“I should say he was. The other day when he took me to town in the car he told a motorist, who tried to run in ahead of us to park, that he was ‘too fresh’ and to ‘cut out his nonsense.’” Marjorie gave a reminiscent chuckle.
Jerry smiled cheerful gratification of this news. “To make use of my own pet vocabulary: It’s up to me to show a hot-foot,” she declared. “While I enjoy lingering in this classic spot with you, beautiful Bean, I shall not linger. You heard what I said about five o’clock. Heed my remarks. I must go now.” She made a feeble pretense toward rising. She rolled humorous, entreating eyes at Marjorie.
“Oh, you may stay.” Marjorie became loftily tolerant. “First you may tell me everything you know about Leila’s new stunt. Afterward, I have a splendid job for you.”
“I don’t know a single thing about Leila’s new stunt. She ’phoned me about half an hour ago and said she and Vera would come for us with the car at five. She said she had a fine idea but that we’d not hear a word about it until after dinner at Wayland Hall tonight. Anything else I might say on the subject I’d have to make up. You would not care to have your faithful Jeremiah resort to fiction, would you?”
“You’re a faithful goose. I’m not so news-hungry as to ask you to desert the truth, Jeremiah,” was the merry assurance. “Leila, the rascal, knows we’re eager for campus news and plans. She loves to create suspense and keep it up till the very last minute. Now I’m going to set you to work. You may sort some letters for me, if you will.”
“Will I? My middle name is willing!” Jerry drew her chair closer to the table with a grand flourish. A pleased light shone in her blue eyes. She was very proud of having already assisted Marjorie on several occasions in the work of arranging the data, prior to the writing of Brooke Hamilton’s biography.
Readers of the four volumes comprising the “Marjorie Dean High School Series,” know Marjorie Dean as a high school girl. They have learned to know her still better through the four volumes which comprise the “Marjorie Dean College Series.”
Returned to Hamilton College as a post graduate her work in connection with the building of a free dormitory for ambitious students in adverse circumstances has already been recorded in the three preceding volumes of the “Marjorie Dean Post Graduate Series,” respectively entitled “Marjorie Dean, College Post Graduate,” “Marjorie Dean, Marvelous Manager” and “Marjorie Dean at Hamilton Arms.”
Because Marjorie had deeply reverenced the memory of Brooke Hamilton, the founder of Hamilton College, she had come into an intimate friendship with his great-niece, Miss Susanna Hamilton, the only living representative of the Hamilton family. For many years Miss Susanna had been at enmity with the college board. Shortly after the death of her distinguished great uncle, Brooke Hamilton, she had turned against Hamilton College and refused to furnish the data for a biography of the founder which was to have been written by the president of the college.
Due entirely to Marjorie’s hopeful, sunny influence Miss Susanna had eventually emerged from the shell in which she had lived for years. She had decided that, since Marjorie had most revered the maxims and memory of her great kinsman, she was therefore the one best equipped to present him truly to the world in a biography. She had invited Marjorie to be her guest indefinitely at Hamilton Arms and had turned over to the youthful biographer the data for Brooke Hamilton’s life story.