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MOSQUITOES
257

“I don’t care: I’m going,” she repeated stubbornly. Her aunt said vainly:

“Theodore!”

“Well, I can’t do anything, for her,” he complained bitterly. “I can’t move, for her. And now she’s talking about going—She worried Hank until he had to say she could go. God knows, I’d ’a’ said that too: I wouldn’t want her around me all the time.”

“Shut your goddam mouth,” his sister told him. Mrs. Maurier chanted “Patricia, Patricia.” “I’m going, I’m going, I’m going!”

“What’ll you do up there?” Fairchild asked. The niece whirled, viciously belligerent. Then she said:

“What’d you say?”

“I mean, what'll you do to pass the time while he’s at classes and things? Are you going to take some work, too?”

“Oh, I’ll just go around with balloon pants. To night clubs and things. I won’t bother him: I won’t hardly see him, he’s such a damn crum.”

“Like hell you will,” her brother interrupted, “you’re not going, I tell you.”

“Yes, I am. Hank said I could go. He said I could. I—”

“Well, you won’t ever see me: I’m not going to have you tagging around after me up there.”

“Are you the only one in the world that’s going up there next year? Are you the only one that'll be there? I’m not going up there to waste my time hanging around the entrance to Dwight or Osborne hall just to see you. You won’t catch me sitting on the rail of the Green with freshmen. I’ll be going to places that maybe you'll get into in three years, if you don’t bust out or something. Don’t you worry about me. Who was it,” she rushed on, “got invited up for Prom Week last year, only Hank wouldn’t let me go? Who was it saw the game last