“Gee, I wouldn’t miss it! If it wasn’t for going to college I wouldn’t ever waste time at a prep school, believe me. College is fun, old man. You take my advice and go. Get a move on and let’s start along. I could eat bent nails!”
The food at the Owl Grill proved excellent, but the prices were dismayingly high and the atmosphere of the place didn’t please Ira. They ate in one of the little booths that lined the walls of the restaurant, which was a bright and attractive place of many lights and black-oak panelling and cheerful pictures of hunting and coaching scenes. But after the room had filled up Ira had an uncomfortable feeling of being in the wrong place. His modest order brought an expression of disdain to the waiter’s face, and when he glanced out into the room and saw what most of the diners were surrounding themselves with he understood it. Humphrey Nead ordered as if quite familiar with that style of restaurant and bought far more food than he was able to eat and paid his check later with a lordly air.
“Some place for a one-horse town like this, eh?” he asked, looking approvingly around. “I guess it beats eating in hall, what? Sometime I’m going to have one of those planked steaks like the fat guy over there has. Bet they cost about two dollars. They ought to have music here, though. We’ve got a place in Buffalo you ought to see, Rowland. It’s got this beat a mile. Going to drink anything?”
“I guess not. I don’t like tea much, and coffee at night keeps me awake.”
“Gee, you’re a greenie!” jeered Nead. “I meant a real drink, a glass of beer or something.”
“I don’t drink beer,” replied Ira shortly. “And if you take my advice you won’t, either.”
“Piffle! I often have a glass of beer with my dinner. Don’t be a pill!”
“What you do at home is different, Nead. You’re not allowed to do it here, and if faculty found it out——”
“What faculty doesn’t know won’t hurt it,” returned Nead flippantly. But Ira observed that he didn’t order the beer. When they had finished, Nead wanted to sit there awhile and talk, but Ira wasn’t comfortable and Nead grumblingly consented to leave. When Ira handed the waiter fifteen cents, which was the change from the dollar he had placed on his check, Nead looked even more disgusted than the waiter and ostentatiously tossed a fifty-cent piece on the cloth.