The Class Read Online Free PDF Page B

couldn't," Newall answered with bravado, quickly adding, "come on let's get this paraphernalia up the stairs. Andy and I'll take the couch." And then, turning to the largest member of their trio, he called out, "Can you manage that chair by yourself, Wigglesworth?"
    "No sweat," the tall athlete replied laconically. And with that he lifted the huge armchair, placed it on his head as if it were a large padded football helmet, and started up the stairwell.
    "That's our mighty Mike," Newall quipped. "Fair Harvard's future crew immortal and the first man from this college who'll play Tarzan in the movies."
     
     
     
    "Just three more steps. Please, you guys," Danny Rossi implored.
    "Hey, listen, kid, the deal was we'd- deliverY it. You
    didn t say there would be stairs. We always take pianos in an elevator."
    "Come on," Danny protested, "you guys knew that they don't have any in Harvard dorms. What's it going to take for you to deliver this up just three more steps into my room?
    "Another twenty bucks," replied one of the burly delivery men.
    "Hey, look, the damn piano only cost me thirty-five."
    "Take it or leave it, kid. Or you'll be singin' in the rain." -
    "I can't afford twenty bucks," Danny moaned.
    "Tough titty, Harvard boy," growled the more talkative of the two movers. And they ambled off.
    Danny sat there on the steps of Holworthy for several
    minutes pondering his great dilemma. And then the notion came to him. -
    He placed the rickety stool in position, lifted the lid of the ancient upright, and began, first tentatively and then
    with increasing assurance, to animate the fading ivories with
    "The Varsity Drag."
    Since most of the windows in the Yard were open because of the Indian Summer weather, it was not long before a crowd

surrounded him. Some spirited freshmen even began
    to dance. To get in shape for conquests up at Radcliffe and on other social battlefields.
    He was terrific. And his classmates were genuinely
    thrilled to discover what a talent they had in their midst.
    ("The guy's another Peter Nero," someone remarked.) At last Danny finished-or thought he had. But everybody clapped and shouted for more. So he started taking requests for pieces as varied as "The Saber Dance" and "Three Coins in the
    Fountain." -
    At last, a university polieeman happened on the scene. It was just what Danny had been hoping for. -
    "Listen," the officer growled, "you can't play a pianer outside in the Yard. You gotta move this here instrument into a dorm."
    The freshmen booed.
    "Hey, listen," Danny Rossi said to his enthusiastic audi- ence. "Why don't we all bring this piano up the stairs to my room and then I'll play all night."
    There were cheers of assent as half a dozen of the strongest present started carrying Danny's upright with festive alacrity.
    "Wait a minute," the cop warned, "remember, no playing after ten P.M. Them are the rules."
    More hisses, boos, and grunts as Danny -Rossi politely answered, "Yes, sir, Officer. I promise I'll only play till dinnertime."
     
     
     
    Though he, of course, was not privileged to be moving from the cubicle he'd occupied throughout his high school days, Ted Lambros nonetheless spent much of that afternoon purchasing essential items in The Coop. -
    First and foremost, a green bookbag, a must for every serious Harvard man-a utilitarian talisman that carried the tools of your trade and identified-you as a bona fide scholar. He also bought a large, rectangular crimson banner whose white felt letters proudly boasted "Harvard-Class of
    1958," And, while other freshmen were hanging identical chauvinistic fabrics on the walls of their dormitories in the Yard, Ted hung his over the desk in his tiny bedroom.
    For good measure, he acquired an impressive-looking pipe

- from Leavitt & Pierce, which he would someday learn to smoke.
    As the afternoon waned, he checked and rechecked his carefully purchased secondhand wardrobe and inwardly pronounced himself ready to meet tomorrow's Harvard