right, kiddo – I mean Foster. Anything for a quiet life! Suppose we draw a line down the middle of the room, eh? Got a piece of chalk or something?”
“I’ve taken the chiffonier nearest the window,” said Myron, disregarding the levity. “But I’ll have my things out in the morning, in case you prefer it to the other.”
“Chiff – Oh, you mean the skinny bureau? Doesn’t make any difference to me which I have, ki – Foster. Say, you don’t really mean that you’re going to leave Parkinson just because you can’t have a room to yourself, do you?”
“I do. I’m going out now to send a wire to my father.”
“Gee, I wouldn’t do that, honest! Why, say, maybe I can find a room somewhere else. I don’t mind. This place is too elegant for me, anyway. Better let me have a talk with that guy over there before you do anything rash, Foster. I’m sorry I upset your arrangements like this, but it isn’t really my fault; now is it?”
“I suppose not,” replied Myron grudgingly. “But I don’t believe you can do anything with him. Still, if you don’t mind trying, I’ll put off sending that telegram until you get back.”
“Atta boy! Where’s my coat? Just you sit tight till I tell that guy where he gets off. Be right back, kiddo!”
Joe Dobbins banged the door behind him and stamped away down the corridor. Pending his return, Myron found a piece of paper, drew his silver pencil from his pocket and frowningly set about the composition of that telegram. Possibly, he thought, it would be better to address it to his mother. Of the two, she was more likely to recognise the enormity of the offence committed by the school. Still, she would see it in any case if he addressed it to the house and not to the office. When it was done, after several erasures, it read:
“Mr. John W. Foster, Warrenton Hall, Port Foster, Del.
“Arrived safely, but find that I cannot have room to myself as was agreed. Must share suite with impossible fellow named Dobbins. Prefer some other school. Not too late if you wire tonight. Love. Myron.”
Putting Dobbins’ name into the message was, he considered, quite a masterly stroke. He imagined his mother’s expression when she read it!
CHAPTER III
THE “IMPOSSIBLE FELLOW”
Dobbins was gone the better part of half an hour and when he finally returned his expression showed that he had met with failure. “Still,” he explained hopefully, “Hoyt says he will give me the first vacancy that turns up. Sometimes fellows have to drop out after school begins, he says. Fail at exams or something. He says maybe he can put me somewhere else within a week. Mind you, he doesn’t promise, but I made a pretty good yarn of it, and I guess he will do it if he possibly can.” Joe Dobbins chuckled reminiscently. “I told him that if he didn’t separate us I wouldn’t answer for what happened. Said we’d already had two fights and were spoiling for another. Said you’d pitched my things out the window and that I’d torn up all your yellow neckties. Maybe he didn’t believe all I told him: he’s a foxy little guy: but I guess I got him thinkin’, all right!”
“You needn’t have told him all that nonsense,” demurred Myron. “He will think I’m a – a – ”
“Not for a minute! I told him you were a perfect gentleman. Incompatibility of temperament is what I called it. He said why didn’t I leave off the last two syllables. Well, that’s that, kiddo – I mean Foster. Better leave it lay until we see what happens, eh?”
“Not at all. I shall send this telegram, Dobbins. I don’t believe he has any idea of – of doing anything about it.”
“We-ell, you’re the doctor, but – Say, where’ll you go if you leave this place?”
“I don’t know yet. There are plenty of other schools around here, though. There’s one up the line a ways. I think it’s called Kenwood. Or there’s – ”
“Kenwood? Gee, boy, you don’t want to go there! Don’t you read the crime column in the papers? Why, Kenwood is filled with thugs and hoboes and the scum of the earth. A feller on the train told me so coming down here. Parkinson and Kenwood are rivals: get it? You don’t want to throw down this place and take up with the enemy, eh?”
“I don’t see what that has to do with it,” Myron objected. “I’m not a Parkinson fellow. And I dare say that Kenwood is quite as good a school as Parkinson.”
But Joe Dobbins shook his head. “That feller on the train talked mighty straight. I wouldn’t like to think he was lying to me. He said that Kenwood was – was – now what was it he said? Oh, I got it! He said it was an ‘asylum for the mentally deficient.’ Sounds bad, eh?”
“Rot!” grunted Myron. “I’m going over to the telegraph office.”
“All right. If the Big Boss drops in I’ll tell him.”
When Myron had gone Joe promptly removed coat and vest once more, dropped his suspenders about his hips and kicked off his shoes. “Might as well be comfortable when His Majesty’s away,” he sighed. “Gee, but he’s the limit, now ain’t he? I suppose I ought to have spanked him when he called me a stable – or whatever it was. But I dunno, he’s sort of a classy guy. Guess he isn’t so worse if you hack into him. Bark’s a little punk, but the wood’s all right underneath, likely. Don’t know if I could stand living with him regular, though. Not much fun in life if you can’t slip your shoes off when your feet hurt. Well, I guess I’ll get these satchels emptied. What was it he called those bureaus, now? Chiff – chiff – I’ll have to get him to tell me that again. One thing, Joey: living with Mr. Foster’ll teach you manners. Only I’d hate to think I’d ever get to wearing a lemon-yellow necktie!”
Still feeling deeply wronged and out-of-sorts, Myron made his way back to Maple Street and set out toward the business part of Warne. The breeze that had made the late September afternoon fairly comfortable had died away and the maples that lined the broad, pleasant thoroughfare drooped their leaves listlessly and the asphalt radiated heat. Myron wished that he had shed his waistcoat in the room. Students were still arriving, for he passed a number on their way to the school, bags in hands, and several taxis and tumble-down carriages went by with hilarious occupants oozing forth from doors and windows. One of the taxi drivers honked brazenly as his clattering vehicle passed Myron and the latter glanced up in time to receive a flatteringly friendly wave and shout from Eddie Moses. Myron frowned. “Folks here are a lot of savages,” he muttered.
The telegram despatched, he made his way to a nearby drug store, seated himself on a stool and asked for a “peach-and-cream.” The freckle-faced, lanky youth behind the counter shook his head sadly. “Ain’t got no peach today. I can give you vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, rasp – ”
“I didn’t mean syrup. Haven’t you any fruit? I want a peach-and-cream.”
“Don’t know what that is. Anyway, we ain’t got it. How about a chocolate sundae with puffed rice? Lots of the fellers call for them.”
“No, thanks.” Myron descended from the stool and went out, more than ever assured of the undesirability of Parkinson School as a place of sojourn. Think of a town where you couldn’t get a peach-and-cream! Why, even the smallest shops in Port Foster knew what a peach-and-cream was! He cast contemptuous looks upon the modest stores and places of business along Adams Street, and even the new Burton Block over on the corner of School Street, six stories high and glittering with
