"Oh!" responded Nan, drily, much amused to hear Bess Harley so very practical.
The practicality of the discussion might be doubted by anybody save boarding-school girls. Bess quickly proved to her own satisfaction, if not entirely to Nan's, that the small, "after-hours supper" was the most popular form of entertainment then in vogue at Lakeview Hall.
"You know, Cora Courtney and that crowd are always talking about a strawberry festival that she and Linda Riggs engineered last June. And now they are planning to have another big spread soon in some room on their corridor."
"Well," observed Nan, "we won't be invited to it."
"No. And they won't be invited to ours," cried Bess, promptly.
"If we have a spread," agreed Nan.
"It's just the thing," Bess pursued, very enthusiastic. "Eating promotes fellowship----"
"And indigestion," laughed Nan. "Especially such a combination as Laura had in her room the other night--sour pickles, ice-cream cones, and salted peanuts."
"Whew! that was fierce!" acknowledged Bess. "I didn't eat much; but I felt squirmy, just the same, after it. But if we give the girls the big eats, let's have something nice, but digestible."
"Let's!" agreed Nan. "Of course, it's against the rules----"
"Oh, dear, now! don't begin that," begged Bess.
"We--ell----"
"They all do it. If Dr. Beulah wasn't so awfully strict about our having what she calls a 'plain, wholesome supper,' and refusing to let us add sweets, and the like, to the supper bill-of-fare, I'm sure the girls wouldn't be dying for these spreads."
"If the girls had what they wanted at supper, Dr. Prescott would have to charge about twice what she does now for tuition and board at Lakeview Hall."
"Never mind that," said Bess, briskly. "The question is: Shall we have the spread?"
"If you like," agreed Nan.
So it was decided. With twenty-five dollars they could have a bountiful feast.
"A dollar a plate will give us a delightful supper, with salad, and ices, and all," said Bess, who knew more about such things than Nan, for her mother entertained a great deal in Tillbury.
"But how'll we ever get such things up to our room?" gasped Nan.
That puzzled Bess.
"And twenty-five girls would just about swamp us," Nan added.
"Oh, dear!"
"Hire a hall?" suggested Nan, roguishly.
"Now, don't, Nan Sherwood! You're dreadful!" cried Bess, almost in tears as she saw her castle in the air dissolving.
"Wait!" commanded Nan, good-naturedly patting her chum on the shoulder.
"All is not yet lost! Up and at 'em, guards! Never say die!"
"I'd just set my heart on the biggest kind of a spread," mourned Bess.
"I wanted anything Cora, and Linda, and Mabel, and that set did, to look like a punctured jitney."
"Oh, Bess! what language!"
"We--ell."
"Now let me think," said Nan, seriously.
"Think what?"
"Thoughts, of course, goosey!" laughed Nan. "Wait! First we must plan to have the spread in a sufficiently roomy place."
"But it's got to be in the Hall," cried Bess.
"Or near it," suggested Nan.
"What do you mean?"
"Listen!" commanded Nan, dramatically. "I have thought of just the place. We can get the goodies brought around from the caterer in Freeling, in a boat, and nobody'll be the wiser."
"But where--what?" demanded Bess.
So Nan told her.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE FATEFUL EVENING DRAWS NEAR
Bess Harley had said the discussion of how to spend the five pound note was a serious matter; and when the conference was concluded and the two chums separated to attend different classes, Bess' countenance certainly looked very grave.
Nan was secretly amused at the way in which her friend had taken the suggestion as to the place at which the proposed feast should be held.
The thought had come to Nan in a flash; but to carry the scheme through was to test the courage of some of her school friends.
Bess was too proud, after all, to refuse to meet the terms on which her chum agreed to give the banquet; but it was plain she thought the suggestion a risky one. So she carried a rather glum face to Mademoiselle's music class, while Nan sought Professor Krenner for--yes!--a lesson in architectural drawing.
Actually, Nan had taken up this elective study. She had demurely marked a cross against that study at first, in a spirit of mischief. She liked queer old Professor Krenner from the start; and she had threatened on the train coming up from Chicago, to become his pupil in the art which he admitted was his hobby. The professor was surprised nevertheless when Dr. Prescott passed Nan's name over to him without comment.
But once caught in the mesh of his own net, Professor Krenner was game.
He put Nan down before him in the classroom, where the boards were for the most part covered with mathematical problems, and began to talk seriously, but in a popular strain, of form, color, and periods of architecture.
He was interested himself and he interested Nan. She took fire from his enthusiasm. He went to the board and illustrated his meaning with bold, rapid strokes of the chalk. He even erased problems and examples, in his eagerness to explain to an intelligent, youthful mind, ideas that he had long since evolved but had not put into words before.
"Hoity-toity!" he cried at last, in his odd, querulous way. "I've rubbed out half my work for to-morrow. Nancy Sherwood, you've bewitched me.
You've set me talking on a theme I don't often touch. Now, are you satisfied?"