"Slip the bolt then. They"ll make no end of a row if they get in!"
Andy slipped it, and only in time, for there came a rush of bodies against the portal, and insistent demands from Thad and his crowd to be admitted. Failing in that they besought Andy and Dunk to come out.
"Nothing doing! We"ve got dates!" announced Andy, and this was accepted as final.
They were just about to leave, quiet having been restored, when there came a knock.
"Who is it?" asked Dunk, suspiciously.
"Gaffington," was the unexpected answer. "Are you fellows coming to my blow-out."
Dunk looked at Andy and paused. Following the affair in Burke"s, where Gaffington had incited Dunk against Andy, the rich youth from Andy"s town had had little to say to him. He seemed to take it for granted that his condition that night was enough of an apology without any other, and treated Andy exactly as though nothing had occurred.
"Well?" asked Gaffington, impatiently.
"Sorry, old man," said Dunk, "but we both have previous engagements."
"Oh, indeed!" sneered Mortimer, and they could hear him muttering to himself as he walked away.
Then the two chums sallied forth. On the way Dunk reported the loss of his watch, to the discomfiture of the Dean, who seemed much disturbed by the successive robberies.
"Something must be done!" he exclaimed, pacing up and down the room.
Dunk also left word at the college maintenance office about the door that would not lock, and got the promise that it would be seen to.
"And now for the girls!" exclaimed Andy. "Do I know them?"
"No, but you soon will."
Andy was much pleased with the two young ladies to whom Dunk introduced him later. It appeared that one was a distant relative of Dunk"s mother, and the two were visiting friends in New Haven. Dunk"s "cousin," as he called her, had sent him a card, asking him to call, and he had made arrangements to bring Andy and spend the evening at the theatre.
Thither they went, happy and laughing, and to the no small envy of a number of college lads, the said lads making unmistakable signals to Dunk and Andy, between the acts, that they wanted to be introduced later.
But Andy and Dunk ignored their chums.
CHAPTER XXVII
JEALOUSIES
"Well, how did you like "em?" demanded Dunk.
"Do you mean both--or one?" asked Andy.
"Huh, you ought to know what I mean?"
"Or--_who_, I suppose," and Andy smiled.
He and his chum had come back to their room after taking home the girls with whom they had spent the evening at the theatre. There had followed a little supper, and the affair ended most enjoyably. That is, it seemed to, but there was an undernote of irritation in Dunk"s voice and he regarded Andy with rather a strange look as they sat in the room preparatory to going to bed.
"What did you and she find to talk about so much?" asked Dunk, suspiciously. "I brought Kittie Martin around for you."
"So I imagined."
"Yet nearly all the time you kept talking to Alice Jordan. Didn"t you like Miss Martin?"
"Sure. She"s a fine girl. But Miss Jordan and I found we knew the same people back home, where I come from, and naturally she wanted to hear about them."
"Huh! Well, the next time I get you a girl I"ll make sure the one I bring along doesn"t come from the same part of the country you do."
"Why?" asked Andy, innocently enough.
"Why? Good land, man! Do you think I want the girl I pick out monopolized by you?"
"I didn"t monopolize her."
"It was the next thing to it."
"Look here, Dunk, you"re not mad, are you?"
"No, you old pickle; but I"m the next thing to it."
"Why, I couldn"t help it, Dunk. She talked to me."
"Bah! The same old story that Adam rung the changes on when Eve handed him the apple. Oh, forget it! I suppose I oughtn"t to have mentioned it, but when I was all primed for a nice cozy talk to have you b.u.t.ting in every now and then with something about the girls and boys back in Oshkosh----"
"It was Dunmore," interrupted Andy.
"Well, Dunmore then. It"s the same thing. I"ll do--more to you if you do it again."
"I tell you she kept asking me questions, and what could I do but answer," replied Andy.
"You might have changed the subject. Kittie didn"t like it for a cent."
"She didn"t?"
"No. I saw her looking at you and Alice in a queer way several times."
"She did?"
"She did. So did Katy!" mocked Dunk, and his voice was rather snappish.
"Well, I didn"t intend anything," said Andy. "Gee, but when I try to do the polite thing I get in Dutch, as the saying is. I guess I wasn"t cut out for a lady"s man."
"Oh, you"re all right," Dunk a.s.sured his chum, "only you want to hunt on your own grounds. Keep off my preserves."