"Oh, a thousand pardons, Hemphill. Didn't dream you were entertaining.
Just looking for a book--Calculus. Haven't seen it knocking about, have
you? Fancied I left it here last night. No--No! Couldn't think of
stopping. Oh, if you feel that way, old chap--"
Billy, by this time, had got the intruder inside the room and was
presenting him to the guests. Mr. Williams looked about with apparent
embarrassment and took a seat by Blue Bonnet.
"Fear I'm intruding. Awful bore--fellows running in like this. Didn't
dream Hemphill was entertaining. From Boston, I presume, Miss--beg
pardon, didn't quite catch the name."
"Ashe," Blue Bonnet said, casting a rather amused glance at the young
man's elaborate afternoon toilet.
"Miss Ashe. Not the Ashes of Beacon Street? They're relatives of
mine--distant, of course."
"No. I'm from Texas."
"Texas! You're rather a long way from home, aren't you? Texas seems
farther away to me than Paris. Great country that--Texas. Lots of cattle
and Indians and--"
"I don't know about Indians. We have cattle--lots! And cowboys. Maybe
you're thinking of cowboys?"
But cowboys were farthest from Mr. Williams' mind. Translated his
thoughts ran something like this: "Mighty pretty girl, blooming as a
rose. Wonder how many of us the chaperon's going to stand for. Plague
take it, why didn't Stuart give me a show--needn't have tread on my
heels this way."
But Stuart, at the door, stopping only a half moment for a lost
overcoat--so he said--was being presented to the ladies. And in
Stuart's wake came others. It was amazing how many things had been lost
oh the campus; or in Billy Hemphill and Hammie McVickar's rooms.
Mrs. White began to feel nervous. She was in a quandary. She could
hardly take her charges away before tea, neither could she ask the young
men to leave. She finally decided to settle down comfortably and close
her eyes to any irregularities. After all there could be no real harm.
With the utmost cordiality Billy and his room-mate insisted upon their
friends remaining to tea, and the men needed but little urging. They
made themselves generally agreeable, assisting in the entertaining;
passing tea and sandwiches with ease and aplomb.
Mr. Williams kept the seat next to Blue Bonnet and Hammie McVickar
dropped down on the other side of her.
"First visit here?" Mr. Williams asked, trying to successfully balance
his ice-cream and cake on one knee.
"Yes--that is, it's the first time I've been inside one of the
buildings. I came to a ball game last autumn."
"Then you must have a look round before you go."
Blue Bonnet assured him of her willingness if Mrs. White and the others
were agreeable.
"You have pleasant quarters here," she said, turning to Mr. McVickar.
"If you were at Oxford you would call this room the 'sitter' and that
the 'bedder,'" nodding toward the room where they had laid aside their
coats.
"Yes--those are the Oxford terms. Know anybody there?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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