Candidates rise and come forward. Stand there; exactly in line,” Jerry dictated grandly. “You will now listen to Miss Mason while she explains to you the nature of the first test.”
Vera came smilingly toward the two girls. “Here is a penny for each of you,” she said generously. “You are not to spend it for candy. No, no.” She shook a forbidding finger at them. “You are to get down on the floor and each shove your penny to the door and” – she beamed beneficently on her victims – “with your nose.”
“Woof-f!” Phil made a despairing gesture.
“I can never do it,” giggled Barbara, “but I’ll try.”
“We are waiting.” Vera sweetly indicated the place on the rug on which the unlucky candidates were to prostrate themselves.
Phil was first to obey. Barbara paused to watch her and learn the way such a feat was to be performed. It took Phil not more than a minute to discover that creeping as a means of locomotion would not aid her penny’s progress to the door. She was obliged to lie flat to the floor, face downward, and wriggle very slowly toward the goal, aiming constant dabs at the penny with her nose.
Her gallant progress in spite of odds so entertained Barbara she had to be reminded of her part in the test. She proved not nearly as skillful as Phil in the art of penny-shoving. Meanwhile the room rang with laughter.
“The candidates will now be allowed a breathing spell while I consult with my valued assistant and prepare the next degree,” was Jerry’s gracious announcement after Phil had triumphantly pushed her penny the required distance and Barbara had shoved hers over half way to the door.
The next degree appeared in the form of two rows of potatoes, placed at short distances apart. At one end of each row was a basket. Jerry handed Phil and Barbara each a teaspoon and assigned them to a potato row. “Start at this end. Pick up the potatoes on your teaspoon and carry them to the basket,” was her next bland instruction.
“That sounds easy,” sighed Barbara. “Oh, my nose,” she tenderly rubbed it.
To balance a good-sized potato on a teaspoon and carry it across a room is a feat which requires practice. Phyllis and Barbara were novices at it. They toiled patiently at the ridiculous task while the Travelers had a hilarious time at their expense. Before either had succeeded in placing more than two or three potatoes in their baskets Vera called them off the job.
“We’ll have to take your will for the deed,” she told them. “Your sense of balance seems to be sadly lacking. Don’t be discouraged. Both of you have splendid useful noses even if your potato carrying was wobbly. You’ve done nobly. Now we are going to give you a feed. I hope you won’t mind being blindfolded for a little while. It’s quite necessary.
“Nothing could please us more,” Phil assured extravagantly.
“Whoever heard of an initiation without the candidates were blindfolded? Go as far as you like.” Barbara was equally gracious.
Jerry proceeded to blindfold the two in her business-like way. Next she motioned to Vera, who brought forward two bungalow aprons. She and Vera politely assisted Phil and Barbara into the aprons. The pair were then led to chairs and ordered to be seated.
From the top shelf of her dress closet Jerry took a square pasteboard box. Opened, two immense, shining cream puffs were revealed. Laughter greeted the sight of them. The other Travelers recognized the puffs as having come from a certain bakery in the town of Hamilton where the size of the dainty and its extra-generous cream filling had popularized it among the Hamilton College girls.
“Here, Phyllis Marie Moore; you can’t say I never treated you. In the absence of plates, hold out both hands.” Jerry lifted one of the huge puffs from the box and carefully set it in Phil’s obediently outstretched hands. She then went through the same performance with Barbara as the recipient. “Eat them nicely,” she admonished with wicked significance.
“Eat them nicely,” mimicked Barbara. “I can’t eat a cream puff nicely when I can see every bite I take of it. Blindfolded – good night!”
“They’re awfully good anyway,” consoled Phil. She held the puff in one hand and went cautiously over the humps and bumps of the big pastry shell. She boldly attacked a corner which promised not to let out too copiously the fairly thin cream filling. She did very well until she had eaten away enough of the shell to court disaster. It would have been hard enough to eat the puff daintily had she been able to see it. Minus sight and a plate or paper napkin on which to place it she soon managed to smear her face, hands and apron liberally with cream. She ate away desperately but there appeared to be twice as much filling as should have been.
Barbara did far worse at puff eating than Phyllis. Her frantic efforts to keep the cream within the bounds of its crisp brown shell sent her companions into shrieks of laughter. Worse still for them, Jerry had decreed that they could not wipe either hands or faces until she gave the word.
In the midst of the fun Marjorie obeyed a sudden impulse to leave the room and stand in the hall outside the door for a moment. She slipped away unnoticed, anxious to ascertain how plainly the laughter and talk of her companies sounded from outside. She and Jerry had hung three heavy portieres which Miss Remson had given them before the door leading into the hall and before the doors of the two dress closets. The manager had assured her that the portieres would serve to a great extent to deaden sounds from within the room.
She smiled her relieved satisfaction after she had listened intently for three or four minutes. She could hear only faintly the sounds of conversation mingled with laughter. She was of the opinion that such sounds would not be disturbing to any student on the same floor.
“Watchman, tell us of the night,” hailed Jerry as Marjorie again stepped into the room. “I know what you’ve been doing. You’ve been listening to how noisy we are.”
“Right-o, Jeremiah. And we haven’t been disgracefully noisy, after all,” Marjorie gaily assured. “While the girls were laughing loudest at Barbara and Phil I stole out of here into the hall. I wanted to find out, if I could, just how noisy we were. That heavy curtain we hung over the door shuts the sound in beautifully. You can only hear it faintly from the hall.”
“Good work, Bean; good work.” Jerry patted Marjorie on the back. “We’ve two more stunts to put Phil and Barbara through yet and the crowd is getting hilariouser and hilariouser. Listen to them now.”
A fresh gale of mirth testified to the truth of Jerry’s remarks. It assaulted Marjorie’s critical ears with almost dismaying force. Reminded of what she had just proven to her own satisfaction she grew reassured. Since that day, early in the fall, when Doris Monroe had reported the joyful little welcome party in Gussie Forbes’ room to Miss Remson as disturbing to her peace Marjorie and Jerry had been expecting the same dire fate would overtake them. Their room was the Travelers’ headquarters as well as a favorite haunt of the five Bertram girls. “It’s our positive good fortune that we escaped thus far,” Marjorie had more than once told Jerry.
In itself to have been reported to Miss Remson as disturbers would not have troubled Marjorie and Jerry. Understanding between them and the brisk little manager of the Hall was complete. It was their standing as post graduates, their college honor which they prided themselves upon. As post graduates they would be first to be weighed in the balance. They ardently desired not to be found wanting even in small things.
What Marjorie had not known when she returned to Room 15 after her brief moment of listening in the hall was that she had been observed. Across the hall from Room 15 two interested sophomores had kept diligent watch since the Travelers
