his money on her. And he could scarcely wait until
opportunity should provide him with the means of gratifying
himself in this way.
But more interesting and more to his purpose at the time
was the fact that both Hegglund and Ratterer, in spite of, or
possibly because of, a secret sense of superiority which
they detected in Clyde, were inclined to look upon him with
no little interest and to court him and to include him among
all their thoughts of affairs and pleasures. Indeed, shortly
after his first adventure, Ratterer invited him to come to his
home, where, as Clyde most quickly came to see, was a life
very different from his own. At the Griffiths’ all was so
solemn and reserved, the still moods of those who feel the
pressure of dogma and conviction. In Ratterer’s home, the
reverse of this was nearly true. The mother and sister with
whom he lived, while not without some moral although no
particular religious convictions, were inclined to view life
with a great deal of generosity or, as a moralist would have
seen it, laxity. There had never been any keen moral or
characterful direction there at all. And so it was that
Ratterer and his sister Louise, who was two years younger
than himself, now did about as they pleased, and without
thinking very much about it. But his sister chanced to be
shrewd or individual enough not to wish to cast herself
away on just any one.
The interesting part of all this was that Clyde, in spite of a
certain strain of refinement which caused him to look
askance at most of this, was still fascinated by the crude
picture of life and liberty which it offered. Among such as
these, at least, he could go, do, be as he had never gone or
done or been before. And particularly was he pleased and
enlightened—or rather dubiously liberated—in connection
with his nervousness and uncertainty in regard to his charm
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or fascination for girls of his own years. For up to this very
time, and in spite of his recent first visit to the erotic temple
to which Hegglund and the others had led him, he was still
convinced that he had no skill with or charm where girls
were concerned. Their mere proximity or approach was
sufficient to cause him to recede mentally, to chill or
palpitate nervously, and to lose what little natural skill he
had for conversation or poised banter such as other youths
possessed. But now, in his visits to the home of Ratterer,
as he soon discovered, he was to have ample opportunity
to test whether this shyness and uncertainty could be
overcome.
For it was a center for the friends of Ratterer and his sister,
who were more or less of one mood in regard to life.
Dancing, card-playing, love-making rather open and
unashamed, went on there. Indeed, up to this time, Clyde
would not have imagined that a parent like Mrs. Ratterer
could have been as lackadaisical or indifferent as she was,
apparently, to conduct and morals generally. He would not
have imagined that any mother would have countenanced
the easy camaraderie that existed between the sexes in
Mrs. Ratterer’s home.
And very soon, because of several cordial invitations which
were extended to him by Ratterer, he found himself part
and parcel of this group—a group which from one point of
view—the ideas held by its members, the rather wretched
English they spoke—he looked down upon. From another
point of view—the freedom they possessed, the zest with
which they managed to contrive social activities and
exchanges—he was drawn to them. Because, for the first
time, these permitted him, if he chose, to have a girl of his
own, if only he could summon the courage. And this, owing
to the well-meant ministrations of Ratterer and his sister
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and their friends, he soon sought to accomplish. Indeed the
thing began on the occasion of his first visit to the Ratterers.
Louise Ratterer worked in a dry-goods store and often
came home a little late for dinner. On this occasion she did
not appear until seven, and the eating of the family meal
was postponed accordingly. In the meantime, two girl
friends of Louise arrived to consult her in connection with
something, and finding her delayed, and Ratterer and Clyde
there, they made themselves at home, rather impressed
and interested by Clyde and his new finery. For he, at once
girl-hungry and girl-shy, held himself nervously aloof, a
manifestation which they mistook for a conviction of
superiority on his part. And in consequence, arrested by
this, they determined to show how really interesting they
were—vamp him—no less. And he found their crude
briskness and effrontery very appealing—so much so that
he was soon taken by the charms of one, a certain
Hortense Briggs, who, like Louise, was nothing more than a
crude shop girl in one of the large stores, but pretty and
dark and self-appreciative. And yet from the first, he
realized that she was not a little coarse and vulgar—a very
long way removed from the type of girl he had been
imagining in his dreams that he would like to have.
“Oh, hasn’t she come in yet?” announced Hortense, on first
being admitted by Ratterer and seeing Clyde near one of
the front windows, looking out. “Isn’t that too bad? Well,
we’ll just have to wait a little bit if you don’t mind”—this last
with a switch and a swagger that plainly said, who would
mind having us around? And forthwith she began to primp
and admire herself before a mirror which surmounted an
ocher-colored mantelpiece that graced a fireless grate in
the dining-room. And her friend, Greta Miller, added: “Oh,
dear, yes. I hope you won’t make us go before she comes.
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110
We didn’t come to eat. We thought your dinner would be all
over by now.”
“Where do you get that stuff—‘put you out’?” replied
Ratterer cynically. “As though anybody could drive you two
outa here if you didn’t want to go. Sit down and play the
victrola or do anything you like. Dinner’ll soon be ready and
Louise’ll be here any minute.” He returned to the dining-
room to look at a paper which he had been reading, after
pausing to introduce Clyde. And the latter, because of the
looks and the airs of these two, felt suddenly as though he
had been cast adrift upon a chartless sea in an open boat.
“Oh, don’t say eat to me!” exclaimed Greta Miller, who was
surveying Clyde calmly as though she were debating with
herself whether he was worth-while game or not, and
deciding that he was: “With all the ice-cream and cake and
pie and sandwiches we’ll have to eat yet to-night. We was
just going to warn Louise not to fill up too much. Kittie
Keane’s givin’ a birthday party, you know, Tom, and she’ll
have a big cake an’ everythin’. You’re comin’ down, ain’t
you, afterwards?” she concluded, with a thought of Clyde
and his possible companionship in mind.
“I wasn’t thinkin’ of it,” calmly observed Ratterer. “Me and
Clyde was thinkin’ of goin’ to a show after dinner.”
“Oh, how foolish,” put in Hortense Briggs, more to attract
attention to herself and take it away from Greta than
anything else. She was still in front of the mirror, but turned
now to cast a fetching smile on all, particularly Clyde, for
whom she fancied her friend might be angling, “When you
could come along and dance. I call that silly.”
“Sure, dancing is all you three ever think of—you and
Louise,” retorted Ratterer. “It’s a wonder you don’t give
yourselves a rest once in a while. I’m on my feet all day an’
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111
I like to sit down once in a while.” He could be most matter-
of-fact at times.
“Oh, don’t say sit down to me,” commented Greta Miller
with a lofty smile and a gliding, dancing motion of her left
foot, “with all the dates we got ahead of us this week. Oh,
gee!” Her eyes and eyebrows went up and she clasped her
hands dramatically before her. “It’s just terrible, all the
dancin’ we gotta do yet, this winter, don’t we, Hortense?
Thursday night and Friday night and Saturday and Sunday
nights.” She counted on her fingers most archly. “Oh, gee!
It is terrible, really.” She gave Clyde an appealing,
sympathy-seeking smile. “Guess where we were the other
night, Tom. Louise and Ralph Thorpe and Hortense and
Bert Gettler, me and Willie Bassick—out at Pegrain’s on
Webster Avenue. Oh, an’ you oughta seen the crowd out
there. Sam Shaffer and Tillie Burns was there. And we
danced until four in the morning. I thought my knees would
break. I ain’t been so tired in I don’t know when.”
“Oh, gee!” broke in Hortense, seizing her turn and lifting her