A QUEER JOKE
Leila’s frank assumption that Leslie Cairns had been a secret
Thanksgiving Day disturber could not fail to find lodgment in the minds
of the girls gathered in Marjorie’s room that snowy Sunday afternoon.
There was not one among them who did not know considerable about Leslie
Cairns’ underhanded methods of trouble-making. They knew, too, that she
had oftenest directed her spite against Marjorie. Marjorie was adored
for her beauty, as Leslie was disliked for her lack of it. Her unfair
treacherous ways made her unprepossessing features even more ugly in
their girlish eyes.
Be it said to their credit they tried not to discuss Leslie any more
personally than could be helped under the circumstances. All of them
were of the same opinion. Leslie had not gotten over her grudge against
Marjorie. She had chosen to strike at a time when she knew Marjorie
would not be on the campus to guard her benevolent interests.
“She’s as relentless as an Indian,” was Jerry’s opinion of the
ex-student. “It’s a good thing for Bean that she has me to protect her.”
Marjorie did not take the indignant view of Leslie Cairns’ further
attempt to persecute her which her comrades entertained. Still she was
now more concerned about it within herself than she had been in her
earlier campus days when Commencement was a far-distant prospect. Now
she was a promoter. She smiled to herself whenever the word crossed her
brain. She was a promoter of democracy; a promoter of happiness. Before
she had gone through the gate of Commencement she feared that she had
been far more interested in _her_ welfare than she had that of others.
Now her work demanded the thought of others above her personal wishes
and inclinations. It became more than ever necessary that she should
make it her business to guard the interests of those who would benefit
by and through the efforts of Page and Dean.
“Between you and me,” she said confidentially to Jerry the next
afternoon in the privacy of their room. “I wish Leslie Cairns would go
on an expedition to Alaska, Kamchatka, Bolivia, Tasmania or any other
far away point where she’d be neither seen nor even heard of for a long
time.” Marjorie’s tone was anything but vindictive. Her brown eyes
regarded Jerry somberly.
“Your wish and your tone don’t harmonize,” criticized Jerry. “Why wish
your worst enemy almost off the face of the earth in such a mournful
tone? Which shall I believe?”
“Either or neither. Suit yourself,” Marjorie stood before the mirror of
her dressing table adjusting a chic little green velvet hat to just the
right angle on her curly head. The hat placed to her satisfaction she
swung round from the mirror saying forcefully, “It makes me weary,
Jerry, even to have to think of Leslie Cairns. She isn’t my worst enemy.
She’s her own. I wish someone could make her understand that. But not
I.”
“Who?” Jerry looked up in mock alarm from the translation into French
which she was in indifferent process of making. “I hope you didn’t mean
me, Bean.”
“No, not you.” Marjorie’s merry laugh was heard. “I don’t know who. I
won’t allow myself to label Leslie Cairns as dangerous. In the past she
usually overreached herself every time she started trouble.”
“You are living in the present, Bean,” Jerry staidly corrected, “and
Les, as her pals used to call her, is living in our village, too, and
right on the job. She’s like an epidemic. No one knows how or when she
may break out. Things were whizzing along on wheels when we went home at
Thanksgiving. Next day it rained and the busses all stopped running.
They aren’t running yet. Now we can’t blame Les for the rain, but what
about the busses?”
“I’ll answer that question when I come back from Baretti’s. I’m sure
that is what Signor Baretti wishes to talk about.” Marjorie had that
morning received a note from the Italian asking her and Robin to come to
the restaurant at three o’clock that afternoon. “Bye, Jeremiah. See you
later. Truly I’ll be back to dinner.”
She encountered Robin when within a few steps of the inn looking her
prettiest in a mink-trimmed suit of brown and the smartest of mink hats.
“Such magnificence!” Marjorie exclaimed. “Why didn’t you tell me there
was to be a display of fashion on the campus this P. M.?”
“Didn’t know it myself until I went over to the Hall after I left the
Biology laboratory this afternoon. There I found a big box on purpose
for Robin. I ordered this suit in New York just before I came back to
Hamilton. I had to write two hurry-up letters to the tailor about it,
but—here it is at last.” Robin took a jaunty step or two ahead of
Marjorie better to display her new costume.
“It’s a work of art,” Marjorie smilingly told her with her ready
graciousness. “Guiseppe won’t realize that I’m present when you burst
upon him in all your glory.”
“Well—not quite so bad as that,” Robin disagreed, chuckling. “He’ll
probably say, first thing, that if you had been here the busses wouldn’t
have stopped running.”
“That’ll do. I think we’re even now.” Marjorie’s eyes were dancing. She
was a lovely picture of blooming girlhood, the dark green of her long
coat with its wide collar and bands of black fox bringing out more fully
the apple blossom tint of her rounded cheeks.
“So, Miss Dean, you come back again. I am glad.” Baretti had hastened
from the far end of the room to greet his callers. “You have the nice
time at home? Your father and mother, they are well?” he asked with
polite interest. “I think I never know before two such nices ones as
your father, your mother.” The Italian had been introduced to Mr. and
Mrs. Dean during the previous June when they had come to Hamilton to
attend the Commencement exercises.
“They are very well, thank you, Signor Baretti. I have brought back
their best wishes to you. They especially asked me to tell you that they
appreciated your message to them.” The innkeeper had sent them a message
of good will in his sincere, if broken English.
“That is good; verra good for me. When you write the letter, perhaps you
have the time say my good wishes once more to them,” he asked, slightly
hesitant. “Now come, both of you. I have the fine maple mousse today. My
Italiano boys in the kitchen make. None can make better than these.”
“We adore the maple mousse your boys make!” Robin assured Baretti.
Marjorie echoed her warm praise of the dainty.
They obediently followed him to one of the vacant tables and seated
themselves in the chairs he pulled out for them. He stood for a moment
ceremoniously waiting for one or the other of them to ask him to join
them.
“I hope you aren’t too busy to sit down at the table for a few minutes
and tell us about the busses,” Marjorie cordially paved the way.
“What you think, Miss Page; Miss Dean?” the little proprietor leaned
earnestly forward. An apple-cheeked Italian waitress had been sent for
the maple mousse. “Sabani send me the word he don’t run the busses—not
if I say so hundred times. Ha, ha, ha!” Baretti threw back his head with
a derisive laugh.
“How encouraging!” Marjorie exclaimed with light mockery. In spite of
the difficulties that had overtaken Page and Dean she could not resist
smiling over the child-like message of defiance Sabani had sent to
Baretti.
The Italian understood her tone and said. “Now you only make the fun of
me, Miss Dean.”
“What does Sabani intend to do about sending busses over the campus
route?” Robin asked anxiously. “Why has he cut the campus out? All the
answer we’ve ever received from him to those two questions is that two
of his busses are laid up for repairs and the third is running entirely
on the Bretan Hill route.”
“A-a-ah; he only makes the talk. He don’t tell nothin’ true. Nev-ver-r
Sabani tell the truth. He say me the same he say you, Miss Page. I say
him: ‘Look you; this my eye.’ Put my finger to my eye like this. ‘I see
two your busses run in town yesterday.’ Then he is verra mad, but he
tell me verra smart: ‘Oh, yes; you see. That one bus make only one trip
to West Hamilton, then break down again.’ I tell him I am not foolish. I
know what I see. I say: ‘What is the matter you don’t want to give the
dorm girls the service?’”
“That was straight from the shoulder.” Marjorie nodded her approbation.
“Good for you, Signor Baretti.” Robin lightly clapped her hands.
“He give me the verra queer look. Mebbe he is the little scared. I speak
to him verra quick—look me so mad.” Baretti straightened in his chair
and gave an illustration of his idea of stern, offended dignity. “Then
he say he don’t know what I mean. I tell him he will know soon, an’ he
won’t like. Then he is more scare. He say he tell me somethin’ verra
private. This is it. He don’t like take the dorm girls to the campus in
the bus for he is mad because they ride too much in Mariani’s taxies.
Mariani is the _nemico_ to him. That mean hate verra hard. I laugh at
him. I say him that is the mos’ bigges’ lie he tell yet.”
“What an excuse!” Robin turned disgustedly to Marjorie. “It’s so flimsy
it hardly holds together in the telling. The dormitory girls hardly ever
patronize the taxies on account of the expense, Signor Baretti,” she
explained to their host. “Sabani appeared well pleased in the beginning
to have those seventy-two fares twice a day, not to mention the extra
campus traffic he received. I never trusted that man.” Robin shook a
disapproving head.
“Naw.” Baretti forgot manners and indulged in his pet “Naw” by way of
expressing his contempt. “Well, I say him, ‘Nev-ver-r you min’, Sabani,
I know the way to do.’ I laugh and go way from him. I think of Floroni
who drive one the busses. I know he don’t like Sabani. I go in the
street watch for him. He is drive the bus to Breton Hill. I have to wait
long time for him. I drive my car out on the pike, wait for him there. I
say to him come to my restaurant tonight after he make last trip. That
is ten of the clock. He say he will.”
“And did he keep his word?” Marjorie asked eagerly. Two pairs of bright
eyes fixed themselves upon the Italian. Neither girl had missed the note
of triumph which had sprung into his voice.
“Yes, oo-h, yes,” was the instant reply. “Floroni is my frien’. Now he
is my driver for my truck. I give him this place. He tell me he don’
want work mor’ for Sabani, for he is no good. He say he can’t give up
the place when he has the family to work for. Then I say him: ‘You don’t
like Sabani. You say me: Why he treat the dorm girls so bad; don’t give
them any service with the busses?’”
Baretti made an eloquent pause as his black eyes sent a triumphant gleam
toward one then the other of his listeners. They watched him in
expectation.
“Floroni say: ‘Yes, I tell you, Sabani don’t tell me nothin’. I see an’
hear myself. Sabani get plenta mona becaus’ he don’t run the busses to
the campus.’”
“Plenty of money because he doesn’t run the busses?” cried Robin her
eyes widening with surprise. “I can’t see how that——”
“Yes-s;” the little proprietor interposed, a trace of excitement
ruffling his quick, stolid assent. “He get that mona becaus’ Miss
Car-rins give to him. She go to his garage two days before Thanksgiving;
talk to him there. It is in the morning verra early. Floroni and the
other drivers take out the busses. Floroni happen walk by her. He hear
her tell Sabani this: ‘What you care, an’ I make worth the time.’ He
don’t know then what she mean. Day befor’ Thanksgiving Sabani say him,
‘I give you holiday tomorrow; mebbe more days. Two the busses need the
repairs. I pay you jus’ same as when you drive but you stay in the
garage. You wash the cars; do such things.’ And so it is. He don’t like,
but he need the mona’.” The Italian spread his hands with a deprecating
gesture. “He say, Miss Car-rins make all the trouble.”
Listening to Baretti’s information concerning the bus trouble it
occurred to both Robin and Marjorie in the same instant that they might
have expected to hear the name of Leslie Cairns as the real power of
malice. Robin’s flash of surprise at Baretti’s first accusation against
Sabani instantly died out. She knew that it was not the first time that
Leslie Cairns had bribed her way to her objectives.
“Then there is no certainty as to when the busses will begin running
again,” Marjorie said, brows contracted in a reflective little frown.
“What ought we to do, Signor Baretti?” She glanced appealingly at the
little man.
“Ah, that is the way I like! I am the one to help you. It is already
done. Tomorrow you see the busses run to the campus again with the dorm
girls.” Baretti made this promise almost gleefully.
“Tomorrow!” two voices rose simultaneously.
“Yes-s.” Baretti surveyed the amazed firm of Page and Dean with his
broadest, most beaming smile. “This morning I have go to Sabani. Aa-h-h,
but we have the fight; but not with the hand.” He doubled a fist and
shook his hand. “It was the fight talk. I scare him; make him think I
know all he say to Miss Car-rins; all she say him. Then I tell him I
will go to the mayor of Hamilton an’ tell the mayor what he have done.
The mayor will take away his license for the bus line. ‘I make you many
troubles, for you deserve, you don’t run the busses to the campus
tomorrow.’ After while he say he will do it. He say Miss Car-rins tell
him it was the joke she want play on the dorm girls. I say him it is the
poor joke, but not so bad as the joke I will play on him if he don’ run
the busses to the campus tomorrow.”
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