The Sunday Eight O'Clock/Two Points of View
"THE furnace is out of business again," he said to his roommate as they came into the cold room after drill. "I'm going to leave this shack. It hasn't been above sixty this fall. Put on the light, Mac, it will at least look warm."
"Say," he said a little later, as he rummaged in the drawer of the washstand, "are there any clean towels? I don't believe we've had one since last September. That counterpane on the bed looks like a study in charcoal. I suppose I didn't take my shoes off when I lay down, but it looks as if she might give us a clean one once a year, anyway."
He walked over and kicked the radiator vigorously in an attempt to stir up a stoker, but with no effect.
"I'd like to know how a fellow's going to study here," he went on, "with all the noise that goes on down stairs. Did you hear 'sister' last night hitting the piano and warbling to her young man while we were trying to bone on Calc? I guess I wasn't especially polite."
"Now look at the side rail of that bed. It's as sway backed as an old horse. There's another castor smashed, too. If you simply touch a thing it goes to pieces. I'll bet her great grandmother bought these things second hand when she went to housekeeping. Do you suppose she ever dusts? I wrote your name in the layer on the window sill two weeks ago, and it's there yet. And the bath room—"
"Never mind turning out the light, Mac," he said as they started down stairs, "we'll not be gone long."
"My dear," the woman downstairs was saying to her husband, "those students are simply unendurable. Mr. McGregor came in after twelve last night and made so much noise that he waked everybody. I never slept the rest of the night. They were really rude to Mabel's callers, too."
"The carpet in their room was new two years ago, and it won't last until spring. They've ruined grandmother's bed. There isn't a bath towel in the house; I'm sure they take them to the gymnasium. You'll have to speak to them about that boxing in their rooms. They have knocked the plas tering loose on the parlor ceiling, and the way they were pounding each other around the other night, I thought they'd come through the floor.
"They smoke dreadfully, and you can smell tobacco all over the house. Their language isn't what we've been accustomed to. I was really ashamed when the minister called Thursday. I told him it wasn't you, and that we did our best to exercise a good moral influence over them. I wonder sometimes what sort of parents they have."
"And George," she went on, "they've simply ruined our walls. We shall have to have that north room repapered before we can rent it again. I'd put them out if they weren't behind with their rent. The electric light man called today, and his bill is simply appalling. I believe they leave the light burning all the time."
And as soon as she heard the boys go down the stairs she crept up to their rooms and turned out the light.
November