THE autumn prom came on with a rush. One day the town was purely academic, and the next, by some over-night miracle, it was purely social. All through the forenoon it seethed with the transformation of student into Sybarite. Flannel shirts, hats without crowns, socks that didn't match, sweaters—all the regalia of ordinary life—gave place to gala attire. Lines formed five deep in the barber shops. The swinging doors of bootblack parlors flapped inward and outward ceaselessly, like unlatched gates in a high wind. Tailoring establishments were thick with the steam of hot irons on hundreds of pairs of trousers. Taxicabs tripled their rates and cruised the streets, tempting the opulent and the hurried. The cash register in the store of Beatty the Florist gave forth a perpetual ping-ping-ping—for Beatty was a wise man, grown old and wise and wary in the service of collegians, and his law was, "no cash, no corsage."
Fraternity houses and clubs were in an uproar of preparation and evacuation. Rooms cleaned and set in order for feminine occupancy; certain Rabelaisian volumes pushed under mattresses; certain works of art removed from walls and put away in trunks; pictures of girls other than the prom-girl hidden discreetly; whole armfuls of garments carried off to the dormitories, where boys would room in threes and fours and
