"But I have the tickets," Berri explained; and he brought forth the little envelope that the messenger boy had given him.
"No—no—no!" Fleetwood answered decidedly, and started for the door. But Berri detained him.
"By inflicting our company on you we 've spoiled the evening for you, I know; but you won't spoil it for me by depriving us of yours," he begged in his engaging way.
"'Sweet invocation of a child: most pretty and pathetical,'" Fleetwood laughed, and backed into the vestibule. We followed and surrounded him, so to speak, each taking hold of an arm. Then we all walked through the alley toward Tremont Street, Fleetwood quavering apprehensively from time to time, "Now you 'll take me to my car and then bid me adieu, like two good boys, won't you?" while we agreed to everything he said and clung to him like sheriffs. Berri was giggling hysterically, but although I thought the situation rather amusing, I did n't see anything so terribly funny about it until we got to the parting of the ways and Fleetwood stopped. Then I noticed that, in addition to the three great red roses that Berri had bought for our button-holes, Fleetwood had a fourth one, with a long, flexible stem, growing apparently out of the top of his head. He was so unconscious of the absurd, lanky thing nodding solemnly over him whenever he spoke, that when he held out his hand, exclaiming tremulously,—
"'And so,' in the words of Jessica, 'Farewell; I will not have my father see me talk with thee,'" and the rose emphasized every word as if it were imitating him, I gave an uncontrollable whoop, and Berri doubled up on a near-by doorstep.
"I only would that my father were alive at the present moment to see me talking with thee," Berri gasped. "I don't know anything he would have enjoyed more."
Fleetwood looked hurt and mystified and vaguely suspicious, and he stood there merely long enough to say,—
"'You break jests as braggarts do their blades, which, God be thanked, hurt not.'" Then, as Berri was still sitting on the doorstep and I was leaning against the wall, he made a sudden dash for the other side of the street. We caught him, of course, grasped his arms once more, and walked him off to the theatre, pretending all the time that we did n't notice his struggles and how furious he was at having to go with us. Berri kept up an incessant stream of conversation, saying things that, to an outsider, would have given the impression that the theatre-party was Fleetwood's, and that we were the ones who were being dragged reluctantly away from the Cambridge car. Just before we got to the theatre the solemn rose in Fleetwood's hat toppled over and dangled against his face. This also we pretended not to see, and as we had him firmly by the arms, he was unable to reach up and throw it away; so we made a spectacular entrance through the brightly lighted doorway, with Fleetwood ineffectually blowing at the rose and shaking his head like an angry bull. A party of four or five fellows—students—who had been unable to get tickets were turning away from the box-office as we appeared, and they naturally stopped to look at us.
This was in the nature of a last straw, for Fleetwood almost tearfully broke out with,—
"You dreadful, dreadful boys, my reputation is ruined; they 'll think I 've been drinking." Even Berri began to see that we had gone somewhat far, for he plucked the rose from Fleetwood's cheek, exclaiming,—