"The boys are all glad you're going to lead the show, Jim," said the general manager; and Wheaton experienced a feeling of having fallen into the larger currents of Clarkson life. Margrave was the man who, more than any other, made things happen in Clarkson.
CHAPTER IX PARLEYINGS
Evelyn acted on her father's suggestion that she ask some friends to visit her, and she summoned two of her classmates to come out for the carnival. She told Raridan of their coming one evening when they were alone, and he began propounding inquiries about them with the zealous interest, half mocking and half earnest, which he always manifested in girls that crossed his horizon.
"And Miss Warren—is she the one from Dedham Crossing, Connecticut? Yes, I suppose they will want to go right out to see the Indians. I'll see if the War Department won't lend us a few from a reservation to show off with. It's too bad for our guests to be disappointed. And Miss Marshall—she's from Virginia? It will really be rather amusing to bring the types together on our rude frontier."
"But you're not to play tricks with these friends of mine, Warrick Raridan. You are to be very nice to them, but you are not to make too much of an impression—unless—!"
"I'm afraid Miss Warren's a trifle too serious for human nature's daily food," he said, complainingly.
"Yes? I remember that she was strong in entomology. She surely knows a moth from a bumblebee when she sees it."
"Tut! tut! One shouldn't be spiteful. Miss Warren is a nice girl. She knows where the pussy willows purr first in the harsh Connecticut spring. She is strong on golden rod and ah-tum leaves; she reads 'Sesame and Lilies' once a week, and Channing's 'Symphony' hangs in her room in blue and gold. She's very sweet with her Sunday School class. She shall be saluted with the Chautauqua salute—thus!" He flourished his handkerchief at a picture on the wall.