“Bless us all!” cried Allen, “don’t tell me you have taken in Montgomery and Lancaster counties, too?”
“It was only an exhibition, Bea,” Gorgas called out from across the room, “the others didn’t half try.”
“Hush, child,” retorted Bea, “when yo’ mammy’s talkin’! The fact is—the latest news is—that Gorgas Levering and Edwin Morris gave a jim-crickety exhibition against the champion ‘mixers’ of the East and—”
“Bless us again!” exclaimed Allen, “don’t tell me that they beat ’em; eh?”
“Yes!” said Bea, “they beat ’em.”
Chorus of protests followed; a babel of correction. Blynn stopped his ears, until Gorgas could be heard.
“No, Mr. Blynn,” she said, “we lost two sets of 10-8 each. We were nearly fagged, weren’t we, Ed? And they were fresh as daisies. They didn’t try; and Ed did all the work. What did you fib for, Bea, and drop us down so hard?”
“I repeat,” said Bea solemnly, “They beat ’em. Who’s to dispute that? The professor of English here asked, ‘Did they beat ’em,’ and I just wanted him to take more care and pains with his English and not go sp-pilling his p-pronouns p-promiscuously all over the p-place. So, I just said, ‘Yes; they did beat ’em.’ And so they did.”
“Aw! What’s pronouns between friends?” queried Diccon, the editor. “Here the girls get all togged out in their mothers’ clothes, and we’re talking ‘newspaper.’” That brought a fresh outburst, mainly an attack on Diccon.
“Sport’s ‘newspaper,’” he explained laconically. “I make ’em—’em here stands for both sports and newspaper. What’s in the newspaper is sport; the rest don’t happen. Blynn didn’t know anything about Morris because he forgets to read the newspapers—and I ran Ed in on the first page, too. Ah!” he sighed, “What is fame?”