“Yes there will.”
“I’m talking about Swedish Haven.”
“I’ll never be able to go back to Princeton, or face my Princeton friends.”
“Who came to say goodbye to you when you left?”
“Oh, four or five fellows.”
“Then remember them and forget about the others. Those four or five will defend you, and the others don’t matter.” She sighed. “Nobody matters.”
“Are you getting tired?”
“Yes I am, a little. I think there must be something else wrong with me besides just my heart. Not that my heart isn’t enough. What a nuisance it is, being an invalid.”
“I’ll let you sleep.”
“All right. Come in before you go to bed, I’m usually reading. I’m reading a book about a woman that got a new start in life, but her story isn’t at all like yours. She goes away with a man, and comes back home without marrying him. Before she goes away she was like Cinderella, the ugly duckling, but my! what an illicit romance does for her self-confidence. It was written by a woman, but I don’t believe a word of it. And that Princeton book they’re all talking about. Don’t they ever study there?”
“As little as possible. That’s why some of us have to cheat in exams.”
“Oh, Géorgie—well, it’s on your mind.”
He saw from the second-story landing that his luggage had been taken to his room. He went downstairs and noticed that only one place was set at the diningroom table.
“Hello, May. Hello, Margaret,” he said, in the kitchen. “Is the table set for me or for my father?”
“Welcome home,” said May. “It’s set for you. Your father’s having his dinner at the Gibbsville Club. He has some meeting he has to go to, and he couldn’t wait.”
“All right. I’m ready any time you are,” he said. “Oh—is Henry around?”
“He has the day off.”
“I thought I saw his light on.”
“He’s in his room, but it’s his day off,” said May.
“Is that so?” said Bing Lockwood. He went to the wall telephone and pushed the Garage button. “Henry, this is George.”
“George Who?”
“George Bingham Lockwood Junior.”
“It’s my day off.”
“I won’t be bothering you very often after tomorrow. My trunk is coming from Princeton, New Jersey. I want it readdressed to me, care of—write this down now, please—care of Jack King, Rancho San Marcos, San Luis Obispo County, California.”
“You’re going too fast for me. All that Spanish.”
George gave him the address more slowly. “Have you got it now?”
“Care of Jack King, Rancho San Marcos. San Luis Obispo County. California. You don’t want me to bring the trunk home. Just re-address it and have it put on the next train. Who’s going to pay for this?”
“I’m sure my father will be glad to pay for it.”
“Don’t you know some way you could put it on your ticket?”
“I haven’t bought my ticket.”
“Well, buy it, and tell Ike Wehner to readdress the trunk. That would simplify matters. And save a lot of money. If you knew you were going all the way to California, why didn’t you have the trunk sent from Princeton, instead of this roundabout way?”
“I wasn’t sure I was going to California. Now I am.” He hung up.
“You going all the way to California?” said May.
“All the way.”
“What happened? Did you get in some kind of trouble at the college?” said Margaret.
“I sure did. I cheated in my exams.”
“Aw, now, tell us the truth. What did you do?”
“I told you. I cheated in my exams.”
“All right, if you don’t want to tell us. Did you get in trouble over a girl?”
“Liquor, more likely,” said May.
“Why more likely liquor?” said George.
“Because they don’t take girls at your college,” said May.
“There’s the other kind, that always hang around where the young fellows congregate,” said Margaret. “Anyway, we’re not gonna get it out of him what it was, women or booze.”
“Or maybe both. My nephew is attending the Penn State, and those frats. The things that go on there you’d never believe. The Princeton frats would be worse.”
“Why?” said George.
“A wealthier class of boys go there and they have more money. They’re much worse.”
“No, only during one week,” said George.
“One week?” said Margaret.
“Yes. Once a year they have a custom at Princeton called Orgy Week, and you’re allowed to have as many women as you like in your room.”
“Staying there?” said Margaret.
“Of course. Anything is allowed during Orgy Week, except to have a professor’s wife in your room. If you’re caught with a professor’s wife you have to translate fifty lines of Horace.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Margaret.
“I don’t know whether I believe it or not,” said May.
“Ask my father. Ask him sometime if he ever had to translate fifty lines of Horace.”
“Fifty lines of horrors? What does that mean?”
“It probably means you have to write down fifty lines of horrible things,” said May.
“Well, I knew that,” said Margaret. “Fifty lines of horrors, what else could it mean? But is there some book that has all these horrors in it?”
“I’ll send you a copy.”
“Not to me. I don’t want the postman knowing I got such a book,” said Margaret.
“I have an old one upstairs,” said George.
“I never saw it,” said May. “Did your father get caught with a professor’s wife?”
“Just watch his face when you ask him.”
“I might get fired,” said May.
“You might at that. Princeton men aren’t supposed to talk about Orgy Week, not to outsiders.”
“When is this week?”
“When is it? It varies from year to year. Sometimes in the fall, sometimes in the spring. The student council decides. You get an announcement that Orgy Week is going to start on such-and-such a day. Most of the professors’ wives leave town, just to be on the safe side. But there are always a few of them that stay.”
“The young ones, I guess. The pretty ones,” said May.
“Mostly the young and pretty ones,” said George. “But I wouldn’t have anything to do with a professor’s wife. Fifty lines of Horace— not worth it.”
“You’d be better off if you stayed away from women entirely,” said Margaret.
“He’s old enough. Twenty-two,” said May.
“I don’t care how old he is or how young he is. Look at the trouble he’s in already, going to California.”
“What’s the name of this week you’re talking about?” said May.
“Orgy Week. It was named after John W. Orgy, he was the professor of pederasty at Princeton in 1865 and he started the whole thing. Professor John W. Orgy. Easy name to remember. There’s a statue of him in Nassau Hall.”
“Huh. I don’t swally it,” said Margaret.
“I suppose John W. Orgy wasn’t professor of pederasty?” said George. “I suppose there’s no statue of him in Nassau Hall?”
“Well, maybe he was a famous professor of that thing, but don’t try to make me believe a professor would start a thing like that,” said Margaret.
“Not an ordinary professor, maybe, but a professor of pederasty would. I don’t think you know what pederasty is, Margaret.”
“I heard of it. It’s some kind of a medical subject. The bones in the human body,” said Margaret.
“See, you don’t know. You’ve got it confused with ortho-pederasty. The two aren’t the same at all.”