There was no response.
“Nelly,” he commanded, “run and find your mamma, and tell her that Mr. Polisson—from New Orleans—an old classmate of papa’s, will be here to tea. That’s a good girl. Polisson, put on your hat and let’s go round the place. I want to show you what an establishment I’ve got here.”
We accordingly made the tour of the premises, Armstrong doing the cicerone impressively, and every now and then urging me with emphatic hospitality to come and spend a week—a fortnight—longer, if I chose, during the summer vacation.
“Bring Mrs. Polisson and the kids. Bring ’em all,” he said. “It will do them good; the air here is fine; eleven hundred feet above the sea. No malaria—no typhoid. I laid out four hundred dollars last year on sewerage.”
It being a half holiday, most of the big boys had gone to a pond in the neighborhood for a swim, under the conduct of the classical master,—a Yale graduate, Armstrong explained, who had stood fourth in his class, “and a very able fellow,—very able.”
But while we sat at tea in Armstrong’s family dining-room, which adjoined the school commons, we were made aware of the return of the swimming party by the constant shuffle and tramp of feet through the hall and the noise of feeding in the next room. At our table were present Mrs. Armstrong, her sister (who had a frightened air when addressed and conversed in monosyllables), the parents of the sick pupil, and Armstrong’s two eldest children. I surmised that the younger children had been in the habit of sharing in the social meal, and had been crowded out on this occasion by the number of guests; for I heard them fremunting in carcere behind a door through which the waitress passed out and in, bringing plates of waffles. The remonstrances of the waitress were also audible, and, when the wailing rose high, my hostess’s face had a distrait expression, as of one prepared at any moment for an irruption of infant Goths.
Mrs. Armstrong was a vivacious little woman, who, I conjectured, had once been a village belle, with some pretensions to espièglerie and the fragile prettiness common among New England country girls. But the bearing and rearing of a family of children, and the matronizing of a houseful of hungry school-boys in such a way as to make ends meet, had substituted a faded and worried look for her natural liveliness of expression. She bore up bravely, however, against the embarrassments of the occasion. In particular, it pleased her to take a facetious view of college life.
“Oh, Mr. Polisson,” she cried, “I am afraid that you and my husband were very gay young men when you were at college together. Oh, don’t tell me; I know—I know. I’ve heard of some of your scrapes.”
I protested feebly against this impeachment, but Armstrong winked at me with the air of a sly dog, and said:
“It’s no use, Polisson. You can’t fool Mrs. A. Buckingham and one or two of the fellows have been here to dinner occasionally, and I’m afraid they’ve given us away.”