“Most of you guys,” continued the driver affably as he led the way up the slate stairway, “expects us to lug trunks and everything and don’t want to slip us anything extra. Nothing doing! I’m willing to be obliging, see, but I ain’t in business for my health, mister. Here you are, sir. Number 17, you said? Door’s unlocked. Gee, some room, ain’t it? What about your trunk, sir? Want me to fetch it for you?”
“No, it’s coming by express. That’s all, thanks. Here you are. There’s a quarter for the ride, a quarter for the bag and a quarter for a tip. All right?”
“Sure! You’re a real gentleman, mister. Say, any time you want a taxi or—or anything, see, you send for me. Name’s Eddie Moses. Telephone to Benton’s cigar store and they’ll give me the call.”
“All right, Eddie. All doors open out.”
“That so? Oh, all right. You can be sassy with me any time you like for a quarter!” And Mr. Eddie Moses, chuckling at his wit, took himself away, leaving Myron at leisure to look around his quarters.
Number 17 Sohmer consisted of two rooms, a good-sized square study and a sleeping room off it. The study windows—there were two of them—overlooked the campus, although this afternoon, since the lindens still held their leaves, the view was restricted to so much of the campus as lay between the hall and the path that stretched from the gymnasium to the main gate on Washington Avenue. The bedroom also had a window with a similar outlook. This apartment was only large enough to hold the two single beds, the two chiffoniers and the two straight-backed chairs constituting its furnishing, and Myron soon turned back from the doorway and removed his gaze to the study again. There were, he decided, possibilities in the study. Of course he would get rid of the present junk, but it must serve until his furniture came from home, which ought to be in another three or four days. It had been his mother’s idea to ship the things from his grey and yellow room at Warrenton Hall. She thought Myron would be less homesick if surrounded by the familiar objects of home. Myron’s own idea had been to purchase a new outfit in Philadelphia, but when he had seen how set his mother had been on her plan he had not insisted. The only thing that troubled him now was that, recalling the number and generous proportions of the articles on the way, he feared the study would be far too small to hold them! Why, his couch alone would take up almost all of the end of the room where the windows were! Well, he would just have to use what he could and store the other things somewhere: or send them home again.
He had tossed his hat on the stained table that occupied the centre of the study—in shape that hat was not unlike the one worn by Eddie Moses, but all similarity ended right there—and now he removed his jacket of steel-grey, serge-like material, rolled up the sleeves of a pale yellow silk shirt and passed into the bedroom to wash. It may be well to state in passing that Myron affected grey and yellow, both in his room furnishings and in his attire. It was a conceit of Mrs. Foster’s. She was fond of colour combinations and, could she have had her way, would have prescribed for every member of her household. But Myron was the only one who consented to be guided by her taste. He didn’t care a rap whether his wallpaper was grey with yellow stripes or purple with pink daisies, only, having been told that grey-and-yellow suited him wonderfully he accepted it as a fact, said that it “looked all right, he supposed,” and was soon a willing slave to the grey-and-yellow habit. Mrs. Foster’s attempt to persuade her husband to pin his taste to brown-and-lilac, however, was a wretched failure. Mr. Foster snorted disgustedly and went right on buying green and magenta neckties and socks that made his wife shudder.
Having washed his hands and face and dried them on a handkerchief—a soft, pure-linen affair with a monogram worked in one corner in grey and yellow—Myron opened his kit-bag and unpacked, stowing the things neatly and systematically in one of the chiffoniers. He would, he reflected, get them to take the other chiffonier and the other bed out. As he was to occupy Number 17 alone there was no need of them. When the bag was unpacked and set in a corner of the closet he donned his jacket again and strolled to a window. The campus was livening up. Although the foliage hid the other buildings very effectually he could hear the patter of feet on gravel and steps, voices in shouts or laughter and, from somewhere, the tuning of a banjo. As he looked down, leaning from the sill, two lads came across the grass and paused a little further along under a window. They were in flannels, and one carried a racket. They tilted their heads and hailed:
“O Jimmy! Jimmy Lynde! He-e-ey, Jimmy! Jimmy-y-y!”