At his leisure, Mr. Tescheron now marvels at the great ability of Stevens men. He feels that he is a competent judge.
It was evident that the Stevens students who crowded the Stuffer House had duly impressed the present proprietor with their ability to overcome every obstacle in life's path with special machinery to fit each case.
"Why, one of those students told me some years ago," continued Mr. Stuffer, "that he once provided plans and specifications to supply a girl with beaus."
None of the company now seemed to doubt, so Mr. Stuffer proceeded to prove his proposition that a technical education at Stevens comprehends the repairing of difficult cases of side-stepped heart.
"Yes, I remember, now, it was the case of little Mary Schwarz," he continued. "And she never knew, doesn't to this day probably, how it all came about that suddenly she had more beaus than she could attend to. They fairly froze her in ice cream—"
Mrs. Tescheron had recovered and was ringing three times for hot water as per the card of instructions tacked near the push-button in her room.
"They are not remarkably prompt here," she murmured. "I wonder what can be the matter every evening."
Mr. Stuffer, who was supposed to be on duty at the annunciator, in his dual capacity of hall boy and host, heard not its alarm, for he was well under way with a yarn.
He continued:
"She got so she didn't care for Hoboken, Mary didn't. The beaus then took her to every theatre in New York. And they were a fine lot of chaps—Stevens students, bachelor professors, leading merchants' sons—all the best people in town. Before that Stevens student started up the necessary machinery to repair this case, she had no beaus at all; but he fixed things so's she had a regular monopoly because she controlled the raw material. They teach just enough of political economy on the side up there at the institute to bring that in; that you can't have a monopoly unless you control the raw material; so he figured to have her control it. But when she lost it the thing was off."