Jerry's summons to his college friends had been in the nature of an S. O. S. call for help. On the telephone he vouchsafed merely the information that it was "a deadly matter of life and death."
The astounding news he flung like a bomb at each hastily arriving member of the late Syndicate. When the first excitement had subsided, the paramount feeling was one of consternation and alarm.
"Gosh!" groaned Jinx, "what in the name of thunderation are you going to do with a Japanese girl in New York City? I pity you, Jerry, for of course you are mainly responsible——"
"Responsible nothing——" from the indignant Jerry, wheeling about with a threatening look at that big "fathead." "I presume I was the only member of that—er—syndicate."
"At least it was your idea," said Monty, extremely anxious to get back to the hospital, where he had been personally supervising a case of Circocele.
"You might have known," suggested Bobs, "that she was bound to turn out a Frankenstein. Of course, we'll all stand by you, old scout, but you know how I am personally situated."
Jerry's wrathful glare embraced the circle of his renegade friends.
"You're a fine bunch of snobs. I'm not stuck myself on having a Jap girl foisted on to my hands, and there'll be a mess of explanations to my friends and people, and the Lord only knows how I'll ever be able to put my mind back on my work and—— At the same time, I'm not so white livered that I'm going to flunk the responsibility. We encouraged—invited her to join us out here. I did. You did, so did you, and you! I heard you all—every last one of you, and you can't deny it."
"Well, it was one thing to sentimentalise over a pretty little Jap in Japan," growled Bobs, who was not a snob, but in spite of his profession at heart something of a stickler for the conventions, "but it's another proposition here. Of course, as I said, we fellows all intend to stand by you." (Grunts of unwilling assent from Monty and Jinx.) "We aren't going to welch on our part of the job, and right here we may as well plan out some scheme to work this thing properly. Suppose we make the most of the matter for the present. We'll keep her down there at that 'Y.' Do you see? Then, we can each do something to—er—make it—well uncomfortable for her here. We'll freeze her out if it comes down to that. Make her feel that this U. S. A. isn't all it's cracked up to be, and she'll get home-sick for her gods and goddesses and at the psychological moment when she's feeling her worst, why we'll just slip her aboard ship, and there you are."