“Ah, but you have an idea you are talking!” Leila exclaimed with withering sarcasm.
“Taisez-vous.” Robin shook a playfully threatening finger at the merry gabblers. “I’ll resume before you have time to interrupt me again. After Phil, Barbara and I got our mud shower we hustled to Silverton Hall. We were late for dinner; awfully late, but everybody was good to us and the dinner was splendiferous. We started for the gym the minute we had finished dinner. Gussie, you can tell the crowd about the game afterward. I want to keep to the subject of my own troubles as a promoter, minus a partner. It was a great game. I’ll say that much.”
“Gentleman Gus is the best player I ever saw tackle a game,” Phil praised. “That’s all. ’Scuse me for interrupting.” She cast a comical glance at Robin, who returned it with a reproving one, then continued:
“When the game was over I went outside the gym wondering if Signor Baretti really had been able to reduce those provoking Italians to reason. He was waiting just outside the double doors. I know by the way he smiled that he had found some way of helping us. He told me he had managed to make Mariani let him have four taxies and that he had his own large car and a smaller one he used when making hurried business trips. I still had Vera’s car. We had come over from Silverton Hall in it. His big car would easily hold ten passengers, by having the taxies make a second trip all the off-campus girls would be taken care of.”
“Mariani himself was driving one of the taxies. You should have seen the expression on his fat face! He was so peeved at Baretti he didn’t know which way to look!” Phil interposed, laughing at the memory of the miffed Italian’s grouchy face.
“Baretti had the machines lined up on the branch drive east of the gym. I asked him if the men could be depended to bring the girls back to the campus after supper and come for them after the dance. He said: ‘Yes-s, I tell again. Then sure.’” Robin imitated the inn-keeper briefly. “He marched up to the first, then the others, and said about six words to each; except Mariani. He and Guiseppe had quite an argument. I could tell by the way they wagged their heads and shrugged their shoulders and made gestures to go with almost every word they said. Finally Signor Baretti came over to me and said very proudly that it was all right; to tell the ‘dorm’ girls to get into the machines. Just about that time——”
“We came along with our little chug wagons,” broke in Gussie mischievously. “That’s all. Don’t forget to give us credit.”
“Don’t worry. I never forget,” recklessly boasted Robin. “Yes; Gentleman Gus, Calista, Norma and Laura came along again with their cars and the taxies didn’t have to make a second trip. Lillian couldn’t come. Their dinner was so late. Besides they were entertaining at her home in the evening. Mariani furnished the same four taxies out to the campus in the evening at the usual rate. After the dance he only sent two, and the drivers said they couldn’t come back. I was positively green with rage. I tried to catch Mariani on the ’phone, but he wouldn’t answer. The girls helped out again and we managed to land the last ‘dorm’ on her own doorstep a little after midnight.”
“Did you tell Guiseppe of Mariani’s second flivver?” Vera asked. “If you haven’t, you’d better. He will wish to know it. He’ll think you haven’t much confidence in him if you don’t let him know.”
“It was too late to bother him that night, and I was so busy Friday and Saturday I didn’t have time to go and see him. I intend to tell him.”