“Yes, we know it,” Marjorie’s response came in even tones. “Her business interests keep her in Hamilton, I believe.”
“Her business is too much to mind the business of others.” A fleeting scowl passed over the Italian’s forehead. It lingered between his brows as he said resentfully: “Once this Miss Car-rins say about me when she is here in this room but verra mad at me: ‘Let the dago have his hash house. I hope it burn down tonight.’ Never-r-r I forget that. I feel to say to her when she come here again after long while: ‘You don’t come here more.’ I cannot. This is the inn; for everybody who want come who behave quiet. But never-r-r I let her have the special table. Naw!” The inn keeper put great stress upon this resentful resolve.
Neither Marjorie nor Robin hardly knew what to say. They had long since heard the story Baretti had just told them from Vera.
“I wouldn’t take anything Leslie Cairns said to heart, or ever let it worry me for a minute, Signor Baretti,” Marjorie finally said in soothing tones. She recognized the Italian’s right to comforting words. She knew he could not forgive having been called a “dago.” Far more humiliating it must then be to his pride to have heard his beloved restaurant dubbed a “hash house.”
“I think mebbe I don’t,” Baretti decided, his brooding features brightening again. “Anyway I don’t have Miss Car-rins here when are the dorm girls here. She might act verra mean. So some freshmans and sophmans who have the tables here will act mean, too. Miss Car-rins don’t like those who have no much mona. If she come here with the pretty girl who have the proud face and the hair of gold I don’t say nothin’. She can sty unless she makes the fun of me. She shall no do that. It is my hash house.” He threw back his head and laughed. “In it I can do the way I please. So Miss Car-rins come here someday, make the fun of me again, I walk up to her, take her by the arm, very quiet, and make her to walk out the door.”
CHAPTER XII.
PAGE MINUS DEAN
Thanksgiving Day dawned without the tiniest streak of sunlight to grace it. Early in the morning heavily overcasted clouds began emptying their cold dispiriting torrents of rain upon a brown and soggy earth.
Safe within the cheerful walls of Castle Dean Marjorie’s delight in being at home was dampened by the thought of how Robin Page and her volunteer entertainment committee were battling against such a dreary day. She could only hope that the steady persistency of the Sanford downpour was not repeating itself at Hamilton. True she and Robin had planned their program to cover that possible calamity. Bad weather could not fail to make it harder for Robin, Phil and Barbara to keep things moving with the energy and smoothness so necessary as a means toward uniting the interests and the sympathies of the students of the various campus houses with those of the dormitory girls.
While Marjorie, Leila, Vera and Jerry were cosily ensconced in the Deans’ living room lamenting over the bad weather, Robin Page, Phil Moore and Barbara Severn were holding a serious consultation of three in Robin’s room.