Page:The plastic age, (IA plasticage00mark).pdf/22

10 He hastened to explain that he did n’t know what Carl would have; so he thought that he had better wait and get his stuff at college.

“That’s the bean,” exclaimed Carl. He had perched himself on the window-seat. He threw one well shaped leg over the other and gazed at Hugh admiringly. “You certainly used the old bean. Say, I’ve got a hell of a lot of truck here, and if you’d ’a’ brought much, we’d ’a’ been swamped. . . . Say, I ’ll tell you how we ’ll fix this dump.” He jumped up, led Hugh on a tour of the rooms, discussed the disposal of the various pieces of furniture with enormous gusto, and finally pointed to the photographs.

“Hope you don’t mind my harem,” he said, mak¬ ing a poor attempt to hide his pride.

It’s some harem,” replied Hugh in honest awe. Again he felt ashamed. He had pictures of his father and mother, and that was all. He’d write to Helen for one right away. “Where’d you get all of ’em? You’ve certainly got a collection.”

“Sure have. The album of hearts I’ve broken. When I’ve kissed a girl twice I make her give me her picture. I’ve forgotten the names of some of these janes. I collected ten at Bar Harbor this summer and three at Christmas Cove. Say, this kid—” he fished through a pile of pictures—“was the hottest little devil I ever met.” He passed to Hugh a cabinet photograph of a standard flapper.