A sort of awe in her eyes.
"My hat's off to you, Barbara," she said. "Where in the world do you
pick them all up? Things must have changed at school since I was there."
"I'm sick to death of the Other Sex," I replied languidley. "It's no
punishment to send me away. I need a little piece and quiet." And I did.
CONCLUSION:
All this holaday week, while the girls are away, I have been
writing this Theme, for Literature class. To-day is New Years and
I am putting in the finishing touches. I intend to have it tiped in
the village and to send a copy to father, who I think will
understand, and another copy, but with a few lines cut, to Mr.
Grosvenor. The nice one. There were some things he did not quite
understand, and this will explain.
I shall also send a copy to Carter Brooks, who came out handsomly
with an apoligy this morning in a letter and a ten pound box of Candy.
His letter explains everything. H. is a real person and did not
come out of a Cabinet. Carter recognized the photograph as being
one of a Mr. Grosvenor he went to college with, who had gone on the
stage and was playing in a stock company at home. Only they were
not playing Xmas week, as business, he says, is rotten then. When
he saw me writing the letter he felt that it was all a bluff,
especialy as he had seen me sending myself the violets at the florists.
So he got Mr. Grosvenor, the blonde one, to pretend he was Harold
Valentine. Only things slipped up. I quote from Carter's letter:
"He's a bully chap, Bab, and he went into it for a lark, roses and
poems and all. But when he saw that you took it rather hard, he
felt it wasn't square. He went to your father to explain and
apologized, but your father seemed to think you needed a lesson.
He's a pretty good Sport, your father. And he said to let it go on
for a day or two. A little worry wouldn't hurt you."
However, I do not call it being a good sport to see one's daughter
perfectly wreched and do nothing to help. And more than that, to
willfully permit one's to suffer, and enjoy it.
But it was father, after all, who got the Jolt, I think, when he
saw me get out of the taxicab.
Therefore I will not explain, for a time. A little worry will not
hurt him either.
I will not send him his copy for a week.
Perhaps, after all, I will give him somthing to worry about
eventually. For I have recieved a box of roses, with no card, but
a pen and ink drawing of a Gentleman in evening clothes crawling
onto a fire-escape through an open window. He has dropped his
Heart, and it is two floors below.
My narative has now come to a conclusion, and I will close with a
few reflections drawin from my own sad and tradgic Experience. I
trust the Girls of this School will ponder and reflect.
Deception is a very sad thing. It starts very easy, and without
Warning, and everything seems to be going all right, and No Rocks
ahead. When suddenly the Breakers loom up, and your frail Vessel sinks,
with you on board, and maybe your dear Ones, dragged down with you.
Oh, what a tangeled Web we wieve,
When first we practice to decieve.
Sir Walter Scott.
CHAPTER II
THEME: THE CELEBRITY
WE have been requested to write, during this vacation, a true and
varacious account of a meeting with any Celebrity we happened to
meet during the summer. If no Celebrity, any interesting character
would do, excepting one's own Familey.
But as one's own Familey is neither celebrated nor interesting,
there is no temptation to write about it.
As I met Mr. Reginald Beecher this summer, I have chosen
him as my Subject.
Brief history of the Subject: He was born in 1890 at Woodbury, N.
J. Attended public and High Schools, and in 1910 graduated from
Princeton University.
Following year produced first Play in New York, called Her Soul.
Followed this by the Soul Mate, and this by The Divorce.
Description of Subject. Mr. Beecher is tall and slender, and wears
a very small dark Mustache. Although but twenty-six years of age,
his hair on close inspection reveals here and there a Silver
Thread. His teeth are good, and his eyes amber, with small flecks
of brown in them. He has been vacinated twice.
It has alwavs been one of my chief ambitions to meet a Celebrity.
On one or two occasions we have had them at school, but they never
sit at the Junior's table. A.