Ramsey Milholland Part 13

"Oh, get out! Her stoppin' me, and me goin' pokin' along with her, and her--well, her crying and everything, and me being around with her while she felt so upset, I mean. It seems--well, it does seem kind o' funny to me."

"Why does it?" Fred inquired, preserving his gravity. "Why should it seem funny to you?"

"I don't mean funny like something's funny you laugh at," Ramsey explained laboriously. "I mean funny like something that's out of the way, and you wonder how it ever happened to happen. I mean it seems funny I'd ever be sittin' there on a bench with that ole girl I never spoke to in my life or had anything to do with, and talkin' about the United States goin' to war. What we were talkin' about, why, that seems just as funny as the rest of it. Lookin' back to our cla.s.s picnic, f'r instance, second year of high school, that day I jumped in the creek after-- Well, you know, it was when I started makin' a fool of myself over a girl. Thank goodness, I got _that_ out o' my system; it makes me just sick to look back on those days and think of the fool things I did, and all I thought about that girl. Why, she-- Well, I've got old enough to see now she was just about as ordinary a girl as there ever was, and if I saw her now I wouldn't even think she was pretty; I'd prob'ly think she was sort of loud-lookin'. Well, what's pa.s.sed is past, and it isn't either here nor there. What I started to say was this: that the way it begins to look to me, it looks as if n.o.body can tell in this life a darn thing about what's goin' to happen, and the things that do happen are the very ones you'd swear were the last that could. I mean--you look back to that day of the picnic--my! but I was a rube then--well, I mean you look back to that day, and what do you suppose I'd have thought then if somebody'd told me the time would ever come when I'd be 'way off here at college sittin' on a bench with Dora Yoc.u.m--with _Dora Yoc.u.m_, in the first place--and her crying, and both of us talking about the United States goin' to war with Germany! Don't it seem pretty funny to you, Fred, too?"

"But as near as I can make out," Fred said, "that isn't what happened."

"Why isn't it?"

"You say 'and both us talking' and so on. As near as I can make out, _you_ didn't say anything at all."

"Well, I didn't--much," Ramsey admitted, and returned to his point with almost pathetic persistence. "But doesn't it seem kind o' funny to you, Fred?"

"Well, I don't know."

"It does to me," Ramsey insisted. "It certainly does to me."

"Yes," said Fred cruelly. "I've noticed you said so, but it don't look any funnier than you do when you say it."

Suddenly he sent forth a startling shout. "_Wow!_ You're as red as a blushing beet."

"I am not!"

"Y'are!" shouted Fred. "Wow! The ole woman-hater's got the flushes! Oh, look at the pretty posy!"

And, jumping down from the window seat, he began to dance round his much perturbed comrade, bellowing. Ramsey bore with him for a moment, then sprang upon him; they wrestled vigorously, broke a chair, and went to the floor with a crash that gave the chandelier in Mrs. Meig's parlour, below, an attack of jingles.

"You let me up!" Fred gasped.

"You take your solemn oath to shut up? You goin' to swear it?"

"All right. I give my solemn oath," said Fred; and they rose, arranging their tousled attire.

"Well," said Fred, "when you goin' to call on her?"

"You look here!" Ramsey approached him dangerously. "You just gave me your sol--"

"I beg!" Fred cried, retreating. "I mean, aside from all that, why, I just thought maybe after such an evening you'd feel as a gentleman you ought to go and ask about her health."

"Now, see here--"

"No, I mean it; you ought to," Fred insisted, earnestly, and as his roommate glared at him with complete suspicion, he added, in explanation. "You ought to go next Caller's Night, and send in your card, and say you felt you ought to ask if she'd suffered any from the night air. Even if you couldn't manage to say that, you ought to start to say it, anyhow, because you-- Keep off o' me! I'm only tryin' to do you a good turn, ain't I?"

"You save your good turns for yourself," Ramsey growled, still advancing upon him.

But the insidious Mitch.e.l.l, evading him, fled to the other end of the room, picked up his cap, and changed his manner. "Come on, ole bag o'

beans, let's be on our way to the 'frat house'; it's time. We'll call this all off."

"You better!" Ramsey warned him; and they trotted out together.

But as they went along, Fred took Ramsey's arm confidentially, and said, "Now, honestly, Ram, ole man, when _are_ you goin' to--"

Ramsey was still red. "You look here! Just say one more word--"

"Oh, _no_," Fred expostulated. "I mean _seriously_, Ramsey. Honestly, I mean seriously. Aren't you seriously goin' to call on her some Caller's Night?"

"No, I'm not!"

"But why not?"

"Because I don't want to."

"Well, seriously, Ramsey, there's only one Caller's Night before vacation, and so I suppose it hardly will be worth while; but I expect you'll see quite a little of her at home this summer?"

"No, I won't. I won't see her at all. She isn't goin' to be home this summer, and I wouldn't see anything of her if she was."

"Where's she goin' to be."

"In Chicago."

"She is?" said Fred, slyly. "When'd she tell you?"

Ramsey turned on him. "You look out! She didn't tell me. I just happened to see in the _Bulletin_ she's signed up with some other girls to go and do settlement work in Chicago. Anybody could see it. It was printed out plain. You could have seen it just as well as I could, if you'd read the _Bulletin_."

"Oh," said Fred.

"Now look here--"

"Good heavens! Can't I even say 'oh'?"

"It depends on the way you say it."

"I'll be careful," Fred a.s.sured him, earnestly. "I really and honestly don't mean to get you excited about all this, Ramsey. I can see myself you haven't changed from your old opinion of Dora Yoc.u.m a bit. I was only tryin' to get a little rise out of you for a minute, because of course, seriously, why, I can see you hate her just the same as you always did."

"Yes," said Ramsey, disarmed and guileless in the face of diplomacy. "I only told you about all this, Fred, because it seemed--well, it seemed so kind o' funny to me."

Fred affected not to hear. "What did you say, Ramsey?"

Ramsey looked vaguely disturbed. "I said--why, I said it all seemed kind o'--" He paused, then repeated plaintively: "Well, to me, it all seemed kind o'--kind o' funny."

"What did?" Fred inquired, but as he glanced in seeming naivete at his companion, something he saw in the latter's eye warned him, and suddenly Fred thought it would be better to run.

Ramsey chased him all the way to the "frat house."