Belles on their Toes

father sold his produce business and bought some stocks."
    Ern and Al appeared in the dining room with their arms around each other's waists. Al had hung up his raccoon coat and porkpie hat, and there was a ring around his patent-leather hair, where the hat-band had rested.
    "We'll leave your suitcases and ukulele in the hall," Ern told him. "I'll see that our man takes them to the guest room." She glanced apprehensively toward the butler's pantry, but Tom was fortunately in the kitchen, out of earshot.
    Just as at Nantucket, Al still seemed a little too colegiate. Only now he also seemed a little too opulent. His clothes were new, extreme, and expensive. His plus-eight knickers hung almost to his shoes, and a jeweled tie pin sparkled above the neck of his blue and white checked sweater.
    Al was smiling, and very handsome. He considerd himself well in command of the situation.
    "Greetings and salutations, everybody," he said. 'Just one great big happy family, eh?"
    We said greetings and we guessed he was right. All the boys stood up—Ernestine had instructed them carefully on that.
    "I'd like you to meet my mother," Ernestine said formally. "Mother, may I present Mr. Lynch."
    "How do you do, Mr. Lynch," said Mother. "We've all been looking forward to your visit."
    "Meased to pleet you," Al chuckled, wringing her hand. "Meased to pleet you. My friends call me Al."
    "That's nice," Mother said, favoring him with what was meant to be a cordial smile. But she looked as if she wondered what his enemies called him; and as if, providing they were searching for a word, she might be able to supply it.
    "And this is Anne," Ernestine said. "She's just home from Michigan."
    "Press the flesh," said Al, pressing it. He didn't exactly go into a clog dance when he put out his hand. But you had the feeling that he might. "Where have you been all my life, baby?"
    We thought Anne was going to tell him she had been hiding from him, but instead she swallowed and asked him how things were at Sagiwan Agricultural and Technical.
    "Fine and dandy," Al boomed. "Couldn't be better. I guess you read about how we massacred the football team from Wallace Teachers?"
    "Isn't that," Anne guessed, "the traditional Turkey Day classic?"
    "It sure is," Al agreed. "You read about it, eh?"
    "It was splashed all over the front pages of the papers out in Michigan," Anne said innocently. "I wish I had thought to save you the clippings."
    Ernestine introduced him to the rest of us, and we all pressed the flesh. He pulled a chair up backwards to the table, and sat with his legs straddling the back.
    "Did you pipe the chariot?" he asked Ern, pointing nonchalantly, hitch-hiker fashion, with his thumb toward the window.
    "Why, no," said Ern. "Where is it?" She went to the window. "Gosh, is that yours? Why, isn’t that Packard?"
    "A little something the old man gave me for christmas. Cost more than two thousand beans."
    "Does that answer your question?" Anne asked Martha.
    "Isn't that grand," Ernestine exclaimed. But there seemed to be some doubt in her voice. Al in Montclair, with the family, didn't seem quite so attractive as he when they were alone in Nantucket.
    While he was eating the tapioca Mother served Al told us about how he had scored two touchdowns against Wallace Teachers; about how the old man was building a little twenty-room place, that would cost seventy-five thousand beans, on the Niagara River; about how the Tau Tau Taus had stolen a small structure from a farmer's backyard and had put it on the front porch of the Tri-Alph house, just before the guests arrived for the big annual homecoming swing-out.
    We listened, even supplying the necessary polite laughter. But we knew now, if ever there had been doubt, that he wasn't the man for Ernestine.
    Al and Ern decided to go riding in the Packard after lunch. Al was buttoned up snugly in his fur coat and Ern not so snugly in her wool one. It was below freezing, and Ern was a little worried about whether she'd be warm enough in the open car.
    "It's all right, baby," Al assured her as they said good-by to us in the hall. "If you get cold I'll give part of my coat—the sleeves."
    He threw his arms around her, to demonstrate, then turned her loose, roared, slapped his knee, and actually nudged Mother.
    "I think, Ern," said Mother, wincing and looking as if she'd like to wrap Al's ukulele around his ears, "that you'd better run upstairs and get a blanket."
    Ern went and got one, and then they were off to