Tate cohorts were already nearly all seated around the long tables. At the piano in the corner, lounged a group of youths between eighteen and twenty-four, all equipped with various musical instruments. They were conversing among themselves, smoking, tuning their weapons, regarding the assemblage with that mixture of naïveté and boredom with which undergraduates always look upon the alumni. This was the Tate Student Jazz Orchestra, which the summer before had made a tour of Europe, playing in several London and Paris night clubs and before the King of Spain. Harold learned, with awe, that they had been brought all the way from the University especially for this affair.
Sprinkled among the alum ni were various slickly clad youths of about Harold's age. Most of them, however, were of sturdier build than he, though just as wide-eyed. These were the preparatory school and high school guests of the alumni, prospective material for the athletic teams of Good Old Tate.
Harold's eager eyes shifted to the speaker's table. Beside the gray-bearded Cleveland banker whom "Shock" Shaw, from his seat on the other side of Harold, had pointed out as "Pep" Young, chairman and toastmaster, loomed a sleek black head and massive youthful body. Harold recalled the face under the
