by Max Shulman
“Who is this?” he said.
“This is Dobie Gillis. Who is this?”
“Who did you wish to speak to?”
Clearly, I was getting nowhere. I hung up.
Then I went and knocked on the door of Ed Beasley’s room. Ed was a new pledge of the fraternity, and he was part of my third plan. He opened the door. “Enter, master,” he said in the manner required of new pledges.
“Varlet,” I said, “I have a task for you. Take yon telephone book and look through it until you find the name of the people who have telephone number Kenwood 6817.”
“But, master—” protested Ed.
“I have spoken,” I said sharply and walked off briskly, rubbing my palms.
In ten minutes Ed was in my room with Roger Goodhue, the president of the fraternity. “Dobie,” said Roger, “you are acquainted with the university policy regarding the hazing of pledges.”
“Hazing?”
“You know very well that hazing was outlawed this year by the Dean of Student Affairs. And yet you go right ahead and haze poor Ed. Do you think more of your own amusement than the good of the fraternity? Do you know that if Ed had gone to the dean intead of me we would have had our charter taken away? I am going to insist on an apology right here and now.”
Ed got his apology and walked off briskly, rubbing his palms.
“We’ll have no more of that,” said Roger, and he left too.
I took the phone book myself and spent four blinding hours looking for Kenwood 6817. Then I remembered that Petey had said the girl was new around here. The phone book was six months old; obviously her number would not be listed until a new edition was out.
The only course left to me was to try calling the number again in the hope that she would answer the phone herself. This time I was lucky. It was her voice.
“Hello,” I cried, “who is this?”
“Why, it’s Dobie Gillis,” she said. “Daddy said you called before. Why didn’t you ask to talk to me?”
“We were cut off,” I said.
“About tonight: I can go to the broadcast with you. I told Daddy we were going to the library to study. So be sure you tell the same story when you get here. I better hang up now. I hear Daddy coming downstairs. See you at eight. ’Bye.”
“Goodbye,” I said.
And goodbye to some lovely ideas. But I was far from licked. When I drove up to her house at eight in a car I had borrowed from a fraternity brother (I wisely decided not to try the Driv-Ur-Self people again), I still had a few aces up my sleeve. It was now a matter of pride with me. I thought of the day I had recited the senior-class poem at Salmon P. Chase High School and I said to myself, “By George, a man who could do that can find a simple girl’s name, by George.” And I wasn’t going to be stupid about it either. I wasn’t going to just ask her. After all this trouble, I was going to be sly about it. Sly, see?
I walked up to the porch, looking carefully for some marker with the family name on it. There was nothing. Even on the mailbox there was no name.
But in the mailbox was a letter! Quickly I scooped it out of the box, just in time to be confronted by a large, hostile man framed in a suddenly open doorway.
“And what, pray, are you doing in our mailbox?” he asked with dangerous calmness.
“I’m Dobie Gillis,” I squeaked. “I’m here to call on your daughter. I just saw the mail in the box and thought I’d bring it in to you.” I gave him a greenish smile.
“So you’re the one who hung up on me this afternoon.” He placed a very firm hand on my shoulder. “Come inside, please, young man,” he said.
The girl was sitting in the living room. “Do you know this fellow?” asked her father.
“Of course, Daddy. That’s Dobie Gillis, the boy who is going to take me over to the library to study tonight. Dobie, this is my father.”
“How do you do, Mr. Zzzzzm,” I mumbled.
“What?” he said.
“Well, we better run along,” I said, taking the girl’s hand.
“Just a moment, young man. I’d like to ask you a few things,” said her father.
“Can’t wait,” I chirped. “Every minute counts. Stitch in time saves nine. Starve a cold and stuff a fever. Spare the rod and spoil the child.” Meanwhile I was pulling the girl closer and closer to the door. “A penny saved is a penny earned,” I said and got her out on the porch.
“It’s such a nice night,” I cried. “Let’s run to the car.” I had her in the car and the car in low and picking up speed fast before she could say a word.
“Dobie, you’ve been acting awfully strange tonight,” she said with perfect justification. “I think I want to go home.”
“Oh no, no, no. Not that. I’m just excited about our first real date, that’s all.”
“Sometimes you’re so strange, and then sometimes you’re so sweet. I can’t figure you out.”
“I’m a complex type,” I admitted. And then I went to work. “How do you spell your name?” I asked.
“Just the way it sounds. What did you think?”
“Oh, I thought so. I just was wondering.” I rang up a “No Sale” and started again. “Names are my hobby,” I confessed. “Just before I came to get you tonight I was looking through a dictionary of names. Do you know, for instance, that Dorothy means ‘gift of God’?”
“No. Really?”
“Yes. And Beatrice means ‘making happy,’ and Gertrude means ‘spear maiden.’”
“Wonderful. Do you know any more?”
“Thousands,” I said. “Abigail means ‘my father’s joy,’ Margaret means ‘a pearl,’ Phyllis means ‘a green bough,’ and Beulah means ‘she who is to be married.’” My eyes narrowed craftily; I was about to spring the trap. “Do you know what your name means?”
“Sure,” she said. “It doesn’t mean anything. I looked it up once, and it just said that it was from the Hebrew and didn’t mean anything.”
We were in front of the broadcasting studio. “Curses,” I cursed and parked the car.
We went inside and were given tickets to hold. In a moment Dr. Askit took the stage and the broadcast began. “Everyone who came in here tonight was given a ticket,” said Dr. Askit. “Each ticket has a number. I will now draw numbers out of this fishbowl here and call them off. If your number is called, please come up on the stage and be a contestant.” He reached into the fishbowl. “The first number is 174. Will the person holding 174 please come up here?”
“That’s you,” said the girl excitedly.
I thought fast. If I went up on the stage, I had a chance to win $64. Not a very good chance, because I’m not very bright about these things. But if I gave the girl my ticket and had her go up. Dr. Askit would make her give him her name and I would know what it was and all this nonsense would be over. It was the answer to my problem. “You go,” I told her. “Take my ticket and go.”
“But, Dobie—”
“Go ahead.” I pushed her out in the aisle.
“And here comes a charming young lady,” said Dr. Askit. He helped her to the microphone. “A very lucky young lady, I might add. Miss, do you know what you are?”
“What?”
“You are the ten thousandth contestant that has appeared on the Dr. Askit quiz program. And do you know what I am going to do in honor of this occasion?”
“What?”
“I am going to pay you ten times as much as I ordinarily pay contestants. Instead of a $64 maximum, you have a chance to win $640!”
“I may have to pay $640 to learn this girl’s name,” I thought, and waves of blackness passed before my eyes.
“Now,” said Dr. Askit, “what would you like to talk about? Here is a list of subjects.”
Without hesitation she said, “Number Six. The meaning of names of girls.”
I tore two handfuls of upholstery from my seat.
“The first one is Dorothy,” said Dr. Askit.
“Gift of God,” replied the girl.
“Right! You now have $
10. Would you like to try for $20? All right? The next one is Beatrice.”
Two real tears ran down my cheeks. The woman sitting next to me moved over one seat.
“Making happy,” said the girl.
“Absolutely correct!” crowed Dr. Askit. “Now would you care to try for $40?”
“You’ll be sorry!” sang someone.
“Like hell she will!” I hollered.
“I’ll try,” she said.
“Gertrude,” said Dr. Askit.
“Forty dollars,” I mourned silently. A sports coat. A good rod and reel. A new radiator grille for a Driv-Ur-Self car.
“Spear maiden,” said the girl.
“Wonderful! There’s no stopping this young lady tonight. How about the $80 question? Yes? All right. Abigail. Think now. This is a toughie.”
“Oh, that’s easy. My father’s joy.”
“Easy, she said. Easy. Go ahead,” I wept, as I pommeled the arm of my seat, “rub it in. Easy!”
“You certainly know your names,” said Dr. Askit admiringly. “What do you say to the $160 question? All right? Margaret.”
“A pearl.”
The usher came over to my seat and asked if anything was wrong. I shook my head mutely. “Are you sure?” he said. I nodded. He left, but kept looking at me.
“In all my years in radio,” said Dr. Askit, “I have never known such a contestant. The next question, my dear, is for $320. Will you try?”
“Shoot,” she said gaily.
“Phyllis.”
“A green bough.”
“Right! Correct! Absolutely correct!”
Two ushers were beside me now. “I see them epileptics before,” one whispered to the other. “We better get him out of here.”
“Go away,” I croaked, flecking everyone near me with light foam.
“Now,” said Dr. Askit, “will you take the big chance? The $640 question?”
She gulped and nodded.
“For $640—Beulah.”
“She who is to be married,” she said.
The ushers were tugging at my sleeves.
“And the lady wins $640! Congratulations! And now, may I ask you your name?”
“Come quietly, bud,” said the ushers to me. “Please don’t make us use no force.”
“Great balls of fire, don’t make me go now!” I cried. “Not now! I paid $640 to hear this.”
“My name,” she said, “is Mary Brown.”
“You were sweet,” she said to me as we drove home, “to let me go up there tonight instead of you.”
“Think nothing of it, Mary Brown,” I said bitterly.
She threw back her head and laughed. “You’re so funny, Dobie. I think I like you more than any boy I’ve ever met.”
“Well, that’s something to be thankful for, Mary Brown,” I replied.
She laughed some more. Then she leaned over and kissed my cheek. “Oh, Dobie, you’re marvelous.”
So Mary Brown kissed me and thought I was marvelous. Well, that was just dandy.
“Marvelous,” she repeated and kissed me again.
“Thank you, Mary Brown,” I said.
No use being bitter about it. After all, $640 wasn’t all the money in the world. Not quite, anyhow. I had Mary Brown, now. Maybe I could learn to love her after a while. She looked easy enough to love. Maybe someday we would get married. Maybe there would even be a dowry. A large dowry. About $640.
I felt a little better. But just a little.
I parked in front of her house. “I’ll never forget this evening as long as I live,” she said as we walked to the porch.
“Nor I, Mary Brown,” I said truthfully.
She giggled. She put her key in the front door. “Would you like to come in, Dobie—dear?”
“No, thanks, Mary Brown. I have a feeling your father doesn’t care for me.” Then it dawned on me. “Look!” I cried. “Your father. You told him you were at the library tonight. What if he was listening to the radio tonight and heard you on the Dr. Askit program?”
“Oh, don’t worry. People’s voices sound different over the radio.”
“But the name! You gave your name!”
She looked at me curiously. “Are you kiddin’? You know very well I didn’t give my right name.… DOBIE! WHY ARE YOU BEATING YOUR HEAD AGAINST THE WALL?”
The Mock Governor
I first saw her in Professor Pomfiritt’s political science class. In a sweater. When the class was over, I came up to her. “I’ll get right to the point,” I said. “I love you.”
“You kill me,” she said.
“You are the most beautiful woman in the freshman class,” I said.
“You knock me out,” she said.
“Possibly in the whole University of Minnesota,” I said.
“You fracture me,” she said.
“Take me to meet your folks,” I said.
“They’re on a world cruise,” she said. “I’m living with my uncle.”
“Take me to meet him.”
“He won’t like you.”
“He’ll like me.”
“You don’t know my uncle.”
“I know this: he must be beautiful to have such a beautiful niece.”
“You got rocks in your head,” she said.
“I got a convertible too.”
“A convertible head?”
“No, a convertible coupé. Let’s go.”
We went. We parked down by the riverbank and necked for a couple of hours. Then she said, “My name is Pearl McBride.”
“How do you do,” I said. “I’m Dobie Gillis.”
“How do you do,” she said. “What time is it?”
“A quarter to seven.”
“Holy smoke, I’m late for dinner. Get me home quick, Dobie. The last time a boy brought me home late my uncle tore off a garage door and broke it over his head.”
“Listen,” I said, speeding away, “when I get in front of your house, I’ll slow down and you jump off.”
“Nonsense. You’re coming in and meet my uncle.”
“But,” I trembled, “a garage door—”
“Unless,” she said, “you endear yourself to my uncle, our romance will never blossom. You don’t want that, do you?”
I looked at her curly blond hair, at her big blue eyes, at her rose-red lips, at her sweater. “No,” I said truthfully.
“Then you’ll have to face my uncle. He’s really not so tough. He’s a pushover for flattery. Give him some sweet talk.”
“About what?” I asked.
“He’s in the construction business. Talk about that.”
“I don’t know anything about construction.”
“You’ve watched excavations, haven’t you?”
“No,” I said. “I get dizzy.”
“Talk politics to him,” Pearl suggested. “He’s got an idea that he wants to be governor of Minnesota.”
“A commendable ambition. What are his qualifications?”
“A strong handshake,” she said.
“Anything else?”
“He smokes cigars and he talks real loud.”
“Clearly the man for the job,” I said.
“He’s been sending up trial balloons, letting it be known around town that he’s available for the nomination.”
“What’s happened?” I asked.
“Silence, mostly. Occasionally some giggles.”
We pulled up in front of her house, a six-story concrete bunker with stained-glass windows. “My uncle had some cement left over from a dam he built,” she explained.
“How about the windows?”
“Left over from a church. Come on.”
“Wait, Pearl,” I said, clutching the steering wheel, “perhaps it would be better if I came back tomorrow.”
“Come on.” She pulled me up the path by my necktie. “Don’t forget—flatter him.”
The front door opened and out came a livid man about eight feet tall. “Where have you been?” he thundered.
I extended a panicky hand. “I am proud, sir,” I squeaked, “to meet the next governor of our state.”
For a moment he stared at me. Then his hard red face relaxed. He gave my hand a cartilage-mashing shake. “Come in,” he rumbled, “come in.”
“You’re doing fine,” Pearl whispered as we entered.
“Pearl,” said McBride, “why haven’t you had Dobie over here before?”
“We just met this afternoon,” said Pearl, “in a political science class. Dobie is majoring in political science. He thinks politics is the highest pursuit of man, don’t you, Dobie?”
“Except maybe construction,” I replied.
Pearl beamed. McBride beamed. I beamed. We beamed all three.
“Sit down, Dobie,” McBride invited. “Do you smoke cigars?”
“No, sir,” I said, “but I admire a man who does.”
He lit a Perfecto the size of my forearm. “Now what’s all this talk about my being governor?”
“It’s all over town, sir.”
“Really?”
I prodded him playfully in the ribs. “Now don’t pretend,” I said with a smile, “that you haven’t heard about it.”
He chuckled, causing the dinner plates in the next room to rattle. “Well,” he admitted, “I know that some of my many friends have been talking about it, but I haven’t given them any encouragement.”
A note of alarm came into my voice. “Sir, you will accept the nomination, won’t you?”
“Well, I don’t know,” he said, dropping a mound of ashes on his vest.
I seized one of his thumbs with my two hands. “But you have to!”
“I don’t know. I’m a very busy man, you know.”
“You have to,” I cried. “It’s your duty to the people. Today, as never before, the people need leadership. You cannot shirk the responsibility. Say, you’ll accept, Mr. McBride. Say you will.”
“Yes,” he said simply.
“Perhaps,” said Pearl, twinkling, “Dobie will stay for dinner.”
“Of course he will,” McBride declared. “Pearl, go tell Cook to set an extra place.”
Pearl danced merrily into the kitchen.
“I’d offer you a drink,” said McBride, “but I don’t keep liquor in the house.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” I said, noticing six bottles of bourbon through the half-open door of a cabinet.
