Thus began one of the greatest evenings in the life of Charlie Symington, and it lasted until two o'clock. It was an old-fashioned spread. There was no caterer with a gas-stove in the bedroom, or a table set with a bank of flowers down the centre, or properly attired waiters opening wine behind the chairs. Randolph's mother had sent up a lot of deliciously cooked stuff from the old place in Virginia. Randolph had said to some of the fellows, "I've got a box of grub. Can you come 'round this evening?" And by the looks of things most of them had found that they could as well as not.
Symington had the best time of them all, and, besides, he learned much. He noticed that quite as many fellows took lemonade as drank punch, and this was a matter of surprise to the prep. For his ideas of college men were largely drawn from would-be sportive young freshmen that drove through prep. school towns waving beer-bottles overhead and beating their horses into a gallop.
Nobody got drunk. Everyone became livelier and brighter and better, but that is the object of such gatherings, and those who confined their attentions to the lemonade end of the table were as noisy as the others. No one was urged to take the red fluid rather than the yellow. In fact no one observed which fellows visited which punch-bowl. No one but Symington. And he had been under the impression that at college a fellow's jaws were pried open with a baseball bat and rum was poured down his throat, while three other men held his legs and arms.
The room had now become beautifully hazy with smoke. Some of the fellows tipped their chairs back and put their feet up. The window-seat was full to overflowing. One man rested his head on another fellow's shoulder and asked him to muss his hair. The legs of the one having his hair mussed stretched out over the legs of two other fellows and intertwined with those of a third. Two men were sitting beside the oranges on the table. Some were on the floor with their backs against the wall. All had full stomachs and light jovial spirits. Symington was watching Dougal Davis blow rings.
Harry Lawrence started up "The Orange and the Black." They sang all the stanzas. Then they sang more songs, old songs which are still popular and new songs which were then popular and are now quite forgotten, probably. Everyone sang, whether he knew how or not. Symington sang too. The one he liked the best was a funny song beginning, "Oh, to-day is the day that he comes from the city." They sang that one over and over again. Then they sang it once more. They were all having a good time.
After a while the room became quiet and someone turned down the lights and they told ghost stories, which frightened the prep.
They wound up the evening by trooping downstairs in the dark, for the lights were turned out long ago, and marching up to the front campus, singing as they went. And there they danced about the cannon and sang and whooped and yelled until Bill Leggett came over with his lantern and said, in his gruff voice and good-natured manner, "Boys, it's nearly Sunday morning."
"All right, Bill," they answered. Then all said good-night and went to bed.
Tucker had a roommate some place, but Symington had his bedroom that night.
"If you want anything, just yell for me, Charlie. My room is right next, you know. Goodnight." Tucker was half undressed.