Pepper/The Terrible Freshman
V
THE TERRIBLE FRESHMAN
INSTINCTIVELY they called him "The Terrible Freshman," but in the same spirit of paradox with which they might have bestowed the name of "Fido" upon a pet elephant. He was an undersized, anemic youth, with a penchant for clothes and haberdashery a few months ahead of the Broadway fashions, and he thought it denoted a maturity and worldly experience to profess that he never felt capable of undertaking breakfast until after the fifth cigarette.
He possessed about as much moral fiber as a mud turtle, but he had an allowance which was sinfully large; for his father, having led a most secluded and repressed boyhood, was rather pleased at the notion of entertaining a sport in the family. He sent Tommy Foster to Cambridge in the confident expectation of making a gentleman of him; and Tommy, discovering that no one was particularly interested in what he did or how he did it, took advantage of the opportunity to go to the devil as fast as he conveniently could.
Tommy engaged a room which happened to be on the same floor with Pepper McHenry and Monk Spinden, and after he had chastely decorated it with a class banner, a dozen assorted steins, and a set of art prints which would have astonished his fond parents, he put on a new suit of the musical-comedy variety, a vivid silk shirt, and an equally uproarious tie, and started out to make some friends who could show him a touch of high life in greater Boston. He found McHenry's door on the latch, delivered a sounding thump on one of the upper panels, and went in.
Now, there were certain times at which McHenry was essentially serious, and one of them was when he chanced to be occupied in concocting a humorous editorial for the Lampoon. When, therefore, he looked up from his inky labors to behold the Terrible Freshman standing nonchalantly by his center table, grinning cheerfully around the cigarette which he had carefully pasted to his upper lip, McHenry didn't display the enthusiasm of a commoner in the presence of royalty. He didn't—as Tommy had anticipated—leap to his feet, grasp the newcomer by the hand, and ask him as a special favor please to reveal the secret of who built his clothes. He didn't swing wide the doors of a cellaret and offer Scotch hospitality with seltzer on the side. He didn't even seem impressed by the silk shirt.
"Hello," said Tommy. "My name's Foster—I'm a freshman. Say, this is a nice room, isn't it? What are all those medals strung around your pictures, anyway? Can't we go out and get a high ball somewhere?"
McHenry wheeled in his desk chair and regarded the freshman with unconcealed amazement. Before he could phrase a suitable response, Monk Spinden burst in, and halted at sight of the simple pattern of black-and-white checks which adorned the person of young Mr. Foster.
"Oh—hello!" Tommy greeted him. "Put her there, old top!" He offered a flabby hand, and Spinden was so dazed that he accepted it. "I've seen you in the hall. My name's Foster; I'm a freshman."
"I wouldn't have known it," Spinden told him, gradually regaining his senses.
"Now, don't kid me," laughed Tommy, sinking into the cushions of McHenry's window seat. "Look here. I don't know anybody in this dump. Why don't you two be good fellows, and come in town with me to-night? It's on me. I've got a wad big enough to choke a horse. I want to speed it up, and make some friends."
"Don't worry," said McHenry. dryly. "A man with manners like yours—"
"Well, are you on?"
Together they shook their heads decisively.
"Out of the question, Mr. Foster."
"Can't be done," asserted Spinden.
"Well—then I'll have to scout around and find somebody else. Say, is there a bartender in Boston who knows how to mix a silver fizz? I had one yesterday that ruined me. You fellows will have to give me pointers until I learn the ropes." He rose and inspected McHenry's choicest shingle. "Is that a good club?" he inquired. "I'll have to let you put me up for it, if it is. Well—don't forget to drop in and see me. I'm in forty-one. You're McHenry, I know. But what's your name?"
"Spinden," said Monk shortly.
"Oh, sure! I've heard about you! Well, don't forget to look me up. You play poker, of course? We'll get up a good game any night you say. So long!"
He departed; and Spinden, leaning against the mantel, began to smile. McHenry snorted and turned back to his editorial.
"Nice little fellow," observed Monk mildly. "How'd you like to have him in your Sunday-school class? Gad! I don't see what people are thinking about to send a half-baked potato like that to a place like this! You're a fearful snob, Pepper. Why wouldn't you go on his party?"
McHenry laid down his pen and contemplated his friend soberly.
"Monk," he said, "there's a lad who's going to raise particular Cain around this place—as long as he stays here, and the indications are that it won't be so long at that! What bothers me is that there are plenty of men who'll let him spend his money. Did you get the noble brow of him? Regular dent, wasn't it? And then he'll go whooping around town, and people who are always looking for a chance to take a crack at this place will sneer and say he's a Harvard man! I'm darned near ready to go out and yell for eugenics this minute!"
"We don't have to look out for him—"
"No," agreed Pepper gravely, "but I can tell you this much: if some of those sanctimonious guys who hang around Brooks House would quit rooting quite so hard for their own precious little hobbies and go after a mutt like our friend Foster—and try to bang some sense into his silly head—I think it would be a lot better for the university in the long run."
"Sort of moral-uplift bureau for fool freshmen?" queried Spinden humorously.
"That's it exactly!" He got up and set about filling a calabash. "I tell you, Monk, when I see an animal like that let loose in Cambridge, it gives me the creeps! I wonder what we ought to do about it. Here's a freshman who's absolutely sure to make a horrible mess of the whole thing. It's a safe bet he'll be fired inside of six months unless somebody gets after him with a club. Goodness knows I'm no reformer, and you know perfectly well I don't yearn to associate with any fresh little tailor's dummy like this one. But do we want to let him go out and advertise this place? Because when you come right down to it, after he's passed his exams and paid the bursar's fee, he's as much a Harvard man as the rest of us."
"What are you going to do about it?" demanded the practical Spinden.
"Do?" He lighted the pipe. "I don't know."
"You weren't thinking of playing nurse, were you?"
"Might," said McHenry. "You never can tell."
Spinden smiled appreciatively.
"The idea of you guiding a freshman into the paths of rectitude is a new one—"
"Get it straight," warned Pepper. "Don't misunderstand me, Monk! I'm not going to take up any valuable time preaching to this young genius. It wouldn't work. Besides, we don't know yet that he's what you'd call wild. I'm only assuming that he is because of the way he talked. But simply for the sake of common decency, when I see a lad so hopelessly out of his element as Foster is in Cambridge, if I can do anything practical for him, by gosh! I'm going to do it, whether I like it or not, or whether he likes it or not!"
"Now you've got that out of your system," said Spinden, "I came in to see if you'd care to take in a little theater party to-night, with much refreshment afterward. Only, if you're so blamed virtuous all of a sudden—"
McHenry reached for his hat.
"That's all right," he explained easily. "The point is that you've got to make a fool of yourself in a dignified and proper manner, that's all!"
Yet the practical application of McHenry's principles came sooner than either of them had expected. On their return from town that night they found the Terrible Freshman, accompanied by three men who had apparently been willing to cement friendship with him at his expense, wandering down the middle of Mt. Auburn Street, singing in execrable close harmony the pathetic ditty entitled, "We're Here Because We're Here."
"It's up to us," said McHenry excitedly. "Those crazy idiots! Why, they'd be canned in a second—come on!"
Accordingly, they cut the Terrible Freshman neatly out of the procession, and, after explaining to the other men just what they thought of them, they half led, half carried Tommy Foster to No. 41, where they put him to bed in the room with the big crimson banner and the many art prints.
And that was the beginning of their guardianship.
II
It was, to say the least, a novel experience for McHenry, and he didn't pretend to explain it, even to himself. If Tommy Foster had been a friend of any of his own friends, or if the office had suggested that he keep an eye on the freshman, or even if the proctor had asked for advice in the management of a difficult situation, the thing would have been normal and logical.
As a matter of fact. Pepper detested the loose-lipped youth. He couldn't endure to converse with him for ten minutes at a stretch. Yet night after night, when he heard the voice of the Terrible Freshman on the stairs, and sensed the quality of his incoherence, he dropped his work and hurried out to cry "Shut up!" in a peremptory whisper, and to escort his charge past the proctor's study to the comparative security of forty-one. Once or twice he tried to reason with the man, but Tommy laughed in his face and wanted to know when he planned to matriculate at the divinity school.
With Spinden it was different, for the Terrible Freshman was rather in awe of the man who already had two H's to his credit, and got his photographs in the daily papers.
Spinden developed the disconcerting habit of dropping into Foster's room just when the clans were gathering, and, after narrating the convivial exploits of an entirely mythical crowd from the year before, remarked complacently that they had all been fired out of college and disowned by their families. His recitations proved such a wet blanket upon the fire of youth that Tommy and his friends took to playing poker somewhere else, but Spinden was optimistic enough to believe that they didn't play as often.
"Of course, the miserable little pup isn't studying at all," complained McHenry one evening in November. "I don't understand how in thunder he ever slid through the hour exams—he's on prob without any question—and the next thing is to see what he does at mid-years."
"Pepper' said Spinden, "how much longer are we going to keep up this giddy farce? What good does it do? Why should we bother our heads about it any longer? I'm through! You know what he's up to now?"
McHenry nodded.
"Stage-door effect' he admitted. "Yes—but—well, I'll tell you, Monk. You've heard me speak of my brother, haven't you? He's seven or eight years older than I am. Well, he came here, too, and he wasn't as rough as Tommy is, but he was a pretty live wire while he lasted. I don't mean he drank a lot, or anything like that, but he made a lot of noise around college, and flubbed along in his courses, and got dropped in sophomore year. And I can remember pretty clearly just how the family felt about it. It's just here: I don't give a rap for Tommy Foster one way or the other, but I've got a pretty good hunch that his family think he's a little tin god on wheels, and doesn't know the way he's acting. And I can imagine how they'd feel if he got thrown out—not for flunking, you know, but for conduct. That's about all."
"He told me himself," said Spinden, "his family lets him have anything he wants. They think he's a wonder. They haven't the least idea that he even smokes—and he said his dad would murder him if he knew how he sops up high balls. They think he's sporty about clothes and society and all that sort of rot, but they don't know the rest of it."
"And that's just the reason' said McHenry, "that I want him to be fired at mid-years—for poor scholarship!"
"What's that?"
"Yes—he's sure to be fired sooner or later, anyway, but what I'm afraid of is that the dean or somebody will get hold of his stunts in town, and fire him for some of the other things. Do you see the point?"
"In a way," conceded Spinden. "But—you know a lot of people are watching him, Pepper. The proctor's getting mighty suspicious, these days. I don't think he can hang around stage doors much longer without getting caught. That's a fact!"
"Then," announced McHenry firmly, "we'll have to take action, Monk. The Terrible Freshman will have to flunk out at mid-years and save his reputation!"
"Pepper," said Spinden, "I wish that sometimes—not always, but just once in a while—I could make you out!"
"Good Lord!" flashed McHenry. "Good Lord, Monk! You don't suppose the mere fact that I'm on the Lampoon prevents me from being human, do you?"
III
The Terrible Freshman had already gone from bad to worse, and it was evident that he was approaching the superlative. Now and then his self-appointed guardians saw him in town, where he apparently had not the common sense to refrain from dining at popular hotels and restaurants with "beauties" from the first row of the chorus. He came back to the dormitory so late now that McHenry was generally asleep; on one occasion the proctor wasn't, so that on the following morning Tommy was summoned to the dread office and given the final warning.
For a day or two his repentance was voluble; he wept on McHenry's rug, and alleged that if his father knew what was going on, he'd put him to work in the underwear factory at four dollars a week, and rewrite his will. He swore that he intended to cut out everything, even to cigarettes; on the strength of his statements, he borrowed twenty dollars from McHenry, and gave a farewell celebration at the Bova which became a classic and a marvel to succeeding generations that so much hilarity could be induced at so slight an expenditure.
There followed rumors of a prodigious session at cards which endured from late Saturday night to early Monday morning; and of an escapade in town which caused even the freshman's associates to shake their heads in horror at his daring. The climax came when Tommy Foster disappeared entirely from Cambridge for two days.
Pepper McHenry was laboring diligently at the biography of the immortal Samuel Johnson, when far down the corridor he heard Monk Spinden's voice shouting: "Pep! Oh—Pep!" It took McHenry one jump to disintegrate himself from the mass of collateral reading, and he went down the long hallway at a speed which would have done credit to a member of the track squad.
Foster's door was ajar, and from within came the sound of a mighty scuffle, mingled with slow exhalations from Spinden and a great deal of profanity on the part of Tommy Foster. Pepper stepped inside and slammed the door, just as his friend succeeded in pinning the Terrible Freshman to the divan and sitting on him.
"Look at that!" gasped Monk, indicating a slip of paper on the freshman's desk. "I caught him—when he was packing a suit case! Stop that, Tommy, or I'll swat you!"
"You—you coward!" wailed the boy. "You big stiff! Let me up! Let me up! Don't you read that, McHenry!"
Pepper, completely at a loss to comprehend the unequal combat, picked up the slip of paper and glanced curiously at it. Then he sat down very suddenly, and whistled.
"Why—" he said uncertainly. "Why—it's a—a license!"
"You let me go!"
"Monk—is he sober?"
"Partly," said Spinden, with immense contempt. "That is, I don't think he's had anything to drink, but he's plain crazy!"
The freshman abruptly covered his face, and began to sob brokenly. McHenry looked at him, while a dozen conflicting expressions chased themselves over his unlovely features.
"Well, this is a mess! What's it about, Monk?"
"Search me."
"It's none of our business, of course—it's none of our business—but, Monk, we can't let him go ahead."
"You try to stop me!"
"But what can we do?"
"For the love of Mike," retorted Spinden, "why do you think I yelled for you to come in here? You've got to think what we can do!"
McHenry, more shaken than Spinden had ever seen him, folded the paper carefully, and put it in an inside pocket. He went over and touched Tommy Foster on the shoulder.
"Look here, Tom," he said. "This—this won't do, you know. We're going to stop it. Not for you, you understand—we're all through with you—but for the people back home. It doesn't make any difference what you think about it. You can call us anything you like; only if you do, somebody in this room is going to get spanked! You're going to camp right here with Monk while I go in and try to straighten things out for you, and then you're going to write a letter to your father saying the work's too hard for you, and you're going to quit and come home. We're going to save you the trouble of being expelled from college: and after you've written the letter and I 've mailed it, and after we've put you on a train, then you can go and get another license if you have the nerve. We won't see you expelled—we won't subject the university to the disgrace of having to admit that you've ever been registered here. But you've got to quit! Do you get that?"
He made no answer.
"You can keep him here until I get back, can't you, Monk?"
"You bet I can," said Spinden grimly. "Where are you going?"
"In town. Do you know what this girl's real name—I mean her stage name is?"
"No—and he won't tell us. Only, it's a safe bet she's at the Metropolitan. That's where he's been hanging around for the last couple of months."
"All right. I'll fix it up somehow."
"Pepper! What in thunder can you do?"
McHenry paused on the threshold—and you never would have believed that his was the fame of a funny man.
"I don't know," he admitted. "But I'm going to do something!"
IV
As McHenry, dripping from the cold December rain, waited in the vestibule of the dingy boarding house, he realized that his quest had been much less difficult than he had assumed. A taxicab had taken him to the theater, where a vitriolic doorkeeper had insulted him, accepted a dollar bill, fawned upon him, and hunted up the address he demanded. In less than an hour from the time he left Harvard Square, McHenry was bidden to ascend the stairs of the boarding house, and obediently knocked at a cracked portal on the top floor. A feminine voice said: "Let her come!" and he entered.
It was a depressingly bare little room, furnished only with a small iron bed, a rickety chest of drawers, and a battered wardrobe. A trunk rested against the wall—a trunk locked and strapped. On the bed sat a very tall and astonishingly blond young woman, engaged in the polite occupation of manicuring her nails.
"Miss Taylor?" hazarded McHenry, and, noting that his muddy shoes made tracks on the carpet, he considerately stayed where he stood.
"That's me. I don't know you, do I?"
"Not yet."
"Sit down," she invited him, pointing to the trunk.
"No, thanks. I'll be here just a minute. I came in to see you on account of a-a friend—Tommy Foster."
The girl started, and put down her cuticle scissors. Her manner was distinctly unfavorable. She also snorted.
"Well?" she said shortly.
McHenry produced his handkerchief and wiped the perspiration from his forehead. Now that he was actually here he found that his usual presence of mind had deserted him.
"Well?" she repeated insistently.
"Well, the fact is—Tommy couldn't very well come in, so I came instead—to tell you—"
Her eyes were large and electric. He faltered.
"Is he sick?"
"N-no. Not exactly. But he couldn't come."
"Why couldn't he come? Go ahead. Don't be so slow!"
"I thought—perhaps you've been mistaken—about Tommy. I thought perhaps—you didn't understand—"
"Now, see here," said the girl, widening her eyes alarmingly, "you didn't come in here for nothing! What's the matter with Tommy Foster? Why am I mistaken? What don't I understand? Don't act so bloomin' upstage about it!"
McHenry used his handkerchief again. He felt very much embarrassed, not only at his errand, but also at the surroundings.
"I think perhaps—things have been misrepresented to you," he stammered. "I don't know what you think about Tommy—but you ought to know the truth—"
"What truth—go ahead with it!"
"He isn't coming in at all," he blurted.
For a moment he thought that she would take it calmly and philosophically; but that was only because she examined her nails for a moment without speaking. Then she raised her eyes; and never in his life had he looked into such unmercifully vengeful eyes. Instinctively he recoiled before their rancor.
"Indeed! Well, this is a nice little surprise party, isn't it?" Her voice lifted a tone or two. "And who are you—who are you, you namby-pamby little dude—coming in here to hand me any such line of conversation as that?" Her voice lifted again. "What business is it of yours? What are you butting in for? Why don't you keep your mouth shut?" Her last sentence was a positive bellow. "What do you know about it?"
"I know all about it. He's not coming!"
During the subsequent five minutes McHenry wondered how even such a man as Tommy Foster could ever have been fascinated by such a person as this Miss Taylor. Her language made far less impression on him than her complexion; and while she was uttering the worst of her adequate invectives he was merely wondering what would happen to her hair when the peroxide wore off. He waited patiently until her tirade dwindled to a few final adjectives, and she paused from sheer weariness, with the ultimate mention of a breach-of-promise suit. McHenry laughed.
"Don't be silly," he urged her. "I suppose you think Tommy has a lot of money—"
"I know it!"
"Well, that's where you're wrong. Tommy's one of the best little liars in this county. He hasn't a red cent except what his father gives him, and there wouldn't be much coming to you—afterward!"
"Oh, there wouldn't? A lot you know about it!"
"And as far as a breach-of-promise suit goes—I suppose you know how old he is? No doubt, you've had experience enough to know that you wouldn't get very far in court with a suit against an eighteen-year-old boy!"
"Eighteen! That's a lie. He's twenty-one!"
"He was seventeen when he came to Cambridge—he had a birthday last month."
The girl faced him threateningly.
"Where is he?" she cried. "I want to see him! He didn't send a mutt like you in to talk to me. I know Tom! This is some dirty trick of your own. Where is he?" She stamped her foot violently. "Where is he?"
McHenry played his last card.
"He's left college and gone back to Chicago," he told her quietly. "That's why I'm here—because I'm a friend of his, and he—he asked me to come and tell you he'd changed his mind!"
"Chicago! But his home is St. Louis!"
"Did he tell you that?" McHenry laughed again. "I told you Tommy's a keen little liar," he said.
The girl pondered for a dozen seconds.
"You see," added Pepper, "Tom likes to have people think he's a whale of a sport. I don't doubt he's told you all sorts of yarns about his money—and all that. Well, he was borrowing money from me all the time. I didn't know what it was for, but now I do. I don't doubt he asked you to marry him—but you can't nail him for it, and you know it as well as I do. The only reason I came in to see you was so as not to leave you absolutely in the dark when he didn't show up."
"And I went and bought a suit for thirty dollars—to take the train in—"
"Well," said McHenry dubiously, "I can't help that—"
"But the sneaking little liar left me broke—"
"Well," said McHenry again, "if that's the case —on your word of honor—I suppose I could fix it up with Tommy later—"
Only that morning he had cashed one of his ample allowance checks, so that the roll of bills he produced made the girl's eyes bulge. Quietly she stepped to the door, turned the key, held it up for McHenry's horrified inspection, and tossed it through the open window.
"Now!" she breathed, parting her lips in a venomous smile. "Now—you can just hand me that wad—or I'll scream!"
Pepper felt a queer, choking sensation at the back of his throat. He stood paralyzed, utterly incapable of thought or movement. To be discovered here—his muscles suddenly relaxed, and he grinned broadly, to the complete consternation and chagrin of the woman.
"All right," he said. "Scream and be hanged!" and he sat down comfortably on the trunk.
V
Toward dusk, Spinden, who was thoroughly weary of his part in the proceeding, heard McHenry's step in the corridor, and beamed upon his captive.
"Now we'll hear the news," he promised, but Tommy Foster failed to display due enthusiasm.
McHenry came in, and sighed heavily.
"Well—it's all right," he reported.
"Pepper!"
"Absolutely all right. She won't start anything."
The Terrible Freshman stared lugubriously at him, but said nothing.
"I'll tell you about it later. The principal thing now is for Thomas here to write a note to his family."
"I'll never do it!"
"Well," pacified McHenry, "you'll be spanked if you don't. You can take your choice."
The freshman sniveled abjectly.
"What do you—want me to write?"
"Two letters—I forgot one to the dean. You can write home first. My motto is always: Do it now. Go over to that desk. Tommy, and write just exactly what I tell you. Get up. Monk, and give him the chair."
Tommy dragged himself to the desk, and picked up a pen.
"My dad—my dad will murder me!" he quavered.
"No, he won't," disputed McHenry. "He'll only talk a lot, and start you to work—which'll be good for you! And you can paste this in your hat: you 're going to write him that you 're quitting because the work is too hard. Tommy, but if I hadn't gone in town for you this afternoon, and taken a few young chances myself, you'd have been expelled—and then I hope he would have murdered you! Are you all ready?"
The Terrible Freshman dropped his head on the blotter and wept.
"Come on," advised Spinden. "Buck up, Tommy—be a man!"
"I won't write it!"
"Oh, yes, you will," McHenry assured him. "Because, you know, I've got that license in my pocket—and I'll send it out there as sure as shooting."
"But—but my dad—"
"Tom," said Pepper, as kindly as he could, "I don't trust you as far as I can see you. Only you can trust me, and you know it! As soon as you hear from your dad, and as soon as you're on a train headed for home, I'll burn this thing in my own fireplace—and that's all anybody will ever know about it, unless you tell. But if you don't write just what I tell you, and write it without any more dramatics around here, I tell you I'll send it to your father to-night by special delivery! Just get this straight: you 're quitting because the work is too hard! Now begin. 'Dear father.'"
With the tears running down his cheeks, the Terrible Freshman wrote, "Dear father."
VI
In the first place, McHenry had to go over to the office and harangue the dean for two solid hours, for Tommy Foster, who was on probation anyway, would ordinarily have been expelled for having cut two successive days with no excuse. In fact, the decree was already promulgated, but McHenry had a flow of eloquence which he had often used in his own behalf, and found supplemented to a satisfactory richness when he was defending another culprit. The upshot of the interview was that the administrative board relented, and allowed Tommy Foster to resign, which also meant that no communication regarding his defects would be held with his parents.
For the next three days, McHenry and Spinden took turns watching over the Terrible Freshman, and on the fourth came a seventeen-page missive from his father. It opened with rage, developed into accusation, mellowed into pure reason, and ended with the consoling statement that it might be better, under all the circumstances, for Tommy to leave college before his intellect broke down under the severe strain of lectures and night study. He could live at home, the letter said, go into the factory, and probably advance much farther in the commercial world than if he had to begin under the handicap of four years spent in academic training which doesn't concern itself especially with the problem of manufacturing and distributing mesh underwear.
Then McHenry and Spinden sold Tommy's furniture for him, bought him a ticket home, and put him on the train. There were still salty rivulets on his cheeks when they shook hands with him at Back Bay, but it didn't occur to him to thank them.
"I wonder," mused Spinden, when the two friends were smoking companionably in McHenry's room that evening, "if the little runt would have amounted to anything if we'd let him stay? It would be an awful wallop for us to think that maybe this episode would have straightened him out, and made a man out of him."
"No—It couldn't be done, Monk. I'm satisfied to get him out of here without his family knowing. They'll still think he's a tin god on wheels. But it's up to them now! I'm satisfied."
"The one thing that peeves me," said Spinden aggrievedly, "is that you won't tell me what happened when you went in town that afternoon."
"Well—I didn't intend to—it wasn't necessary—but if you really want to know—"
"I do that," insisted Spinden. He listened to the narrative with great attention, and drew in his breath heavily at the crisis. "But—but, Pepper!" he gasped. "How in thunder—how could you get away from that!"
McHenry grinned.
"Like rolling off a log," he explained. "I simply called her attention to the facts. You see, it was muddy outdoors, and there was a carpet on the floor. I stood right in one place, and then sat down on the trunk. My footprints were all right there by the door. And the window was wide open—and there was a Are escape!"