“Then I’m afraid you’d better not come,” Betty told him sweetly. “Sailing and swimming are positively the only amusements out there.”
“Except talking to you.”
“Oh, I’m the family cook,” Betty explained. “If you think I’m busy here, you should see me bustle around in summer.”
“I see.” Jim changed the subject. “Is Morton Hall to the queen’s taste since we fixed the linen rooms?”
“Oh, yes, Jim,” Betty assured him. “It’s a model—any amount nicer than the other campus houses.”
“Thanks for the firm,” Jim said, and then was quiet so long that Betty inquired laughingly if he had been to the Bay of the Ploshkin after his blues.
“Not yet,” he told her. “I’ve felt like it sometimes, but I was afraid I’d worn out your sympathy. I say, Betty, you’ll write to a fellow once in a while, won’t you? And if I should come to Cleveland—doesn’t the family cook get her evenings off?”
“Some of them.”
“Betty, Betty, Betty Wales!” chanted an unseen chorus. “Time to dress for the aftermath parade!”
So Jim said a hasty good-bye and waited under the group of elms that Betty had pointed out, to see 19— march by. Somebody had suggested having a costumed procession this year, and the seniors and half a dozen recently graduated classes had vied with one another in planning queer and effective uniforms. There were masked classes, classes with red parasols, classes with purple sunbonnets and purple fans, classes with yellow caps and gowns. But 19—’s close-fitting green robes were lighted up by weird green torches, and in the middle of the ranks marched all the 19— animals—the Jabberwock, the Green Dragon, the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon from an Alice in Wonderland show, ploshkins in assorted sizes with pink shoe-strings waving in their paws, and finally a little reckless ritherum hopping along in the rear. It jumped at the waving pink shoe-strings, it snatched a green lantern from the hands of a green-robed figure and charged with it blithely into the laughing crowd, and when it came to the elm trees where Jim was standing it darted straight at him and whispered, “Good-bye again, Jim. Do manage to come to Cleveland sometimes and talk to the cook,” and was off again after a pink shoe-string before Jim had discovered what was happening to him.