“You should worry. Think of the business you’re doing,” Leslie humorously reminded. She had noted at first glance the cars of the twelve freshmen, arranged in a double row at the back of the roomy garage.
“I’d as lief them girls that was just here would take their cars some place else,” he asserted half belligerently. “They wasn’t like you, Miss Cairns, and Miss Harper and Miss Mason, and all them young ladies you go around with. I ain’t no time for fussers, people that treat me ’s if I was the dirt under their feet. I told one girl, straight out, ‘I ain’t goin’ to lose no sleep, you see, if you want to take your cars t’some other garage. There’s a couple more up the next street, south of the campus.’”
“Better luck tomorrow, Mr. Symes. Those girls were tired out tonight. They drove to Hamilton from New York.” Leslie felt impelled to put in a good word for the absent freshmen.
“It’ll take more’n a night’s rest to reform that snippy bunch,” was the proprietor’s displeased prediction, the probable truth of which Leslie could scarcely doubt.
Returned to the Hall she poked her head in at the half-open door of the manager’s office with a jesting, “No ‘Busy’ sign in sight. May I come in?”
“Of course you may.” Miss Remson looked up smilingly from the cloth-bound, ledger-like book over which she had been poring. Leslie recognized it at a glance as the manager’s “Room” book. In it she kept a register of the names of students living at the Hall, together with the numbers of the rooms and such other data as her position of manager demanded.
“I am sorry for that little Miss Ogden, Leslie,” she began in low tones as Leslie sat down in a chair near her. “She seems nothing but a child, in spite of her self-assertive manner. She has set her heart upon living at Wayland Hall, and I have nothing to offer her in the way of a room. I’ve permitted her to use Miss Finch’s and Miss Peters’ room over night. Neither of them will be here until next Wednesday. She has told me that she is an orphan, and must look out for herself. She has given me as a reference Miss Sarah Arthur, Dean of Warburton Preparatory School for girls. She informed me with a ridiculous air of childish pride that she had plenty of money, could afford to take the best room at the Hall, provided she could secure it. She is nineteen, and, it seems, has no legal guardian. She was very frank with me in some respects, and decidedly secretive in others. She is really something of an enigma. I could only advise her to go to the managers of the other campus houses tomorrow and try her luck with them. It is possible she might find a vacancy in one of the other campus houses. I understand the dormitory has been completely filled. She is set against it, however. She is determined to find board on the campus.”
“She applied to me on the way from the station for half of my room,” Leslie said with a touch of humor. “I told her ‘No.’ Afterward, I wondered if it were selfish in me to refuse her. Do you think it was?” Leslie regarded Miss Remson with sudden gloomy gravity.
“No, Leslie: I do not,” was Miss Remson’s prompt reply. “Since you do not desire a roommate, you are under no obligation of kindness to alter your own arrangements on Miss Ogden’s behalf. The Hamilton bulletin, which she admits she wrote for and received, plainly states that arrangements for rooms must be made beforehand, and by letter, by those desiring board at the campus houses. This young girl’s failure to be business-like in the matter hardly calls for such a sacrifice on your part as she has asked you to make.”
“She proudly informed us at the station that she expected to board at Hamilton Hall.” Leslie’s features lifted in a faint grin. “We had to explain matters to her. Then she said she’d made a stupid mistake, but she failed to enlighten us as to how she happened to make it. We found her more or less of a Chinese puzzle.”