The Freshman (Holman)/Chapter 12
But, after all, "Speedy" held down his familiar place on the bench throughout the opening game of the season with Carver College the following Saturday. He was glad that Peggy, who couldn't leave her post at the Hotel Tate, where football Saturdays were big days, was not in the grandstand to witness his inactivity. However, he had the pleasure of witnessing the game from a choice seat and to hear many of the inside phases of the contest from a Tate viewpoint. He was puzzled by the tactics of Coach Cavendish, who, as usual, held the entire first string Tate backfield out of the game the whole first quarter. All through this preliminary period the coach kept the four backs huddled around him as he commented upon the weaknesses of the Carver line and developed the strategy for the rest of the game. Then, as the whistle sounded for the second quarter. Cavendish slapped his best ball carriers on their respective broad backs and sent them into the fray. The famous "Big Four"—Crawford, Blythe, Houghton and Trask. And what a yell went up from the Tate stands as they reported to the referee and pranced into their places behind Mershon, the big center! Harold could feel the thrill of it. If only he could be a' member of the "Big Four"!
But the nearest he got to the fray was to share the handle of the water bucket with Hughie Mulligan and rush out upon the field when a Tate man was temporarily knocked out. They would souse the fallen gladiator with the big water-sopped sponge. Harold would feel very mysterious and important as the referee edged over toward him, eavesdropping lest he slip information from Cavendish to the Tate players. And once in a while he would venture to slap a perspiring back and whisper a word of encouragement.
Not that the encouragement was very much needed. Carver proved light and poorly coached. Once the "Big Four" swung into action, the issue was never in doubt. Though Mike Cavendish did his customary raving between the halves and called Velie and Post, the Tate ends, several names for allowing the fleet Carver left halfback, the only outstanding player on the visiting eleven, to make a gain or two around their territories, the Tate players were fairly well pleased with their showing. So, as a matter of fact, was Cavendish. The score at the end of the game was 22 to 0.
Having taken a shower and dressed after the game, Harold was on his way to Commons for the evening meal when he encountered Dan Sheldon on University Street. For a wonder Garrity wasn't with him.
"Well, if it isn't 'Speedy,' the demon footballer," Sheldon hailed him. "How are things this sunny afternoon down where men are men and necks are nothing? How's my old parlor pal, Mike Cavendish?"
"Didn't you go to the game?" "Speedy" asked in surprise. He thought every Tatian attended the football games.
"Nope—had a previous engagement," grinned Sheldon. "Besides, I'm a nervous man. It weakens me so to see the boys handled so rough. How many touchdowns did you score?"
As a matter of fact, Sheldon had been tipped off by Sam Low, varsity tackle and a classmate of Dan's, as to Harold's status on the Tate squad. Dan had enjoyed a good, malicious laugh at the Freshman's expense, but just now it suited his purposes to treat Harold's football ambitions seriously.
"I didn't get into the game," Harold said soberly.
"No? Hard luck. Well, probably the gentle Cavendish is saving you for the big games later in the season."
Harold wondered if this were really the case.
"But, changing the subject from the sublime to the sublimer," Sheldon continued, "did you see the piece in the 'Tattler' this morning about the Fall Frolic?"
"No, I didn't have a chance to read my Tattler' this morning," Harold replied. "What's the Fall Frolic?"
"It's a swell dance given at the Hotel Tate in October every year by the Freshmen in honor of the salt of the earth, namely the honorable Sophomore class. Usually the most regular guy in the Freshman class, the chap that really intends to make something of himself at this man's college, acts as host and throws the party. Chester Trask was the host his Freshman year, and now look where he is."
Dan glanced at Harold significantly, wonHering if his description had taken hold. He decided that it had; he was right.
"Well, read the story in the 'Tattler,' 'Speedy,' old boy. And then think it over," Sheldon advised. "Meantime, ta-ta. Come to your old pal Dan if you decide anything and want to know what to do next." And Dan walked, whistling, away.
Harold picked up his copy of the "Tattler" off his desk, where Mrs. Sayre had carefully laid it, as soon as he reached his room. Lying on his bed he read the item about the Fall Frolic in the "Campus Chatter" column:
Harold digested this sprightly piece of news, which was really a disguised invitation, with gusto. Then he had a wild thought. Why shouldn't he be the Frolic host? He was a popular man. He was on the football team. Why not crown his activities by sponsoring the Frolic? Chester Trask had done it. If he followed now in Chester's footsteps with this social venture, he would at once become Chester's equal. Nay, even Chester's superior!
In the exuberance of the moment, Harold slid off his bed, where he had been reclining while he read the "Tattler." He walked over to the wall and revised the respective positions of the photographs of Chester Trask and himself tacked there.
This time he placed his own photograph above that of Chester!
What the "Tattler" neglected to explain in its genial squib was that the undergraduate body was seeking a Freshman with more money than brains, an innocent youngster who would blow the whole college to an elaborate dance at the Hotel Tate at his own expense. The Frolic was not an official social event at Tate University. In fact, it was very generally frowned upon by the college authorities and had been threatened several times with forcible suppression. For, not being held on the campus and hence lacking responsible supervision, the Frolic had frequently resulted in scenes of undue conviviality.
The Frolic was an affair pushed primarily by the Sophomore class, though the whole college attended practically en masse. The Sophomores were responsible for securing the Freshman host. Dan Sheldon was the current head of the informal committee arranged for this purpose. He had from the start had only one host in view—"Speedy" Lamb.
Hardly had Harold completed the operation of shifting the photographs when his door was opened. Briskly Dan Sheldon walked in, smiling like the cat who is about to swallow the canary.
"Well, 'Speedy,' got the dope on the Frolic all right?" Dan asked.
"Yes, I read it," Harold returned.
"Looks like a great chance for you, old kid."
"Why, what do you mean, Dan?" As if Harold did not know what Dan meant.
"Why, you're the ideal host for the Frolic this year, 'Speedy.' It's made to order for you." Dan hitched Harold's other chair up closer and waxed confidential. "Now, looka here. You throw this party and you'll be ab-so-lute-ly king of the campus. Positively guaranteed. Everybody in the whole college will think you're the gnat's collar button. On the level. You'll be able to have anything you want. You'll make a fraternity the minute you're eligible—that means next Fall. You'll make the football team. You'll—"
"You really mean it, Dan?" Harold asked eagerly. "You mean being host at the Frolic ivill cinch me my place on the team?"
"Sure. You don't think Trask can turn down the guy who's giving the Frolic, do you? No, sir-r-r, the Frolic host is always on the football team. That's how Trask got his start."
He failed to add that Trask, who had arrived at Tate the greenest of green Freshmen, had always considered the Frolic episode the one adverse mark on his record. Trask had given the Frolic. But he had immediately afterward seen the rocks ahead and steered a new course from then on.
Dan Sheldon had Harold going now, and he knew it. He cajoled, flattered, lied, brow-beat and pleaded. And eventually Harold yielded to the extent of walking down to the Hotel Tate with Dan and seeing the manager, Howard Estabrook.
Dan tactfully led his victim by a detour through the hotel that took them far from Peggy Sayre's cigar counter. Estabrook looked like a beau of the Victorian age, with his choker collar and Ascot tie, his sharply creased narrow gray trousers and his simpering voice. He had been apprised of Sheldon's errand in advance. He thoroughly understood the purpose of this visit.
"Fifty dollars for the ballroom, say another fifty for the music and refreshments, and twenty more for incidentals—a hundred and twenty dollars in all. Very cheap. And it ought to do it easy," he lisped liquidly in answer to Harold's question.
"One hundred and twenty bucks to be the king of the campus," Dan added. "Gee, what a bargain!"
Estabrook did not explain that he had given the same estimate to the Freshman Frolic host the previous Fall and the affair had cost that trusting dupe two hundred dollars.
Harold gulped. His heart was now set upon being the Frolic host. It would make him the undisputed campus leader! The whole college would acknowledge his rule! Next to his crowning achievement of making the football team, it would be his proudest effort. But a hundred and twenty dollars! He was already spending more money at Tate than he had bargained for. He would not dare draw such a sum from his account at the Tate National Bank if he was to pay his current college expenses. Well, his mother had $285 left from his washing machine money, "saving it for a rainy day." He would write her and ask her to send him a hundred dollars out of this fund. For surely he could put the Frolic under the head of an emergency expense, an expense that was bound to earn for him much more than it had cost.
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?"
"You've signed the papers, actually?"
"Sure. Just now with Dan Sheldon and Mr. Estabrook."
She bit her lips impatiently. "Harold, why didn't you talk to me about this before you rushed into it? Don't you know that—"
But she hadn't the heart to continue.
"You'll go with me, won't you, Peggy? You'll be my partner the night of the Frolic?" he asked hopefully.
"No—I can't," she replied impatiently. "I have to be on duty here when there's a dance. I couldn't be a guest. It's impossible."
His face fell. He tried coaxing, but it was no use. He finally departed with the uneasy impression that Peggy somehow did not approve of the step he had taken.
Between football and preparations for his début as a dance host, the next ten days were packed with activities. Under Dan Sheldon's tuition, Harold had cards engraved neatly like this:
"If you put Jergens on the invitation, they'll know it's a regular party," Dan had explained. "Those babies can certainly knock out the hot mamma jazz."Peggy, though she had declined Harold's invitation in advance, received one of the handsomely engraved cards through the mail. She read it thoughtfully, sensing the spirit with which "Speedy's" début as a dance host was being received throughout the campus. And Peggy's surmise as to the way the invitations were hailed was quite correct. Chums hailed each other and exhibited the bids jovially to each other. Classroom recitations were almost broken up as the students doubled up with laughter at this latest ridiculous move of "'Speedy' the Spender."
Meanwhile, the innocent host was worried about the "formal" item on the invitation. In Sanford he had worn his father's dress suit, but he had picked up the information since coming to Tate that dress suits in collegiate circles were passe. Tuxedos were the correct thing.
Harold brought from his desk drawer the elaborate advertising card of a local tailor. It bore a fancy drawing of a super-elegant young man attired in an immaculate tuxedo, with this legend: Handsome tuxedo coat and pants like this:
$38.50
Morris Hertz
The College Tailor
28 University Street
Harold paid a business visit to Morris Hertz that evening. The outside of Mr. Hertz's emporium was very unprepossessing. It was located in the poorer section of Tate, a one-story rickety wooden shop lighted by a hissing gas burner. As Harold doubtfully pushed open the door, a bell jangled, warning the tailor in his single-room apartment in the rear of the shop that a customer had entered. Harold stood for five minutes in the empty, dusty store before the proprietor appeared wiping his butter-stained lips with the back of his hand.
In response to Harold's question, the tailor rolled out a bolt of black goods.
"Sure I can make you a tuxedo," he assured the Freshman. "Just like the one on my card. Thirty-eight fifty. Gar'nteed fine job."
"Can you have it done by the twenty-fourth—sure?" Harold asked.
The tailor frowned. "Well, that's pretty short notice." He gave an imitation of Rodin's "Le Penseur." In the end, out of a deep study, he announced, "I can do it. I will have it for you six o'clock of the twenty-fourth. All right?"
Harold decided that it would have to be.
"Fine," said Morris Hertz. "Stand on the stool and I will measure you right away."
Harold obeyed. He mounted the worn plush stool. Hertz hovered around him with tape measure, paper and the stub of a pencil. He wielded the measure in the flickering gas light and, licking the pencil, made cryptic figures down on the dirty scrap of paper. Suddenly, however, the tailor paused. The measure and pencil dropped to the floor. Hertz's hand went unsteadily to his head. He reeled. His limp body fell against Harold. The Freshman was frightened and wondered what to do.
But he was not kept long in suspense. A harassed-looking woman with spectacles riding her nose, a baby held under one arm and a bottle of brandy in her other hand, came hurrying into the room. She did not seem greatly alarmed. Without a word she handed her baby over to Harold to hold. She poured some of the brandy into the pale-faced man.
"It's one of his dizzy spells," she apologized to Harold. "A little brandy always fixes him right up."
Her prediction proved true, for in a few minutes the tailor's eyes blinked open. He shook his head, like a dog emerging from water. He stood upright and was apparently as good as new.
"Just a little fainting spell," he explained to Harold. "It don't amount to nothing."
He resumed his measurements, his wife now having volunteered to write down the numbers as he called them out. Harold, meantime, holding the baby, was uncertain what to do with the wriggling infant. The tailor wanted to measure his arms and there was no place to deposit the youngest Hertz. With a flash of inspiration Harold placed the baby between his legs and lifted his arms triumphantly aloft to have the tape laid upon them.
When the tailor had quite finished, Harold was still uneasy about that fainting spell. How often did they afflict Morris Hertz and interfere with his work?
"There's no danger of not having my suit ready for the party, is there?" he asked the tailor.
"Don't worry, young man," returned that worthy impatiently. "It will be ready."
With this assurance the Freshman had to be satisfied. He left the dingy tailor shop with the promise to return in five days for the first fitting. When he told Peggy about the bargain tuxedo, she for some occult reason did not enthuse. She made the same comment that she had troubled him with when he broke the news that he was the Frolic host.
"Why didn't you tell me you wanted a tuxedo?" she asked him.
Harold did not fancy this question. Why was she always asking him to consult her about things anyway? Didn't she think him capable of managing his affairs?
"Why?" he asked rather ungraciously.
"Well, you know," explained Peggy, "when you buy something like a tuxedo, something you only have to get once in a good many years, you ought to get a good one."
"Hertz makes good clothes. His card says so."
"I know," Peggy indulged him. "But Mr. Bryon, of Rivers Brothers, the finest tailors in New York, stops at the Hotel Tate. He's an old friend of father's. Father, when he was alive, used to get a lot of business for Mr. Bryon. I could have spoken to him and he would have sold you the best there is, at a discount."
"Well, probably Hertz is just as good," Harold insisted stubbornly. "Besides, I believe in patronizing home industry."
"I hope you come out all right, I'm sure," replied Peggy pertly, elevating her small nose a little.
Harold watched her disappear into the Sayre living room with mingled resentment and a childish desire to rush in after her and tell her she was, as usual, right. He had an impulse to put himself into her hands, to confess to her he was worried, to ask her advice about this whole complicated business of the Frolic.
But then the stubborn pride that was his inheritance from Henry Lamb asserted itself. Peggy Sayre was assuming too much. She was acting as if she owned him. She had turned him down as her escort for the Frolic. On a legitimate excuse, to be sure. But was it legitimate? He guessed she could have gotten off that evening if she had wanted to. She had refused him, maybe, because she was peeved that he had announced himself as Frolic host without consulting her. Well, he'd show her. He had to have a girl for the Frolic. Golly, the host himself couldn't go stag.
He went out to Blanchard's Drug Store, around the corner on University Street, and telephoned to the only other Tate girl he knew—Grace Beach.
The giggling Delphine answered the tele phone. Mr. Lamb? "Speedy" Lamb? Well—she would see if Grace was home.
"Hello, Mr. Lamb," came the melting accents of the college widow over the wire. "You're quite a stranger. It's a treat to hear your voice again."
"I'm host at the Frolic, you know, and—" Harold began hesitantly. Now that he actually had Grace on the 'phone, he wanted to slam up the receiver and run out of the store.
Miss Beach interrupted him. "I heard the good news—and it's simply wonderful. It must be marvelous to be so rich and generous. And it's going to make you so popular. I don't suppose you'll even look at poor little me from now on."
"What I called you up for," Harold stammered, "was to ask you to be my partner at the Frolic." His voice trailed off, "I think—it would be—nice."
Deep silence. Miss Beach was considering this unexpected proposition. She made her decision.
She cooed in a voice that would have melted butter. "That would be too wonderful. I'd love to, Mr. Lamb—'Speedy,' if I may be so bold as to call you that. I'm tickled pink. Mr. Trask—Leonard Trask—is escorting my cousin Delphine. We'll make just a jolly little party. "Thank you so much."
When she had replaced the receiver, poor Grace Beach's brow was knitted. Had she made a mistake in accepting this rube Freshman's invitation to the Frolic? Leonard Trask had invited her cousin Delphine and Grace had expected that Joe Bartlett, Leonard's roommate, would extend a similar invitation to her. They were nice, good-looking boys and Joe had one of the finest cars in Tate.
But Joe had not offered himself as her escort. Indeed she began grudgingly to suspect that it was only Bartlett's loyalty to his roommate that had in the past led him to play the cavalier to Grace on the various excursions when the two Westoverians accompanied Delphine and her older cousin.
And Grace wanted desperately to go to the Frolic. Last year she had not been invited and had wept over it for quite some time. She did not want to admit the Tate students were beginning to overlook her in their social affairs.
And so she had accepted Harold's invitation. If Joe Bartlett asked her later—well, she would have to think of some excuse for sidetracking "Speedy."