CAUGHT MASQUERADING
When I took my aunt and sister to the Pequot hotel, the night before the Yale-Harvard boat race, I found a gang of Harvard boys there. They celebrated a good deal that night, in the usual Harvard way.
Some of the Harvard men had a room next to mine. About three a.m. things quieted down. When I woke up next morning, it was broad daylight, and I was utterly alone. The race was to be at eleven o'clock. I jumped out of bed and looked at my watch—it was nearly ten! I looked for my clothes. My valise was gone! I rang the bell, but in the excitement downstairs, I suppose, no one answered it.
What was I to do? Those Harvard friends of mine thought it a good joke on me to steal my clothes and take themselves off to the race without waking me up. I don't know what I should have done in my anguish, when, thank goodness, I heard a tap at my door, and went to it.
"Well, do hurry!" (It was my sister's voice.) "Aunt won't go to the race; we'll have to go without her."
"They've stolen my clothes, Mollie—those Harvard fellows."
"Haven't you anything?" she asked through the keyhole.
"Not a thing, dear."
"Oh, well! it's a just punishment to you after last night! That —— noise was dreadful!"
"Perhaps it is," I said, "but don't preach now, sister dear—get me something to put on. I want to see the race."