Of course we waited. We didn't have anything else to do. We worried a
little, but we had gotten used to Ole, anyway--and what was the
difference? It would be a little hard on Miss Spencer, but it would be
magnificently horrible to Frankling, who considered that a collar of the
wrong cut might endanger a man's whole future career. So we resigned
ourselves and attended to our own troubles.
The night of the party was a cold, clear January evening. There was snow
on the ground and it was packed hard on the sidewalks. This was nuts for
the oil-burners. They walked their girls to the hall. Four of the
reckless ones clubbed together and hired a big closed carriage affair
from the livery stable. It happened to be a pallbearers' carriage during
the daytime, but they didn't know the difference and the girls didn't
tell them; and what you don't know will never cause your poor old brain
to ache. We frat fellows blew our hard-worked allowances for varnished
cabs and thereby proved ourselves the biggest suckers in the bunch. To
this day I can't see why a girl who can dance all night, and can stroll
all afternoon of a winter's day, has to be hauled three blocks in a
two-horse rig every time she goes to a party. The money we spent on cabs
while I was at Siwash would have built a new stadium, painted every frat
house in town and endowed a chair of United States languages. But,
there!--I'm on my pet hobby again. How it did hurt to pay for those
hacks!
I got there late with my girl--she was a shy little conservatory
student, who evidently regarded conversation as against the rules--and I
found the usual complications that had to be sorted out at the beginning
of every class party. Stiffy Short was sore. He was short five dances
for his girl--had been working on her program for a week--and he accused
the fellows of dodging because she couldn't dance; and was threatening
to be taken sick and spend the evening in the dressing room smoking
cigarettes. Miss Worthington, one of our Class A girls, didn't have a
dance, because Tullings, who had drawn her, had presumed that she was to
sit and talk with him all evening. Petey Simmons was in even worse. His
girl couldn't dance, but insisted on doing so. She had done it the year
before, too. Petey had been training up for two weeks by tugging his
dresser around the room. Then there was Glenallen. We always had to form
a committee of national defense against Glenallen. He couldn't dance,
either, and he would insist on hitching his chair out towards the middle
of the room. I've seen him throw as many as four couples in a night. And
there was a telephone call from Miss Morse, class secretary and
first-magnitude star. Her escort hadn't shown up. He never did show up.
When we went around to lynch him the next day he explained desperately
that at the last minute he found he had forgotten to get a lawn necktie.
You know how a little thing like a lawn necktie that ain't can wreck an
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