216 THE BOOK OF THE CLASS OF NINETEEN-ELEVEN
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it was two weary days after Rosie’s feat that I stopped at Low Buildings on my way to the
Bonfire to leave a bundle of arguments at Miss Crandall’s door, and as for Cranie—well I
never dared ask her whether she finally wrote that parody. Suffice it to say that we mounted
the platform on Thursday in fear and trembling, knowing that Argumentation had not had
time to go up.
Such duties, you may think, were sufficient to fill our time to overflowing. True enough,
but since they’ were all matters which should have been attended to before, they had to be
relegated to odd moments, witness Rosie. There were speeches to be written—Leila had
seven besides two sermons and an opera,—skits to be worked up, transparencies to be painted,
chairs to be carried, lemonade to be made, quarts and quarts of lemonade stretching in end-
less rows of tin buckets from Pembroke to the Tramp Woods, Japanese lanterns to be hung,
Garden Party hats to be trimmed, songs to be practised, songs to be written, mothers to
amuse, suitors to take for walks, and last but not least Garden Party correspondence to
be dealt with. I can still see Betty Taylor—for such is the lot of AS during Commence-
ment Week,—sitting in Senior Row in the midst of a dreary stretch of white cards, regaling
her Byron-devouring neighbours under the next tree with such choice specimens as this:
“Mr. Pembroke West,
“Dear Sir: ,
“Yours received. Wife and self pleased to accept your invitation to a Garden Party
in honour of Miss Emma Yarnall. Hope it won’t rain.
“Yours respectfully,
Enocu Jones.”
I cannot, however, write with great accuracy of these events. For me, the doings of
Commencement Week are veiled in a cloud of advertisements. You see the combined
weight of class-book and exams bowled Hilpa over. Then John undertook the job. But
the next day she was carried on a stretcher to the Infirmary. (Whether it was the C. B.
or her longing to be joined again to Dotty is an open question. Dotty, you remember, had
betaken herself to the Infirmary as a City of Refuge from Garden Party cards.) At any
rate, the day of my last exam as I was stumbling up Taylor steps, my eyes buried in my notes,
Amy grabbed me.
“Won't you business manage the Class-book?” she gasped. She looked so pleadingly
at me, her hands full of tabs, that I assented, although during the next hour I found my mind
