The Continent Makers and Other Tales of the Viagens Read Online Free

purpose? It would wound my feelinks if you dit.”
    Brown shook his head. “Might as well shoot an elephant with a pea-shooter. You try, John.”
    Fitzgerald swung his massive arm and dealt Hithafea a swat that broke the paddle. He wrung his hand, looked at the other brothers, and said: “Guess we’ll have to consider you constructively paddled, Hithafea. Let’s get on to business.”
    The other pledges grinned, evidently glad to escape any further beating. As the brothers had been made to feel a little foolish, the fun seemed to have gone out of paddling for the time being. The brothers sternly commanded the pledges to show up at the house the following night for the Thanksgiving dance, to do the serving and messwork. Moreover, they were told to bring three cats each to the next pledge meeting, the following week.
    Hithafea as usual showed up an hour early for his duties at the dance, wearing a black bow tie around his scaly neck in deference to the formality of the occasion. John Fitzgerald, of course, brought Alice Holm, while Herbert Lengyel came stag and hovered uneasily, trying by an air of bored superiority to mask the fact that he would have liked to bring her himself.
    When Hithafea stalked in bearing a tray of refreshments, some of the girls, who were not Atlantic co-eds and so had never seen him before, shrieked. Alice, mastering her initial revulsion, said: “Are you dancing, Hithafea?”
    Hithafea said: “Alas, Miss Holm, I could not!”
    “Oh, I bet you dance divinely!”
    “It is not that. At home on Osiris I perform the fertility tance with the pest of them. Put look at my tail! I should neet the whole floor to myself, I fear. You have no idea how much trouple a tail is in a worlt where peinks do not normally have them. Every time I try to go through a swingink door—”
    “Let’s dance, Alice,” said Fitzgerald abruptly. “And you, Monster, get to work!”
    Alice said: “Why John, I think you’re jealous of poor Hithafea! I found him sweet!”
    “Me jealous of a slithery reptile? Ha!” sneered Fitzgerald as they spun away in the gymnastic measures of the Zulu.

    ###

    At the next pledge meeting a great yowling arose when the pledges showed up with three cats apiece, for which they had raided alleys and their friends’ houses and the city pound. Brother Brown said: “Where’s Hithafea? The Monster’s not usually late—”
    The doorbell rang. When one of the pledges opened it he looked out then leaped back with the alacrity if not the grace of a startled fawn, meanwhile making a froglike noise in his throat. There on the doorstep stood Hithafea with a full-grown lioness on a leash. The cats frantically raced off to other parts of the fraternity house or climbed curtains and mantel pieces. The brothers looked as if they would have done likewise if they had not been afraid of losing face before the pledges.
    “Goot evenink,” said Hithafea. “This is Tootsie. I rented her. I thought if I prought one cat bik enough it would do for the three I was tolt to pring. You like her, I trust?”
    “A character,” said Fitzgerald. “Not only a monster, but a character.”
    “Do I get pattled?” said Hithafea hopefully.
    “Paddling you,” said Fitzgerald, “is like beating a rhinoceros with a fly swatter.” And he set to work with a little extra vim on the fundaments of the other pledges.
    When the pledge meeting was over, the brothers went into conference. Brother Broderick said: “I think we’ll have to give ’em something more original to do for next time. Specially Hithafea here. S’pose we tell him to bring—ah—how about that set of false teeth belonging to that guy—that emperor or whatever he was of Osiris, in the museum?”
    Hithafea said: “You mean the teeth of our great Chief Inspector, Ficèsaqha?”
    “Yeah, Inspector Fish—well, you pronounce it, but that’s what I mean.”
    “That will be a kreat honor,” said Hithafea. “Pefore we go, Mr. Fitzcheralt, may I