“Oh, yes, about the football meeting,” went on the end. “Well, you needn’t get on your ear just because we jollied you a little. Stand the gaff like a man. No, there wasn’t much doing. We talked over some new plays. Incidentally we tried to explain the slump Randall seems to be up against, but we couldn’t. Where were you?”
“Don’t ask him. He was up here fussing worse than a girl,” broke in Phil. “Hannibal’s henpecked hyperbolas! But do you remember the time, Tom, when we couldn’t get Sid to look at a girl, much less to take one to a dance? Now he feels hurt if he doesn’t do the Cubanola Glide with one at least once a week. Vanity, thy name is Sid Henderson!”
“Oh, cheese it, for cats’ sake!” begged Sid, in despair. Then Phil, who seemed to take delight in “rigging” his chum, glanced at the battered old alarm clock, which was again on duty.
“Cæsar’s grandmother!” cried the quarter-back. “I’ll be late,” and forthwith he began to make motions “like a fellow dressing in a hurry,” as he said afterward, and Sid was left in peace to complete his immaculate attire, while Tom, too, seeing the need of haste, left off “badgering” Sid.
It was the occasion of one of the several dances that the girls of Fairview Institute had arranged, and to which they were allowed to ask their friends. Of course, Miss Philock, the preceptress, was chief chaperone, and there were other elderly teachers who took part.
Tom, Phil and Sid, together with a number of other students from Randall, had been invited, and this was the evening when “event number six, in the free-for-all-catch-as-catch-can style of dancing would be pulled off,” as Holly Cross remarked, when he was preparing for it. It was about a week after Dr. Churchill had so taken the wind out of the sails of Dutch Housenlager in the physics class, and in the meanwhile life at the college had gone on much as usual.
The affair took place in the Fairview gymnasium, which was appropriately decorated for the purpose. Tom and his three chums—for Frank Simpson went with them—had called for Miss Tyler and her friends, Ruth and Mabel. Frank was to escort a new girl, Miss Helen Warden, to the dance.
“You’re a little late,” chided Ruth, as she greeted her brother and the others.
“It was Sid’s fault,” asserted Phil, with a wink at Tom. “He would insist on changing his togs at the last minute.”
“And the hairdresser disappointed him, and he had to curl it himself,” put in Tom.