United States -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction
Women always wanted to get their hands into his hair, and boys liked him
on sight. Many of those who were streaming up the hill before and behind
him, who passed him or whom he passed, glanced at his eager face and
thought that there was a guy they'd like to know.
An experienced observer would have divided those boys into three groups:
preparatory school boys, carelessly at ease, well dressed, or, as the
college argot has it, "smooth"; boys from city schools, not so well
dressed perhaps, certainly not so sure of themselves; and country boys,
many of them miserably confused and some of them clad in Kollege Kut
Klothes that they would shamefacedly discard within a week.
Hugh finally reached the top of the hill, and the campus was before him.
He had visited the college once with his father and knew his way about.
Eager as he was to reach Surrey Hall, he paused to admire the
pseudo-Gothic chapel. He felt a little thrill of pride as he stared in
awe at the magnificent building. It had been willed to the college by an
alumnus who had made millions selling rotten pork.
Hugh skirted two of the factory laboratories, hurried between the Doric
temple and Byzantine mosque, paused five times to direct confused
classmates, passed a dull red colonial building, and finally stood
before Surrey Hall, a large brick dormitory half covered by ivy.
He hurried up-stairs and down a corridor until he found a door with 19
on it. He knocked.
"What th' hell! Come in." The voice was impatiently cheerful.
Hugh pushed open the door and entered the room to meet wild
confusion--and his room-mate. The room was a clutter of suit-cases,
trunks, clothes, banners, unpacked furniture, pillows, pictures,
golf-sticks, tennis-rackets, and photographs--dozens of photographs, all
of them of girls apparently. In the middle of the room a boy was on his
knees before an open trunk. He had sleek black hair, parted meticulously
in the center, a slender face with rather sharp features and large black
eyes that almost glittered. His lips were full and very red, almost too
red, and his cheeks seemed to be colored with a hard blush.
"Hullo," he said in a clear voice as Hugh came in. "Who are you?"
Hugh flushed slightly. "I'm Carver," he answered, "Hugh Carver."
The other lad jumped to his feet, revealing, to Hugh's surprise, golf
knickers. He was tall, slender, and very neatly built.
"Hell!" he exclaimed. "I ought to have guessed that." He held out his
hand. "I'm Carl Peters, the guy you've got to room with--and God help
you."
Hugh dropped his suit-cases and shook hands. "Guess I can stand it," he
said with a quick laugh to hide his embarrassment. "Maybe you'll need a
little of God's help yourself." Diffident and unsure, he smiled--and
Peters liked him on the spot.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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