He hurried up-stairs and down a corridor until he found a door with 19 on it. He knocked.
"What th' hell! Come in." The voice was impatiently cheerful.
Hugh pushed open the door and entered the room to meet wild confusion—and his room-mate. The room was a clutter of suit-cases, trunks, clothes, banners, unpacked furniture, pillows, pictures, golf-sticks, tennis-rackets, and photographs—dozens of photographs, all of them of girls apparently. In the middle of the room a boy was on his knees before an open trunk. He had sleek black hair, parted meticulously in the center, a slender face with rather sharp features and large black eyes that almost glittered. His lips were full and very red, almost too red, and his cheeks seemed to be colored with a hard blush.
"Hullo," he said in a clear voice as Hugh came in. "Who are you?"
Hugh flushed slightly. "I'm Carver," he answered, "Hugh Carver."
The other lad jumped to his feet, revealing, to Hugh's surprise, golf knickers. He was tall, slender, and very neatly built.
"Hell!" he exclaimed. "I ought to have guessed that." He held out his hand. "I'm Carl Peters, the guy you've got to room with—and God help you."
Hugh dropped his suit-cases and shook hands. "Guess I can stand it," he said with a quick laugh to hide his embarrassment. "Maybe you'll need a little of God's help yourself." Diffident and unsure, he smiled—and Peters liked him on the spot.
"Chase yourself," Peters said easily. "I know a good guy when I see one. Sit down somewhere—er, here." He brushed a pile of clothes off a trunk to the floor with one sweep of his arm. "Rest yourself after climbing that goddamn hill. Christ! It's a bastard, that hill is. Say, your trunk's down-stairs. I saw it. I'll help you bring it up soon's you've got your wind."
Hugh was rather dazzled by the rapid, staccato talk, and, to tell the truth, he was a little shocked by the profanity. Not that he wasn't used to profanity; he had heard plenty of that in Merrytown, but he didn't expect somehow that a college man—that is, a prep-school man—would use it. He felt that he ought to make some reply to Peters's talk, but he didn't know just what would do. Peters saved him the trouble.