“The truth of the matter is, Bevy’s afraid somebody will propose to him, and he is too polite to refuse. Those Boston girls are so impulsive!” suggested Wynne.
“Maybe he wouldn’t look well in a cap and gown,” added another.
“It’s foolish not to go to Class Day,” said Prescott, for whom the universe was conveniently divided into things that were “foolish” and things that weren’t.
“He’s afraid that if he stays, he might be bored,” chimed in Haydock, again. “Somebody might ask him whether college men didn’t have a ‘perfectly lovely time,’ and which building Austin Hall was. Of course he doesn’t know.”
“I don’t,” admitted Beverly, serenely.
“He’d rather sit in his own room on a dais all day, and have Michael fan him, while three black slaves at his feet try to guess the secret of his ennui,” continued Haydock. “Own up, Bevy—aren’t you afraid of being bored?”
“Why, of course,” answered Beverly. “That’s my constant fear; and you idiots sometimes make me think that it isn’t an altogether groundless one.”
“To what do we owe the honour of your presence at breakfast this morning?” asked Wynne, bowing low. Beverly usually breakfasted at ten. It was then half-past eight.
“To an examination in pre-Christian Hebrew literature,—nothing else I assure you.” Beverly didn’t look up from the morning paper he was trying to read.
“And we’re just a little peevish at having to stay for it, instead of getting away five days earlier—aren’t we?”