"All the more reason why we should have the fun now," persisted Tavia, who was nevertheless getting her clothes on the hooks in short order. "There! I'm all hung up," she declared, banging the closet door furiously, in spite of Dorothy's hat box trying to stop it.
"But your hats," Dorothy reminded her. "They have got to go on that shelf, and there isn't an inch of room left."
"Then I'll just stick the box under the bed," calmly remarked the new girl, making a kick at the unlucky box and following it up to the "goal."
"Against the rules," announced Dorothy, pointing to a typewritten notice on the door. "Read!"
"Haven't time. You read them and tell me about them. I'll take the box out if it says so, but if we have to keep things in such angelic order why in the world don't they give us room?"
"Room? Indeed this is a large room, given us especially, and it is quite a favor to be allowed to room together—only real sisters ever get a double."
"Heaven help the singles!" sighed Tavia in mock devotion. "But come on, Doro,—we are missing all the fun. I did think I heard the mob at our door."
Without further leave or license Tavia dragged Dorothy from her work and closed the door of Number Nineteen behind her. In the hall they found Rose-Mary, whom the girls called "Cologne," Amy Brook, Nita Brant, and Lena Berg. All were trying to talk at once, each had "the very most delicious vacation" to tell about, and to Dorothy it appeared the first requisite for boarding school ways was the coining of absurd and meaningless phrases. Tavia fell right into line, and could discount anyone of the crowd. "Splendifiorous, glorioutious and scrambunctious," were plainly hard to beat, and no one seemed willing to try. Cologne had a way of saying things in a jerky little jump that suggested bumping noses, Amy Brook fairly strangled with dashes and other unexpected shorts stops, while Nita Brant "wallowed" in such exclamations as:
"Fine and dandy! Perfectly sugary! Too killingly, dear, for anything!"
It was Cologne who declared Nita "wallowed" in slang, because the Nicks had decided that no ready-made slang should be used at meetings, and Nita persisted in ignoring the rule. Each new term brought the season's current phrases back in the custody of the sandy-haired Nita and now, on the first night, her companions took precious good care to remind her of the transgression.