Ralph Barbour - Right End Emerson

Stanley himself fell heir to the shortest straw and good-naturedly accepted his fate. “I’m the smallest, anyway,” he said. “Let’s wash up and look the place over. Any one for a swim?”

“I’d like a swim,” said Jimmy, “but it always gives me a fierce appetite, and I’m hungry enough right now to chew nails! Let’s sit on the porch and look wealthy. You don’t get so hungry if you sit still.”

Some two hours later the three boys were conducted across a large dining-room by an awe-inspiring head-waiter and seated at a table set for four. Jimmy looked approvingly at the crowded menu and passed it across to Harley. “Let’s not be choosey,” he suggested. “Let’s start right at the top and take things as they come.”

“Well, we can’t eat three kinds of soup,” said Harley.

“I could,” Jimmy replied. “But I’m going to have some clams first. Which soup is the fillingest?”

A boy of about their own age, which is to say seventeen or eighteen, began pouring water into the glasses, which led Jimmy to observe for the first time that the waiters were all masculine and youthful, though most of them were older than their own attendant. Just then Harley’s foot collided painfully with Jimmy’s ankle and the latter emitted a loud howl of anguish that attracted the disapproving curiosity of the neighboring diners.

“Shut up, you idiot!” whispered Stanley severely.

“That’s all right,” returned Jimmy aggrievedly, rubbing the injured ankle under the table, “but he pretty near killed me with that big hoof of his! Gee, Mac, what’s the prodigious conception?”

“Sorry,” muttered Harley, his eyes on the menu. “Do we all want clams? All right, clams for three, then.” This latter to the waiter at his elbow.

“Will you order your soup and fish now, please?” asked the waiter. “It saves time.”

“Sure. Let’s see. I’ll have the cream of celery. What’s yours, Stan?”

“Same, I guess.”

“Oxen tails for me,” said Jimmy. “And a large portion of that bluing fish.”

The waiter took himself off and Harley leaned toward Jimmy with a scowl. “Didn’t you see who that was, you dumb-bell?”

“See who what was?” asked Jimmy, glancing around blankly.

“The waiter, of course.”

“No, who was he? Charlie Chaplin?”

“Emerson, one of our fellows. You know him. A junior, I think.”

Jimmy shook his head. “I don’t know any Emerson, Mac. You mean the chap that’s waiting on us is an Alton fellow?”

“Sure! What did you think I kicked you for?”

“I thought you just wanted to show your love for me. What’s he doing here?”

“Waiting on table,” replied Stanley. “Haven’t you any eyes?”

“Yes, but I mean – Well, it seems a funny thing for an Alton fellow, doesn’t it?”

“Guess all these waiters are students,” returned Stanley. “College men, a lot of them. I suppose Emerson needs the money.”

“Well, yes, he would,” agreed Jimmy readily, “if he’s staying at this joint. I must have a look at him. I dare say I know him by sight. What’s he do?”

Harley shrugged. “Nothing much, I guess. Seems to me, though, he was playing on the second team last fall.”

“Football?”

Harley nodded, and Stanley confirmed him. “Yes, he’s been on the second a couple of years. You’ll remember him when you see him, Jimmy, for you must have played with him year before last.”

“Well, if he isn’t any faster on the field than he is here,” Jimmy grumbled, “it’s no wonder he’s never made the first. Do you fellows know him? I didn’t notice any warm hand-clasps!”

“Oh, I know him to nod to,” replied Harley, “but you don’t exactly expect to find your school fellows waiting on table in a public hotel. I dare say he doesn’t want to be recognized. Anyway, he didn’t speak to me.”

“Suppose he thought it was up to you to signal first,” said Jimmy. “After all, Mac, waiting in a summer hotel isn’t much different from waiting at college, and lots of corking chaps have done that. Here he is now, I guess. Making good time through a broken field, too! Just missed a tackle then! If that other fellow had got him it would have been good-by, clams! Yes, I’ve seen him lots of times, but I never knew his name.”

While the waiter placed the orders on the table Jimmy observed him. He was a well-made boy, slim yet muscular, a fact not entirely hidden by the ill-fitting waiter’s jacket that he wore. He had brown eyes, rather quiet seeming eyes, and brown hair that was very carefully brushed away from his forehead, and a fairly short nose. On the whole, Jimmy decided, Emerson, so far as his appearance went, was a credit to Alton Academy. That he had recognized the trio was very evident to the observer, and that he had no intention of making use of his slight acquaintance with Harley was equally evident. He spoke only when addressed and then carefully avoided the speaker’s eyes. Jimmy didn’t know whether Emerson felt any embarrassment, but he somehow wished that the impressive head waiter had seated them elsewhere. It was rather jarring to be served in this fashion by a chap you were likely to meet on the Green a week or so hence!

But Jimmy soon forgot that, for he was extremely hungry, the food was excellent, the waiter, in spite of having two other tables to serve, attended to their wants in quite professional fashion and the dinner passed off pleasantly and expeditiously. Toward the last of it Stanley presented a problem to them. “Say, fellows, how about tips?” he asked.

Harley frowned. “I was wondering,” he said. “Of course these fellows must take tips. I’ll bet the hotel doesn’t pay them much. But, just the same, it sort of goes against the grain, Stan.”

“Leave it till morning,” advised Jimmy. “Then we can slip a dollar under a plate when he isn’t looking.”

“A dollar!” ejaculated Harley. “Listen to the millionaire! It’s always been fifty cents for the bunch so far.”

“Oh, well, this is different,” replied Jimmy. “This guy’s one of us, you see. You can’t be a piker with one of your own School!”

And so the matter was left, and they moved from the dining-room rather ponderously and sighingly seated themselves in three rocking chairs on the broad veranda and, almost in silence, watched a huge orange-colored moon arise beyond the rim of the quiet ocean. The longest speech of the ensuing quarter of an hour was made by Jimmy. “Allowing fifty cents for breakfast and a dollar for my third of the bed to-night, I figure that I’ll be just twenty-five cents ahead of the house when we go our way!”

Later, having decided to play some pool as an aid to digestion, Jimmy paused as they passed through the lobby and fixed what he afterwards explained was an expression of triumphant gloat on the clerk behind the desk. This expression he continued until the clerk, happening to glance toward him, returned his look with one of mingled surprise and concern. Thereupon Jimmy ceased gloating and hurried after the others, who, meanwhile, had reached the billiard room just in time to secure the last pool table ahead of two disgruntled elderly plutocrats in dinner-jackets. These latter gentlemen, grumbling their displeasure, seated themselves, behind large and expensive cigars, on a leathern divan and watched the play of the trio with basilisk stares that interfered seriously with Stanley’s game. Harley and Jimmy refused to be intimidated, but after five games, all won by Harley, they acknowledged defeat and yielded the table to the besiegers. However, it was just on nine o’clock then, and, as Stanley wisely observed, they were paying good money for that room and so might as well make use of it. At ten they were fast asleep, as was befitting those who had traveled one hundred and eight miles since morning in Matilda!