No sooner was he seated at the table than he ordered two steins of beer for us, but he kept his word about the whiskey. I had difficulty in drinking from the stein, as the lid knocked my hat crooked, and this amused Jimmy vastly. He began to chuckle loudly all of a sudden, and he leaned over the table and said:
“Tell you what I’ll do, Marion. My sister’s giving some sort of party to-morrow night. How’d you like to go along?”
“Why, how can I? She hasn’t invited me.”
“Well, I guess I can bring my friends to our house if I want,” declared Jimmy, as though some one had questioned his right. “Will you or won’t you go? Yes or no?”
“We-el—”
“No ‘well’ about it. Yes or no?”
XXXI
I DIDN’T have any work at all to do the next day, so I stayed in and fixed up a pretty dress to wear to the party at Jimmy’s house. He called early for me, bringing along another student named Evans, who played the guitar. We stopped for Benevenuto, an Italian, who played the mandolin with Evans, and whom I had met several times.
At the last moment, I hesitated about going and I said: