Yardley Hall School is so well known that it is perhaps unnecessary for me to bore you with description. Therefore, a few more words and I am done. The school’s enrollment is about two hundred and seventy students. There are five classes, First, Second, Third, Fourth and Preparatory. The faculty numbers twelve, ranging from the Principal, Dr. Tobias Hewitt, known as “Toby,” down to Mrs. Ponder, the matron, affectionately—and surreptitiously—called “Emily.”
Kendall descended the steps and turned to his left. At the first entrance of Clarke Hall he entered and climbed two flights of well-worn stairs, bore to his left again and opened the door of the last room on the front of the building. Number 28 was a big, square, well-lighted room. Beside the shallow bay windows in front there was a window on the side from which, past the obtruding shoulder of Whitson, one caught a brief view of Wissining and the mouth of the river in the distance and of The Prospect in the foreground. Each side of the room held a bed, a washstand and a bureau. A big, broad study table held the center and was flanked by easy chairs. There were many pictures, photographs and trophies on the walls, the carpet was cheerful in tones of brown and gold and the window-seat was piled high with many-hued cushions. Altogether the room looked home-like and cheerful, and while there were numerous evidences of wealth, from the silverbacked brushes and toilet articles on Gerald’s chiffonier to the heavy, soft-piled carpet underfoot, there was no ostentation.
Gerald, half-buried in the cushions of the window-seat, was having a last look at “Wilhelm Tell” before going into class. A German dictionary was lying beside him on the sill of the open window and a frown was playing about his brow. He looked up when Kendall came in and slammed the volume of Schiller shut with a sigh of relief.
“It’s criminal, Kendall, to have to translate German on a day like this. You can’t do justice to it. It needs a thick fog to gargle with. No one can manage a good German pronunciation on a fair day; no one, that is, but a German.” Gerald gathered the books together and sat up. “Thanks be, I’m not a German! Think of going through life having to call an insurance policy a—a—wait a minute!” He opened the dictionary and fluttered the leaves quickly. “Ha! Having to call it a versicherungsschein! Wouldn’t that be—well, niederschlagend? Wouldn’t it?”
“Worse than that,” laughed Kendall. “It would be grimmig!”
“Grimmig?” Gerald frowned a moment. “That’s furious, isn’t it?”
“Yes, or fierce!”
“Oh! I wonder if the Germans can talk slang. I bet they can’t. Any nation that calls an irregular verb an unregelmässig Zeitwort must be far too deficient in humor to produce any George Ades. What time is it?”
Kendall glanced at a small traveling clock on Gerald’s chiffonier and informed him that it was twelve minutes to nine. Gerald sighed again.