"Don't worry, they won't eat you. I tell you they are very respectable girls. They don't want to carry on with anybody. They like to have a good time, that's all." "But all day seems so long." "We won't start till eleven or so. Phoebe won't be up. Just time to get acquainted." From far away dustily came the bored strokes of the college bell. "Ah, there's my three-thirty," said Fanshaw. It was hot in the room. There was a faint smell of stale sweat from some soiled clothes that made a heap in the center of the floor. The strokes of the bell beat on Fanshaw's ears with a dreary, accustomed weight. "How about walking into town instead?" Fanshaw picked up a notebook out of a patch of sun on the desk. The book was warm. The beam of sunlight was full of bright, lazy motes. Fanshaw put the book up to his mouth and yawned. Still yawning, he said: "Gee, I'd like to but I can't." "I don't see why you took a course that came at such a damn-fool time." "Can't argue now," said Fanshaw going out the door and tramping down the scarred wooden stairs. * * * * "You ask the clerk to call up and see if they're ready," said Cham. They stood outside the revolving door of the hotel, the way people linger shivering at the edge of a pool before diving in. Cham wore a straw hat and white flannel pants and carried a corded luncheon basket in one hand. "But Cham, that's your business. You ought to do that." Fanshaw felt a stiff tremor in his voice. His hands were cold. "Go ahead, Fanshaw, for crissake, we can't wait here all day," Cham whispered hoarsely. Fanshaw found himself engaged in the revolving door with Cham pushing him from behind. From rocking chairs in the lobby he could see the moonfaces of two drummers, out of which eyes like oysters stared at him. He was blushing; he felt his forehead tingle under his new tweed cap. The clock over the desk said fifteen of eleven. He walked firmly over to the desk and stood leaning over the registry book full of blotted signatures and dates. He cleared his throat. He could feel the eyes of the drummers, of the green bellboy, of people passing along the street boring into his back. At last the clerk came to him, a greyfaced man with a triangular mouth and eyeglasses, and said in a squeaky voice: "Yessir." "Are Miss ... Is Miss ...? Say, Cham, what are their names, Cham?" Guilty perspiration was trickling on Fanshaw's temples and behind his ears. He felt furiously angry at Cham for having got him into this, at Cham's back and straw hat tipped in the contemplation of the Selkirk Glacier over the fireplace. "Cham!" "Miss Montmorency and Miss Sweeting," said Cham coolly in a businesslike voice. The clerk had tipped up one corner of his mouth. Leaving Cham to talk to him, Fanshaw walked over to a rocker by the fireplace and hunched up in it sulkily. With relief he heard the clerk say: "The young ladies will be down in a few minutes; would you please wait?"