Page:The Gentle Grafter (1908).djvu/62

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THE GENTLE GRAFTER

twenty-even cravenetted gowns and caps for the senior class, and an open order for all the truck that goes with a first-class university. I took it on myself to put a campus and a curriculum on the list; but the telegraph operator must have got the words wrong, being an ignorant man, for when the goods come we found a can of peas and a curry-comb among ’em.

“While the weekly paper was having chalk-plate cuts of me and Andy we wired an employment agency in Chicago to express us f. o. b., six professors immediately—one English literature, one up-to-date dead languages, one chemistry, one political economy—democrat preferred—one logic, and one wise to painting, Italian and music, with union card. The Esperanza bank guaranteeed salaries, which was to run between $800 and $800.50.

“Well, sir, we finally got in shape. Over the front door was carved the words: ‘The World’s University; Peters & Tucker, Patrons and Proprietors.’ And when September the first got a cross-mark on the calendar, the come-ons begun to roll in. First the faculty got off the tri-weekly express from Tucson. They was mostly young, spectacled and red-headed, with sentiments divided between ambition and food. Andy and me got ’em billeted on the Floresvillains and then laid for the students.

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