Mindful of past liberal patronage of the Hamilton College girl and with a shrewed eye to the future the druggist himself ushered the arriving party of merry girls into the store and obligingly supplied a couple of large packing boxes in which to stand the dripping umbrellas. Despite Robin’s despairing opinion that the store would not hold the umbrella-laden brigade they managed to crowd into it.

By eleven-thirty the last girl had arrived at the rendezvous. They were a cheery, light-hearted, buoyant company regardless of their cramped quarters. Their appreciation of Signor Baretti’s invitation to be his guests at a Thanksgiving dinner showed itself in their bright faces, spontaneous laughter and gay holiday air.

“It’s one minute past eleven-thirty, and no busses. I’m going to find out what is the matter.” Robin made the low-toned announcement to Phil and Barbara with an air of desperation. “I’m going to ’phone Sabini’s garage where the busses are kept. I can’t imagine what can have happened to make them late. I wish you two would keep a sharp lookout for them. If they should come while I am ’phoning you can hurry back to the ’phone booth and let me know.”

“Suppose they shouldn’t come. What then?” Barbara regarded Robin with lively apprehension.

“Don’t ask me.” Robin raised a hand as though to ward off such a catastrophe. “Let’s not suppose anything quite so harrowing,” she added in a more hopeful tone.

Ten minutes later she emerged hastily from the telephone booth. Her expression was one of acute dismay. She made hurried way, in and out among the crowded company of girls, to where Phil and Barbara were anxiously keeping up a watch at one of the big front windows.

“One of the busses has broken down!” she cried excitedly. “The other bus is out somewhere. The man at the garage who answered me doesn’t know where. I tried to hire cars from the garage. There are none to be had. How are we going to land the dormitory girls at Baretti’s by one? And we can’t ask Signor Baretti to serve the dinner later!”

“What an awful state of affairs!” Barbara echoed Robin’s consternation. “We’ll have to do something very suddenly to offset it. What about hiring the station taxicabs; all of them, if we can get them.” was her quick suggestion.

“We might do that,” Phil hailed the idea eagerly. “There are five or six of them. With our car and Lillian Wenderblatt’s we could carry the gang to the inn at one trip. Go ahead, Robin, and ’phone Mariani’s garage. I’ll ’phone Lillian.”

“You’re a wonder and a comfort to my distracted old age, Phil.” Robin showed grateful relief. “Watch me start on the trail of those taxies. Never mind the expense.” She darted back to the telephone booth she had recently left. Phil followed her; slipped into an adjoining booth and proceeded to call Lillian Wenderblatt on the telephone.

Among the waiting company of girls a loud buzz of dismayed conversation had now risen concerning the non-appearance of the busses. Anna Towne, Florence Wyatt and Marian Barth, seniors and members of the new Travelers’ sorority, were anxiously discussing the situation with a group of their particular friends.

At least a third of the off-campus students who had lived in the old houses, which had been demolished to make place for the dormitory, now in process of building, were seniors. While they, with the students of the lower classes, had been familiarly termed by the Travelers among themselves as the “dormitory girls,” they hardly hoped to have the pleasure of living even a few weeks in the dormitory before their graduation from college. Far from being disappointed at this prospect they did not stop to consider themselves but showed only the utmost satisfaction in the good fortune which would fall to the other two-thirds of the off-campus contingent.

In themselves the dormitory girls were the finest student element at Hamilton. Originally brought together, and gradually welded into a congenial, self-governing body by the efforts of Marjorie, Robin and the Travelers, these earnest, capable girls were daily living up to the Hymn to Hamilton.

As president of the senior class sunny-faced, easy-going Phil Moore was their idol, Barbara, as her chum and intrepid co-worker, was hardly less worshiped. The moment Barbara left Phil to make her way back to the window she was eagerly surrounded and plied with concerned questions.

“Don’t give up this ship, children,” she gaily declared, raising her voice above the flood of questions which assailed her. “Robin is ’phoning for taxies from the station and Phil is ’phoning for Miss Wenderblatt and her car. We shall manage O. K. without the busses.”

Barbara’s assurances were received with jubilant cries of acclamation from the effervescently happy girls. While she was in the midst of them she happened to glance toward the back of the store. Phil was just emerging from the ’phone booth a pleased smile on her face. She paused before the booth which held Robin and peered in through the glass panel. Robin was still busy ’phoning, it appeared. Phil turned, saw Barbara looking toward her and waved a re-assuring hand. It signified that her part of the telephoning had been successful.

A false alarm of: “Here comes a bus!” caused a surging of the crowd to the window. Through the rain a large dark red milk truck had been mistaken for one of the busses. When Barbara finally turned away from the window it was to find Phil and Robin beside her. Phil was no longer smiling. Her blue eyes were full of resentment. Robin’s face was a mixture of dismay, indignation and perplexity.

“What do you think?” she blazed forth to Barbara. “That miserable Mariani person won’t let us have a single taxi! He claims they are all in use and will be the rest of the day. He was so hateful to me. He asked me very sarcastically why we did not use the busses today since we used them every other day instead of his taxicabs.”

“We certainly are in a pickle. Uh-h-h.” Barbara simulated collapse. “I’d forgotten all about it, but someone told me long ago that those two Italians, Mariani and Sabani have been at daggers drawn for years. Sabani once had the station jitneys, and all to himself. Then came Tony Mariani with a better looking lot of cars, and ran Sabani out. Then Sabani built a garage and ran that, but he swore never to accommodate anyone who patronized Mariani. The bus line belongs to Sabani. I suppose he has registered the same vow against Mariani.”

“Then we might as well count them both out,” was Robin’s dispirited ultimatum. “Did you ever know worse luck? To have all our plans upset because a couple of Italianos are ready to swear a vendetta!”

“If only we could capture a truck. I’d drive it myself,” Phil valiantly declared. “But it’s a holiday,” she added with a hopeless shrug of her shoulders.

“That milk truck is the only one I’ve seen today,” said Barbara mournfully.

“We’ll have to deliver the guests to Baretti in private cars,” was Robin’s undaunted decision. “Thus far we have two; ours, and Lillian’s is likely to be here any minute. I’ll start at once with seven girls. You two stay here and start Lillian’s car back with seven more the instant she comes. It’s twelve o’clock now. We have exactly one hour. Phone Gussie Forbes and Calista Wilmot. They both have cars. They will help us out. So will Laura Mead and Norma Buchanan. I almost forgot our new Travelers. If those four girls can make one trip apiece, each taking seven or eight girls to a car, Lillian and I can make a trip and a half apiece in an hour. We simply must.”

To think was to act with Robin. She had hardly finished sketching her plan to her chums before she had begun to marshal seven of the dormitory girls to the door.

“Follow me,” she laughingly directed. “I’m going to make a rapid sprint for my car. You do the same. Never mind your umbrellas. You’ve not time to hunt them out now. I’ll bring them to the campus later in the car.”

Across the walk she dashed, an intrepid little leader, and opened the door of the car nearest to her. Her followers, close at her heels, merrily stowed themselves into the automobile. A moment or two and Robin was in the seat and had started the car.

The palm-screened window of a florist’s shop across the street afforded an excellent view of Robin and her party of girls to an interested spectator. Leslie Cairns had gone to the pains of donning leather coat, knickers, rubber hood and high-laced boots, and actually walking in the downpour from the Hamilton House to the florist’s shop opposite the bus stand. Her idea was not that of taking a rainy-day constitutional. Leslie had posted herself behind the barrier of leafy green for the express purpose of watching the working out of a little plan of her own.