STREETS _of_ NIGHT BY John Dos Passos GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY NEW YORK _Et si per talen Pert tot mi joven, Pauc mi valdran chan d'auzel._ --PEIRE VIDAL STREETS _of_ NIGHT I "But I don't think I want to, Cham." "Come along, Fanshaw, you've got to." "But I wouldn't know what to say to them." "They'll do the talking.... Look, you've got to come, date's all made an' everything." Cham Mason stood in his drawers in the middle of the floor, eagerly waving a shirt into which he was fitting cuff-links. He was a pudgy-faced boy with pink cheeks and wiry light hair like an Irish terrier's. He leaned forward with pouting lips towards Fanshaw, who sat, tall and skinny, by the window, with one finger scratching his neck under the high stiff collar from which dangled a narrow necktie, blue, the faded color of his eyes. "But jeeze, man," Cham whined. "Well, what did you go and make it for?" "Hell, Fanshaw, I couldn't know that Al Winslow was going to get scarlet fever.... Most fellers 'ld be glad of the chance. It isn't everybody Phoebe Sweeting'll go out with." "But why don't you go alone?" "What could I do with two girls in a canoe? And she's got to have her friend along. You don't realize how respectable chorus girls are." "I never thought they were respectable at all." "That shows how little you know about it." Cham put on his shirt with peevish jerks and went into the next room. Fanshaw looked down at Bryce's American Commonwealth that lay spread out on his knees and tried to go on reading: This decision of the Supreme Court, however... But why shouldn't he? Fanshaw stretched himself yawning. The sunlight seeped through the brownish stencilled curtains and laid a heavy warm hand on his left shoulder. This decision of the Supreme ... He looked down into Mount Auburn Street. It was June and dusty. From the room below came the singsong of somebody playing Sweet and Low on the mandolin. And mother needn't know, and I'm in college ... see life. A man with white pants on ran across the street waving a tennis racket. Stoddard, on the Lampoon, knows all the chorines. Cham, fully dressed in a tweed suit, stood before him with set lips, blinking his eyes to keep from crying. "Fanshaw, I don't think you're any kind of a..." "All right, I'll go, Cham, but I won't know what to say to them." "Gee, that's great." Cham's face became cherubic with smiles. "Just act natural." "Like when you have your photograph taken," said Fanshaw, laughing shrilly. "Gee, you're a prince to do it.... I think Phoebe likes me.... It's just that I've never had a chance to get her alone." Their eyes met suddenly. They both blushed and were silent. Fanshaw got to his feet and walked stiffly to the bookcase to put away his book. "But Cham." He was hoarse; he cleared his throat. "I don't want to carry on with those girls. I don't ... I don't do that sort of thing."