“Why—why, I suppose so, but I don’t like it, sir. You agreed to give me a room to myself. If I had known how it was to be, I—I think I’d have gone somewhere else!”
“Well, we’d be sorry to lose you, of course,” replied the secretary politely, “but unfortunately there is no way of giving you the accommodations you want. If you care to communicate with your father by wire we will hold your registration open until the morning. Now I shall have to ask you to let the next young gentleman——”
“I guess you’d better do that,” replied Myron haughtily. “I’ll telegraph my father right away.”
The secretary nodded, already busy with the next youth, and Myron made his way out. As he went down the worn stone steps he saw the two fourth class boys adorning the top rail of the fence that bordered Maple Street, and as he passed them he heard a snicker and a voice asking “Isn’t he a dur-ream?” His first angry impulse was to turn back and scold, but second thoughts sent him on with an expression of contemptuous indifference. But the incident did not sweeten his disposition any, and when he strode into Number 17 again it needed only the sight that met him to set him off. Joe Dobbins, minus coat and vest, his suspenders hanging, was sitting in the room’s one easy chair with his stockinged feet on the table. Myron, closing the door behind him, glared for an instant. Then:
“What do you think this is, Dobbin?” he demanded angrily. “A—a stable?”
Dobbins’ jaw dropped and he viewed Myron with ludicrous surprise. “How do you mean, a stable?” he asked.
“I mean that if you’re going to stay here with me tonight you’ve got to act like a—a gentleman! Sitting around with your suspenders down and your shoes off and your feet on the table——”
“Oh!” said Joe, in vast relief. “That’s it! I thought maybe you were going to crack some joke about me being a horse, on account of my name. Don’t gentlemen put their feet on the table and let their galluses down?”
“No, they don’t!” snapped Myron. “And as long as you’re rooming with me—which I hope won’t be long—I’ll ask you to cut out that ‘roughneck’ stuff.”