"She's vamping you, Harold!"... "Stop it; Gloria; he's a good boy." And
so on until the picture ended in the usual close-up of the hero and
heroine silhouetted in a tender embrace against the setting sun. The
boys breathed "Ahhhh" and "Ooooh" ecstatically--and laughed. The
meretricious melodrama did not fool them, but they delighted in its
absurdities.

The lights flashed on and the crowd filed out, "wise-cracking" about the
picture and commenting favorably on the heroine's figure. There were
shouts to this fellow or that fellow to come on over and play bridge,
and suggestions here and there to go to a drug store and get a drink.

Hugh and Carl strolled home over the dark campus, both of them radiant
with excitement, Hugh frankly so.

"Golly, I did enjoy that," he exclaimed. "I never had a better time. It
was sure hot stuff. I don't want to go to the room; let's walk for a
while."

"Yeah, it was pretty good," Carl admitted. "Nope, I can't go walking;
gotta write a letter."

"Who to? The harem?"

Carl hunched his shoulders until his ears touched his coat collar.
"Gettin' cold. Fall's here. Nope, not the harem. My old lady."

Hugh looked at him bewildered. He was finding Carl more and more a
conundrum. He consistently called his mother his old lady, insisted that
she was a damned nuisance--and wrote to her every night. Hugh was