“Where, oh where, are the grave old Seniors?
Safe, now, in the wide, wide world!”
“Doesn't that thrill you, boy?” said Meredith, joining the group about Harkless's chair. “Those fellows are Sophomores, class of heaven knows what. Aren't you feeling a fossil. Father Abraham?”
A banjo chattered on the lawn to the north, and soon a mixed chorus of girls and boys sang from there:
“O, 'Arriet, I'm waiting, waiting alone out 'ere.”
Then a piano across the street sounded the dearthful harmonies of Chopin's Funeral March.
“You may take your choice,” remarked Meredith, flicking a spark over the rail in the ash of his cigar, “Chopping or Chevalier.”
“Chopin, my friend,” said the lady who had attached herself to Harkless. She tapped Tom's shoulder with her fan and smiled, graciously corrective.
“Thank you, Miss Hinsdale,” he answered, gratefully. “And as I, perhaps, had better say, since otherwise there might be a pause and I am the host, we have a wide selection. In addition to what is provided at present, I predict that within the next ten minutes a talented girl who lives two doors south will favor us with the Pilgrims' Chorus, piano arrangement, break down in the middle, and drift, into 'Rastus on Parade,' while a double quartette of middle-aged colored gentlemen under our Jim will make choral offering in our own back yard.”
“My dear Tom,” exclaimed Miss Hinsdale, “you forget Wetherford Swift!”
“I could stand it all,” put forth the widower, “if it were not for Wetherford Swift.”