It created some little astonishment, therefore, when one day at the boarding house table, Duncan said to those about him:
"I hear that you fellows are organizing some sort of club for social purposes. Why haven't you given me a chance to join?"
"We didn't think you would care for such things. You never go out, you know, and----"
"What is the purpose of your organization, if you don't mind my asking?"
"Oh, certainly not. We're simply making up a little group, which we call 'The Coterie,' to have a few dancing parties and amateur concerts, and the like, in the big hotel dining room, during the winter. We've a notion that the young people of Cairo ought to know each other better. Our idea is to promote social intercourse and so we're all chipping in to pay the cost, which won't be much."
Seeing glad assent in every countenance, he held out his hand for the subscription paper, and put down his name for just double the largest subscription on it. Then passing it back he said:
"I think I may be able to secure some support for so good an undertaking, from the business men of the city and from others--the lawyers, doctors, and the like. Your entertainments certainly ought to have the benefit of their countenance. At any rate, I'll see what I can do. I don't know that I shall myself be able to attend the dances and the like--in fact, I'm sure I shall not--but I'll do what I can to help the cause along."
He did what he could, and what he could was much. The solid men, when he brought the subject to their attention, felt that this was an extension of that work of Duncan's for the betterment of the town, which they so heartily approved. They subscribed freely to the expense, and better still, they lent personal countenance to the entertainments.
Guilford Duncan also attended one of the entertainments, though it had been his fixed purpose not to do so. The reason was that Guilford Duncan was altogether human and a full-blooded young man. From the time of his arrival at Cairo until now, he had not had any association with women. When such association came to him he accepted it as a boon, without relaxing, in any degree, his devotion to affairs.
It was the old story, related in a thousand forms, but always with the same purport, since ever the foundations of the world were laid.