Stanford Stories: Tales of a Young UniversityIrwin, Will
General
Stanford Stories: Tales of a Young University
Irwin, Will
College stories, American; Short stories; Stanford (Calif.) -- Fiction; Stanford University -- Fiction
Pellams, gratified, put out his hand, not in fashionable wise, but as he
would grip a man's. Yet in doing so he noted, looking at her fully for
the first time, that the light hair on her temples came down low on the
sides, as his mother's did.
On the way up to her room, Miss Graham stood for some moments smiling at
an irrelative picture of Westminster Abbey, hanging in the parlor.
Having gone driving before their faces, it was more presentable not to
be dropped. Also, there was an undeniable pleasure in refuting any of
Florence Meiggs's arguments, the one concerning love-affairs and
scholarship, for instance. Besides, he was a dear, amusing thing, and a
perfect novice.
During the week that followed, Pellams learned a few things. The
experiment was by no means a bore. He discovered that it is easier to be
joshed than to josh--when you know in your heart you have the joke on
the other fellow. He learned the revengefulness of Perkins' nature, old
Ted, who was ragged to death when his case on Lillian Arnold developed
and who now paid him back with interest. He found how great an object of
interest to the co-ed element a man becomes when he is in love. All this
was good for the woman-hater, giving him new views of things and
teaching him patience. Many times during the ordeal he blessed his
dramatic talent. It helped him to pretend a chap when he did not feel
it. It served him in assuming an air of "the game is worth the candle,"
when the whole tableful at the house requoted to him certain scathing
remarks on the girl-habit which, in the day of his single blessedness,
he had made to each one of them separately. It was more than useful to
him when he rolled into the "Knockery," the second evening after his sad
condition had become patent, and the assembled company rose to smother
him with sofa cushions and lecture him, with decided seriousness, on the
evil effect of girling. There were times, indeed, when he didn't have to
assume any chap at all, when it came of itself; for example, when the
crowd punned on the girl's name, "Graham gems" was a favorite. Somehow,
he wished that they wouldn't drag in names that way.
The week ended. He had done beautifully. Looking it over, he was proud
of his achievements. Two evenings at the library; a brazen walk every
day at the 10.30 period, which both had vacant; a stroll in the moonlit
Quad, planned to interest the crowd at the Tuesday evening lecture; two
calls at Roble--that was going it pretty heavy. The whole college was
smiling at them, and the foolish Rho house hugged itself in the blissful
silence of his sarcastic tongue.
This review of the week delighted Pellams. He hunted up Katharine the
last afternoon and asked for a renewal of the contract.
She laughed.
"Are you sure you can help the extremes? You know the Quadrangle and the
walks in the country--"
"Listen to the Mocking Bird!" gurgled Pellams. He was feeling very well
pleased with things in general.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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