The Varmint Part 26

"There's the water tower! I see the water tower!" cried a voice.

"I see the Cleve!"

"All up!"

"Long cheer for the school!"

"All together!"

"Rip her out!"

They gave a cheer and then two more.

"Now, fellows," said Doc Macnooder shrilly, as master of ceremonies, "we want to pull this off in fine shape. We're going to drive around the Circle. And I want this orchestra to keep together. Whose legs are those with the cannon-cracker socks?"

"Beekstein's," cried several voices from inside.

"Well, he's rotten. He gums the whole show. Now, get together, fellows, will you?"

"We will!"

As they turned to enter the campus the voice of the master spoke, clanging its inexorable note from the old Gym. Instantly a shout broke out:

"Hang the old thing!"

"Drown it!"

"Down with the Gym bell!"

"Murder!"

"Oh, Melancholy!"

"Silence!" cried the bandmaster. "Give 'em The Gym Bell--all ready below! La-da-da-dee!"

"Too high!"

"La-da-da-_dum_. Slow and melancholy. One, two, three!"

_When the shades of night are falling Round our campus, green and fair, All the drowsy sons of Lawrence To their couches then repair.

Soon the slumber G.o.d has bound them With his spell of magic power, And he holds them thus enchanted Till the early morning hour._

"Up legs and at 'em now, Rip her out--chorus!"

_Till awakened By the clanging And the banging And the whanging From the cupola o'erhanging, Of that ancient Gym bell!_

Cheered by the new fifth-formers, who came laughing to the windows to hail them, the stage went gloriously around the Circle and came to a stop.

"Here we are back at the same old grind," said Butcher Stevens.

"Frightful, isn't it?" said Stover; and the rest made answer:

"Back at the grindstone!"

"Hard luck!"

"We're all slaves!"

"Nothing to eat!"

"Nothing to do!"

"Stuck in a mudhole!"

XI

At the Kennedy steps The Roman was waiting for him. Stover shook hands or, rather, allowed The Roman to pump him, as was the custom.

"Why, dear me--dear me--this is actually Stover!" said The Roman.

"Well, well! How you have grown--shouldn't have known you. Had a pleasant vacation? Yes? Glad to have you in the Kennedy. It's a good House--good boys--manly, self-reliant, purposeful. You'll like 'em."

The Roman released Stover's hand, which had grown limp in the process, and said with a twinkle to his quick little eyes:

"Don't put too much ginger into them, Stover."

This remark confirmed Stover's darkest suspicions.

"I'll scatter a little ginger around all right," he said under his breath, as he climbed the stairs to his room. "He thinks he has the laugh on me, does he? Well, we'll see who laughs last!"

On the third floor the Tennessee Shad and Dennis de Brian de Boru Finnegan, from their respective trunks, were volubly debating the merits of Finnegan's victory--the Tennessee Shad claiming that the external application of cream puffs was equivalent to doping and invalidated the result.

"h.e.l.lo!" said d.i.n.k.

"Why, it's my honorable roommate," said the Tennessee Shad, emerging with a load of flannels.

"It's the d.i.n.k himself," said Dennis, gamboling up. "Welcome to our city!"

"I hear I'm rooming with you," said Stover, shaking hands with the Shad.

"You certainly are, my bounding boy."

"Where's the room?"

"Straight ahead, turret room, finest on the campus, swept by ocean breezes and all that sort of thing."