He withstood the combined barrage of Estabrook and Sheldon for five more minutes. Then he succumbed. He signed contracts hiring the Hotel Tate ballroom and Jergens' Jazz Jongleurs, the band selected by Sheldon, for the evening of October twenty-fourth. His first shock came when he saw the amounts stipulated for each of the two items was sixty dollars.
When he protested, Estabrook explained innocently, "Well, you want the use of the wardrobe, don't you—ladies' and gents'? I didn't figure that in before. That's ten dollars more. And I didn't know you would insist on the Jongleurs. They're an expensive band, you know." In the case of the band, Estabrook and Sheldon were each extracting a private graft of five dollars.
Harold was a trifle dazed, but still game, as he walked alone out of the Hotel Tate. He caught sight of Peggy, unoccupied for the moment, behind her counter.
"Peggy, I've just signed up to be host at the Fall Frolic on the twenty-fourth," he greeted her jauntily, expecting her congratulations, but a trifle doubtful just the same.
She looked at him as though he had told her something had happened to her mother.
"Harold—you haven't!" she gasped finally.
"Why, yes. What's wrong?"
