Birds twerping outside the window. Saturday morning, Mr. Smith awakes in a strange bed. He looks around. Oh, right; the Old Ivy Inn. There is a lump on the other side of the bed consisting of the hibernating Mrs. Smith buried in covers. Letting her snooze, he pads over to the window and peers out.
The Old Ivy Inn occupies a grand Victorian house across the road from Old Ivy College and adjacent to the equally grand but otherwise unmarked Victorian house that insiders know to be the domicile of Cyathos et Gladios. Last night, the Smiths and the Blooms drove up from Beauneville to see Molly and Roderick, who joined them for dinner last night together with Megan and Anna. They dined at a table for eleven in the Old Ivy Inn's Main Dining Room. (Mr. Fuzzums and Miss Kitty attended, but did not require chairs). Beef stew was served, with dumplings.
Meanwhile, while Mr. Smith gazes out the window and fondly remembers last night's beef stew with dumplings, Roderick, Molly, Megan, Anna and Natasha all gather in the Old Ivy Dining Hall for breakfast. They fill their plates and sit at a round table overlooking the Quad.
Anna is curious about Molly's modeling session with Albert yesterday. "How did it go?"
"Meh," says Molly. "We didn't get anything done."
"Oh, how come?"
"He didn't want to sketch, he just wanted to have sex with me."
Anna is wide-eyed. "Really?"
"Yes," says Molly, a little petulantly. "There I was in his room, completely nude, and there he was, also completely nude because he's more comfortable working that way, but he didn't want to work, he wanted to have sex with me."
Megan sprays coffee. "Men can be such pigs!"
"Oh, I don't mean it that way," says Molly, kindly. "He's really very nice. I'd like to help him, because he's in a jam."
"What sort of jam?"
"He's almost twenty-one, and if he doesn't have sex before his twenty-first birthday he will never have sex ever. It's a rule."
Anna looks puzzled. "I never heard about that rule."
"It's an unwritten rule."
Megan giggles. "Rodrigo told me it was sixteen..."
"Was he born on leapyear?" inquires Roderick, brightly, figuring that an oblique reference to a plot device from The Pirates of Penzance will brighten everyone's day. Nobody gets it, though, so he takes another bite of scrapple.
Anna smiles. "We should introduce him to Emily Scharf."
"No, that won't work. She only digs guys who sing and trust me, Albert can't sing." Molly attempts to mimic Albert singing Mime's first lines from Act One of Siegfried, but she just can't do it.
All are silent, thinking.
Molly continues. "I gave him my father's business card and suggested he consider my sister Mary. But her asking price is way too high, he can't afford it."
Anna looks genuinely distressed. "How sad."
Roderick muses. "So I guess if we want to help him we need to introduce him to some girl who is really desperate."
Molly nods. "Or so completely undiscriminating that she will have sex with just about anyone."
"Right."
Megan, who is checking her text messages and not really listening, looks up when she realizes that everyone is looking at her. "What?"
"We'd like to introduce you to someone."
"Not me!" cries Megan. "I'm Roderick's second girlfriend."
Molly slaps her forehead. "Oh, that's right. Sorry."
Silence again, while everyone ponders what to do about Albert.
Natasha interrupts. "I like artistic men."
