He had promised his mother a letter and he thought he had better go back and write it, and incidentally to think a little on the wisdom of this new contact. ? Chapter 8
N evertheless, the next day being a Saturday and half holiday the year round in this concern, Mr. Whiggam came through with the pay envelopes.
“Here you are, Mr. Griffiths,” he said, as though he were especially impressed with Clyde’s position.
Clyde, taking it, was rather pleased with this mistering, and going back toward his locker, promptly tore it open and pocketed the money.
After that, taking his hat and coat, he wandered off in the direction of his room, where he had his lunch.
But, being very lonely, and Dillard not being present because he had to work, he decided upon a trolley ride to Gloversville, which was a city of some twenty thousand inhabitants and reported to be as active, if not as beautiful, as Lycurgus.
And that trip amused and interested him because it took him into a city very different form Lycurgus in its social texture.
But the next day — Sunday — he spent idly in Lycurgus, wandering about by himself.
For, as it turned out, Dillard was compelled to return to Fonda for some reason and could not fulfill the Sunday understanding.
Encountering Clyde, however, on Monday evening, he announced that on the following Wednesday evening, in the basement of the Diggby Avenue Congregational Church, there was to be held a social with refreshments. And according to young Dillard, at least this promised to prove worth while.
“We can just go out there,” was the way he put it to Clyde, and buzz the girls a little.
I want you to meet my uncle and aunt. They’re nice people all right.
And so are the girls. They’re no slouches.
Then we can edge out afterwards, about ten, see, and go around to either Zella or Rita’s place.
Rita has more good records over at her place, but Zella has the nicest place to dance.
By the way, you didn’t chance to bring along your dress suit with you, did you?” he inquired.
For having already inspected Clyde’s room, which was above his own on the third floor, in Clyde’s absence and having discovered that he had only a dress suit case and no trunk, and apparently no dress suit anywhere, he had decided that in spite of Clyde’s father conducting a hotel and Clyde having worked in the Union League Club in Chicago, he must be very indifferent to social equipment.
Or, if not, must be endeavoring to make his own way on some character-building plan without help from any one.
This was not to his liking, exactly.
A man should never neglect these social essentials.
Nevertheless, Clyde was a Griffiths and that was enough to cause him to overlook nearly anything, for the present anyhow.
“No, I didn’t,” replied Clyde, who was not exactly sure as to the value of this adventure — even yet — in spite of his own loneliness — “but I intend to get one.”
He had already thought since coming here of his lack in this respect, and was thinking of taking at least thirty-five of his more recently hard-earned savings and indulging in a suit of this kind.
Dillard buzzed on about the fact that while Zella Shuman’s family wasn’t rich — they owned the house they lived in — still she went with a lot of nice girls here, too.
So did Rita Dickerman.
Zella’s father owned a little cottage upon Eckert Lake, near Fonda.
When next summer came — and with it the holidays and pleasant week- ends, he and Clyde, supposing that Clyde liked Rita, might go up there some time for a visit, for Rita and Zella were inseparable almost.
And they were pretty, too.
“Zella’s dark and Rita’s light,” he added enthusiastically.
Clyde was interested by the fact that the girls were pretty and that out of a clear sky and in the face of his present loneliness, he was being made so much of by this Dillard.
But, was it wise for him to become very much involved with him?
That was the question — for, after all, he really knew nothing of him.
And he gathered from Dillard’s manner, his flighty enthusiasm for the occasion, that he was far more interested in the girls as girls — a certain freedom or concealed looseness that characterized them — than he was in the social phase of the world which they represented.
And wasn’t that what brought about his downfall in Kansas City?
Here in Lycurgus, of all places, he was least likely to forget it — aspiring to something better as he now did.
None-the-less, at eight-thirty on the following Wednesday evening — they were off, Clyde full of eager anticipation.
And by nine o’clock they were in the midst of one of those semi-religious, semi-social and semi-emotional church affairs, the object of which was to raise money for the church — the general service of which was to furnish an occasion for gossip among the elders, criticism and a certain amount of enthusiastic, if disguised courtship and flirtation among the younger members.
There were booths for the sale of quite everything from pies, cakes and ice cream to laces, dolls and knickknacks of every description, supplied by the members and parted with for the benefit of the church.
The Reverend Peter Isreals, the minister, and his wife were present.
Also Dillard’s uncle and aunt, a pair of brisk and yet uninteresting people whom Clyde could sense were of no importance socially here.
They were too genial and altogether social in the specific neighborhood sense, although Grover Wilson, being a buyer for Stark and Company, endeavored to assume a serious and important air at times.
He was an undersized and stocky man who did not seem to know how to dress very well or could not afford it.
In contrast to his nephew’s almost immaculate garb, his own suit was far from perfect- fitting. It was unpressed and slightly soiled.
And his tie the same.
He had a habit of rubbing his hands in a clerkly fashion, of wrinkling his brows and scratching the back of his head at times, as though something he was about to say had cost him great thought and was of the utmost importance.
Whereas, nothing that he uttered, as even Clyde could see, was of the slightest importance. And so, too, with the stout and large Mrs. Wilson, who stood beside him while he was attempting to rise to the importance of Clyde. She merely beamed a fatty beam.
She was almost ponderous, and pink, with a tendency to a double chin. She smiled and smiled, largely because she was naturally genial and on her good behavior here, but incidentally because Clyde was who he was.
For as Clyde himself could see, Walter Dillard had lost no time in impressing his relatives with the fact that he was a Griffiths. Also that he had encountered and made a friend of him and that he was now chaperoning him locally.
“Walter has been telling us that you have just come on here to work for your uncle.
You’re at Mrs. Cuppy’s now, I understand.