was dead gone on Lilla. He gave me this watch on my last birthday. It’s platinum and diamond. Isn’t it great? He brought me out in his car this morning or I would have had to wait two hours. When I found out what time this little old train started, I just called up his apartment, and he came right down and got me and took me up to his place for breakfast. He has the darlingest apartment all by himself with a servant to wait on him and the most wonderful meals! And he’s going to have a theater party for me some night with a dinner afterward at his apartment. Won’t that be simply great? I’m to ask any two girls from school I like, and he will get the men. And by the way, Daddy, I’ve invited a house party for the first week in June. You don’t mind, do you? There are ten of the girls in my class, and I’ve promised them the time of their life. The fellows will be here only at the weekend. They have to be back at prep Monday morning. Their old school doesn’t close for another two weeks after ours.”
His most amazing child had rattled on without letup thus far, and this was the first period he had been able to grasp. He hurried to make use of it, meanwhile glancing nervously at the clock. “School!
Yes. School! May I ask why you are not in school yourself?”
“Oh!” she wreathed the dimples coquettishly around her lips. “Why, didn’t you know I had been expelled?” She dimpled charmingly as though it were something to be proud of. “I suppose Lilla didn’t tell you because she was afraid you’d be shocked, but you might as well know all about it at the start. It saves misunderstandings. You see, we had a pajama party!”
“A pajama party!” cried the horrified father.
“Oh now, Daddy Pat! You needn’t pull a long face and make out you never did such things. You know you had jazzy times when you went to school, and you can’t be young but once. There isn’t anything so terrible in a pajama party! You see the whole trouble was I got caught out on the fire escape in mine and all the rest got away, so I had to be expelled, but it was fun. I don’t care. I’d do it all over again just to see how Guzzy Foster—that’s the math prof—looked when that ice and salt went down his back. You see it was this way. One of the girls had a box of treats from home, and she happened to tell one of the boys from the military prep that she had it, and he coaxed to get some of the things. So May Beth told him if he and some of his friends would come under the fire escape at exactly midnight she’d drop down a box of cake for them. Well, everything went all right till the party was almost over and the girls had eaten all they could stuff, and they had the box for the boys all packed and I was to go out and throw it down to them because May Beth had an awful cold and her pajamas were just thin silk and she was all of a shiver anyway from eating so much cold ice cream. So I said I didn’t mind even if it was cold. I thought it would be fun, and I went out with the box and whistled softly for the boys, and they answered once, and then it was all very still. It was moonlight, and I could see them lined up among the bushes on the campus. I swung the box over the railing and whispered, ‘Here she comes,’ and just as I did it I somehow caught my toe in the burlap that came off the ice-cream freezer—I had on Tillie Irvin’s pink satin slippers with forget-me-nots on them, and she was sore as a boil at me about that, too—and then before I knew what was happening, I somehow hit the ice-cream freezer and knocked it over, and slosh! Out went all the sloppy ice and salt water through the iron grating on the fire escape, and I looked down and there was Guzzy Foster—he and his wife have their apartment right under my room, and we thought they were away for the weekend, that’s why we chose my room for the party. He was just inside his window with his head stuck out of an old red bathrobe looking up—the old
His most amazing child had rattled on without letup thus far, and this was the first period he had been able to grasp. He hurried to make use of it, meanwhile glancing nervously at the clock. “School!
Yes. School! May I ask why you are not in school yourself?”
“Oh!” she wreathed the dimples coquettishly around her lips. “Why, didn’t you know I had been expelled?” She dimpled charmingly as though it were something to be proud of. “I suppose Lilla didn’t tell you because she was afraid you’d be shocked, but you might as well know all about it at the start. It saves misunderstandings. You see, we had a pajama party!”
“A pajama party!” cried the horrified father.
“Oh now, Daddy Pat! You needn’t pull a long face and make out you never did such things. You know you had jazzy times when you went to school, and you can’t be young but once. There isn’t anything so terrible in a pajama party! You see the whole trouble was I got caught out on the fire escape in mine and all the rest got away, so I had to be expelled, but it was fun. I don’t care. I’d do it all over again just to see how Guzzy Foster—that’s the math prof—looked when that ice and salt went down his back. You see it was this way. One of the girls had a box of treats from home, and she happened to tell one of the boys from the military prep that she had it, and he coaxed to get some of the things. So May Beth told him if he and some of his friends would come under the fire escape at exactly midnight she’d drop down a box of cake for them. Well, everything went all right till the party was almost over and the girls had eaten all they could stuff, and they had the box for the boys all packed and I was to go out and throw it down to them because May Beth had an awful cold and her pajamas were just thin silk and she was all of a shiver anyway from eating so much cold ice cream. So I said I didn’t mind even if it was cold. I thought it would be fun, and I went out with the box and whistled softly for the boys, and they answered once, and then it was all very still. It was moonlight, and I could see them lined up among the bushes on the campus. I swung the box over the railing and whispered, ‘Here she comes,’ and just as I did it I somehow caught my toe in the burlap that came off the ice-cream freezer—I had on Tillie Irvin’s pink satin slippers with forget-me-nots on them, and she was sore as a boil at me about that, too—and then before I knew what was happening, I somehow hit the ice-cream freezer and knocked it over, and slosh! Out went all the sloppy ice and salt water through the iron grating on the fire escape, and I looked down and there was Guzzy Foster—he and his wife have their apartment right under my room, and we thought they were away for the weekend, that’s why we chose my room for the party. He was just inside his window with his head stuck out of an old red bathrobe looking up—the old
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