it looked. He’d take a
sandwich out of the box and put it on the kid’s plate and then he’d
move the mustard nearer and sort of fuss over the table. He wasn’t
eating a thing himself. I suppose he ate at second table!”
Guy was a tall fellow of eighteen, a senior and captain of the nine.
He was not a handsome youth; rather plain, in fact; but he had so many
likable qualities that one soon forgot that his nose was short and
broad, that his heavy eyebrows met above it, that his mouth was large
and somewhat loose and that his pale eyes, of a washed-out blue, were
too small. He had a jolly laugh and a pleasant, deep voice that won
friends.
Nick chuckled. “When they got off at the Junction the man got confused
and tried to get back on the express again, and your friend stood in
the middle of the platform, with his hands in his pockets, and shouted:
‘Bowles, you silly ass, came back here!’ Everyone laughed like the
dickens.”
“He’s English,” said Bert dismally.
“Bowles? Rawther!”
“Ordway, too. I asked him. He was born in England; I forget where; is
there a place called Pants?”
“Not in England, dear boy,” remonstrated Nick. “It would be Trousers.”
“Hants, you mean,” said Guy. “Somewhere in the south of England.”
“That’s it, Hants. His father is English, he says, and his mother
American. They live in Maryland now.”
“Nice-looking chap,” said Guy.
Bert nodded. “Yes,” he agreed doubtfully. “Yes, he’s a nice-looking
kid, but――――” His voice dwindled to silence. Nick laughed.
“Cheer up, old scout! He can’t be awfully British if he has an American
mama and lives in ‘Maryland, my Maryland.’ Bet you the sodas he will be
singing ‘Dixie’ when you get back!”
“More likely ‘Rule Britannia’ or ‘God Save the King,’” replied Bert
ruefully. After a moment: “He’s got awfully smooth manners,” he added
grudgingly. “Makes me feel like a――an Indian.”
“Wish he might have kept Bowles here with him,” said Nick regretfully.
“It would have given Lothrop a lot of class!”
“I liked what I saw of him,” said Guy, “and I guess you’ll take to him
when you know him better, Bert. Anyway, he’s a gentleman. You might
have been saddled with a regular mucker, you know. We get one now and
then.”
“Stop looking at me,” said Nick.
“Oh, he’s a gentleman, all right,” laughed Bert. “That’s the trouble.
I’ve got to live up to him, don’t you see? I dare say he will put on
a dinner jacket and stuff his handkerchief up his sleeve. He makes me
feel like an awfully rough, uncivilized sort of fellow.”
“Does he wear a wrist watch?” asked Nick.
“No, he has it on a fob. And, say, fellows, if you want to see some
swell things, come up and give his dresser the once-over! Solid silver
everything! Crest, too. Oh, we’re going to be pretty classy in 29 this
year, I can tell you!” And Bert sighed.
“I’ll have to look up my crest,” observed Nick thoughtfully.
“Your crest!” jeered Bert.
“That’s what I said. I’ve got a peachy one. Dad had someone make
it for him and put it on the automobile doors. It was the proper
caper that year to have your crest on your auto, and Dad doesn’t let
anyone put anything over on him. I told him I thought a cake of soap,
rampant, surrounded by the motto, ‘Won’t dry the skin,’ would be rather
appropriate, but he didn’t like it. Dad makes soap, you know.”
“Yes, I do know,” replied Guy. “I tried some of it once. And it didn’t
dry the skin, either. It took it off.”
“Well, you’re not supposed to wash your hands with laundry soap,” said
Nick. “Of course, if you’re used to that sort, though, and don’t know
any better――――”
“I suppose,” said Guy gravely, “you’ll have to sort of look after
Ordway, Bert, now that he hasn’t any valet; lay out his things in the
morning, you know, and put his studs in, and all that.”
“Fine!” approved Nick. “Maybe he will give you a tip now and then. Say,
did you pipe the gray suede gloves he wore? Think of gloves on a day
like this! Still, _noblesse oblige_, eh, what?”
“I noticed the stunning Norfolk suit he wore,” said Guy. “I’ll bet that
wasn’t cut out by any village tailor down in Maryland.”
“Rawther not!” drawled Nick. “I fawncy he goes across every year and
gets togged out in Bond Street. What ho, old top!”
“Well, I guess I’ll go back and pilot him down to supper,” said Bert.
“Mind if I bring him down here afterwards, Guy? Or, say, you fellows
come up, will you? I――I sort of funk the job of talking up to his level
all evening!”
“You bet we’ll come,” agreed Nick. “I want to meet him. Something tells
me that he and I have a lot of mutual acquaintances amongst royalty in
dear old England.”
“Well, don’t come up there and act the fool,” warned Bert. “He’s new
yet and not used to our simple, democratic ways.”
“Oh, I won’t shock him,” chuckled Nick. “Nothing like that, dear boy,
’pon honor. You’ll see that he and I will get along like a house on
fire. Say, what’s his front name, the one you take hold by?”
“Hugh,” answered Bert from the doorway, “Hugh Brodwick Ordway. Some
name, what?”
“Rawther!”
“Cut it,” laughed Guy, “or we’ll all be talking that way! I feel it
coming on. We’ll come up after supper, Bert, and help you entertain,
although when I’m going to get my things unpacked――――”
“I’ll help you, Guy,” Nick volunteered. “I’m a remarkable little
unpacker. A misplace for everything and everything misplaced, is my
motto. Bye-bye, Bert. Give my love to Broadway――I should say Ordway.
Tell him I’ll be around later and cheer him up!”
Hugh Ordway was not, however, singing either ‘Dixie’ or anything else
when Bert got back to Number 29. He was sitting at the window, attired
principally in a bathrobe, gazing a trifle disconsolately, or so Bert
thought, out over the campus. He turned as Bert entered.
“I say, Winslow, what about a bath?” he asked. “Is there a tub on this
floor?”
“Yes, but it’s five minutes to supper time, Ordway. You’d better leave
it till afterwards.”
The other reflected. “Very well,” he said. “And, another thing.” He
hesitated. “Do I put on――er――do I dress, you know?”
“Well, I wouldn’t go down in that thing,” said Bert gravely.
“No, but just regular things, eh? You see, I really don’t know much
about American prep schools. I dare say I’ll make an awful ass of
myself,” he added ruefully.
“Wear whatever you like. Sweaters are the only things barred. I’ll wait
for you and show you the way.”
“Thanks,” was the grateful reply. “That’s decent of you. I won’t be
a minute.” He disappeared into the bedroom and, judging from the
sounds, managed a very good substitute for that prohibited bath. Still,
although he wasn’t back in a minute, Bert didn’t have long to wait.
Ordway returned in a blue serge suit and patent leather shoes. He was
certainly, thought Bert, a mighty good-looking chap; straight, well
formed, with a clear, fair complexion, nice brown eyes and hair of the
same color. His nose was a bit aquiline and his chin was at once round
and strong looking. Bert, studying him as he paused to make certain
that he had placed a handkerchief in his pocket, decided that he was
far more American than English in appearance, whatever his character
might prove.
Bert moved to the door, while Ordway was securing the missing article
of attire, and pulled it open. “All right?” he asked.
“Yes, thanks.”
Bert unconsciously stepped aside for the other to pass out first.
Afterwards, going down the stairs, he was angry with himself for
having done so.
“I’m just as good as he is, for all his airs,” he told himself, “and
I’m the older, too.”
The big dining hall which ran across the north end of the building and
accommodated one hundred students and faculty members at its fourteen
tables, was well filled when they entered. Bert led Ordway toward the
table at the far end of the room at which he had sat last term only
to find that, in the confusion incident to the beginning of school,
all the seats there had been taken. There were not two empty chairs
together anywhere near by and, in the end, Bert and Ordway were obliged
to sit at separate tables, the latter, as Bert saw, being sandwiched in
between Pop Driver and a lower middle boy named Keller. Bert’s own seat
placed him amongst fellows whom he knew only well enough to speak to,
and he was frankly bored and left the room as soon as he had satisfied
a not enthusiastic hunger. Ordway, however, was still at table when
Bert went out, and the latter, desiring to accept Nate Leddy’s
invitation to go canoeing, nevertheless listened to the voice of duty
and waited in the corridor for his friend’s appearance. Ordway came out
finally and Bert suggested that they take a stroll around the grounds.
“Did you get enough feed?” he asked politely.
“Yes, thanks. Awfully good chow, too, I think.”
“Chow?” asked Bert.
“Food, I meant. I say, Winslow, I wish you’d help me break myself of
using――er――English expressions like that, you know. I want to talk like
the rest of you chaps. Of course, I know a lot of American slang now,
but I don’t seem to always get it in right, someway. Now what do you
say for ‘chow’?”
“‘Eats,’ I guess,” laughed Bert. “You’ll be talking like the rest of us
quick enough. Don’t worry. Besides, what’s it matter?”
“Well, a chap doesn’t like to seem _different_, if you know what I
mean. And, anyway, I’m as much American as English.”
“You’re not if you were born in England.”
“Oh, I say, Winslow, a chap can’t control that! I might have been born
in France, you know. Fact is, I came rather near it! But that wouldn’t
have made me a Frenchie, eh?”
“No, but your father’s English and you were born in England. That makes
you a British citizen, doesn’t it?”
“Oh, yes, but――――” He paused. Then, confidentially: “Fact is, Winslow,
I’m awfully fond of this country, don’t you know, and as long as I’m
going to be here at Grafton two years I’d like to――to be like the rest
of you, if you know what I mean. Of course, I _am_ English. There’s no
getting around that. But my mother’s American as anything. Her family
has lived in Maryland for a hundred and fifty years, I think it is, and
I always consider myself about half American, too. On the other side,
now, they’re always taking me for a Yankee.”
Bert laughed. “They might on the other side, but they wouldn’t here,
Ordway! This is School Hall. The recitation rooms and offices are on
the first two floors. On the third floor there’s the assembly room
where you attend chapel in the morning and hear lectures and things. On
the floor above are the clubrooms: The Forum, the Literary, the Glee,
and the Banjo and Mandolin. And the _Campus_, the monthly paper, has
its rooms there, too. The building beyond is Manning. That’s where the
juniors live. It’s about like Lothrop, only it has ten more rooms.”
“The juniors live by themselves, eh? How young are they?”
“Oh, we have ’em as young as twelve now and then, but that’s unusual.
They’re thirteen and fourteen, mostly. The rooms downstairs on this
end are Jules’s. That’s Mr. Teschner, French and German instructor. He
and Mrs. Teschner have four rooms there, separate from the rest of
the hall. Then Mrs. Prouty, the matron, lives on the floor above, just
over them. ‘Mother Prouty,’ the fellows call her. Mr. Gring is on that
floor, and Mr. Sargent on the floor above. They call Gring ‘Cupid’ and
Sargent ‘Pete.’ All the faculty have pet names. Doctor Duncan――that’s
his cottage there behind the trees――is ‘Charlie.’ Then there’s ‘Nell’;
you’ll have him in math; his name is Nellis; and Mr. Smiley is called
‘Smiles,’ and Mr. Gibbs is ‘Gusty,’ and Mr. Rumford is ‘Jimmy,’ and Mr.
Russell is ‘J. P.,’ and so on.”
“I’ll have to learn them, won’t I?” asked Ordway soberly. “That’s the
gymnasium there, isn’t it? I fancy it isn’t open, eh?”
“I don’t believe so.”
“I had a lot of fun in the summer looking at the catalogue and
wondering what things would really be like. You know, you Americans
have――――”
“‘You Americans’?” asked Bert quizzically.
Ordway laughed and colored. “I mean, _we_ Americans have a way of
laying it on a bit thick, if you know what I mean. Can’t always believe
all you read in the advertisements, you know. That’s why I fancied
this place might not be quite up to specifications. It is, though.
Everything’s just about the way the catalogue gives it.”
“I guess so. Let’s go back to the room. That’s about all there is to
see. Except Morris and Fuller over there. The two white houses at the
corner. They’re dormitories, too. Morris has twelve fellows and Fuller
eight. Some chaps like them, but I never thought I’d care for them.
It’s getting a lot cooler, isn’t it?”
“Yes, the breeze is bully. You’d say ‘bully,’ wouldn’t you?” he added
doubtfully.
“I guess so,” laughed Bert. “Or ‘great,’ or ‘fine and dandy.’ What
would you say?”
“Oh,” replied the other vaguely, “we might say it was ‘ripping,’ or
‘topping,’ or ‘a little bit of all right.’ ‘Bully’ wasn’t the word I
meant, though. It was――――” He hesitated. Then, “Corking!” he exclaimed
triumphantly. “That’s the word!”
“You’ll do,” Bert laughed. “Come on up.”