"
" Good time you'll have," answered Peter Tounley.
" Coleman is cuttin' up scandalous. You won't stand a
show."
" What do you think of him ? " said Coke. " Seems
curious, all 'round. Do you suppose he knew she would
show up? It was nervy to--"
" Nervy to what? " asked Billie.
"Well," said Coke, " seems to me he is playing both
ends against the middle. I don't know anything about
Nora Black, but-"
The three other students expressed themselves with
conviction and in chorus. " Coleman's all right."
" Well, anyhow," continued Coke, " I don't see my way
free to admiring him introducing Nora Black to the
Wainwrights."
" He didn't," said the others, still in chorus.
" Queer game," said Peter Tounley. " He seems to
know her pretty well."
" Pretty damn well," said Billie.
"Anyhow he's a brick," said Peter Tounley. "We
mustn't forget that. Lo, I begin to feel that our Rufus is a
fly guy of many different kinds. Any play that he is in
commands my respect. He won't be hit by a chimney in
the daytime, for unto him has come much wisdom, I
don't think I'll worry."
"Is he stuck on Nora Black, do you know?" asked Billie.
" One thing is plain," replied Coke. " She has got him
somehow by the short hair and she intends him to holler
murder. Anybody can see that."
" Well, he won't holler murder," said one of them with
conviction. " I'll bet you he won't. He'll hammer the war-post
and beat the tom-tom until he drops, but he won't holler
murder.
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