WELCOME AND UNWELCOME VISITORS
Suppose you were a Freshman and hazing were still in vogue, and the first callers in your college course were two Sophomores, and each of them had reasons for wanting to humiliate you, and one of the fellows was a football player with muscles larger than your own; how would you feel if they strode into your room, looking arrogant?
You, possibly, might not mind it. If so, Will Young was different from you, for he felt very queer as he arose from his chair.
Channing said, "How do you do, Mr. Young?" Then, closing the door so the landlady might not hear, "Well, Deacon," with his sarcastic smile, "we've come for you."
Young said nothing. Instinctively he offered chairs.
"This is Deacon Young of Squeedunk, the freshest man in the class, Bally. Bow, Freshman, to Mr. Ballard, of whom you have doubtless heard—the famous centre rush of the famous Sophomore football eleven that will do your futile Freshman team up so badly you can't see, later in the term."
"No, thanks," said the big fellow to Young, in a very big voice, "never sit on chairs." He had seated himself on Young's table, with one foot on a chair, and was looking around the room as Channing went on:
"We secured several of your charming classmates on the campus. They aren't far away from here now." Ballard chuckled at this. "But we missed you on the campus, Deacon. You must have run home after the rush."
The Sophomores both laughed at this, but Young said nothing, and wondered how Channing had found out where he roomed.
"You have given us some trouble. That is unfortunate for you. But you were kind enough yesterday to oblige me with your name; so I went to the registrar's office and asked where my dear old friend Willie Young roomed. I told them I wanted to look you up and take care of you. We'll take care of you, all right—eh, Bally?"
Ballard laughed his loud laugh at this way of talking. He thought Channing very witty, and so did Channing.
Young was leaning against the mantelpiece.
"But we mustn't waste time here," Channing went on; "pick up your hat and come on like a good little boy; we're all going for a nice little stroll to the canal together."
Young had heard, since he last saw Channing, what the Sophomores did with Freshmen at the canal. He did not move.
"Oh, I forgot," said Channing, "you have no hat; you lost yours in the rush this evening, didn't you? Well, well, that was too bad. You will have to go bareheaded. However, Freshman," he added, patronizingly stern, "this will teach you a good lesson—two good lessons. In the first place, little Willie must wear a cap and not a big felt hat like this." He took Young's hat off his own head and looked at it critically. "I suppose this is the latest thing out at Squeedunkville."
Ballard grinned. Young flushed and bit his lip.
"In the second place, you must always take it off when you meet your superiors and thus save us the trouble of taking it off for you; and," he added, looking out of the window in the direction of the canal, "and so save yourself some trouble also."
Ballard was now beginning to look interested. "I guess the Freshman's got another hat in his closet," he said, gruffly. Then he commanded, "Go get it, Freshman, and come on." Ballard was standing now.
Young did have a hat—a derby hat, the one he wore on the train and when he first arrived—in his closet, but he did not go and get it, and he did not come on.
"Didn't you hear what I said?" growled Ballard. "Come on." He let Channing do the guying, but he liked to take a hand in the bossing himself.
Apparently Young heard nothing; he had not said a word, and he was quietly looking down at the carpet, but his heart was beating fast.
"Now, see here, Deacon," said Channing, "we don't want to have any trouble with you. Are you going to come along peacefully and have an easy time of it, or are you going to make a little trouble for us and a lot for yourself?"
Young did not speak or look up. He seemed to be moving his tongue about in his cheek.
Ballard approached him. "You won't come, eh?" he said, angrily. And with that he took him by the shoulder.
"Take your hands off me," said the Freshman, shrilly, and wrenched quickly away, backing up against the wall. He stood there breathing hard, and he glanced from one Sophomore to the other.
Now, it is not the easiest thing in the world for a big man and a little man to drag out of a room one very good-sized man who looks as if he had made up his mind to stay in it. At any rate, to do it without considerable noise is impossible. Therefore Channing stepped across to the open window, stuck his head out, and gave a long, peculiar whistle. He waited a moment and then repeated it Then an answer came back from the distance.
"We'll soon fix you, Deacon," he remarked, nodding his head, as he returned from the window.
Young was still standing backed up against the wall. Ballard, braced against the door opposite to prevent the Freshman's escape, was scowling.
"They'll be here in a minute," said Channing.
He referred to the classmates he had signalled to. You see if they had all come in together it would have aroused the landlady's suspicions. As it was, Channing had been obliged to tell her that Ballard and himself represented the college Y. M. C. A., and that they wanted to ask Mr. Young to join it.
"When they whistle I'll tip-toe down and let them in," said Channing. "Listen! What's that?"
Footsteps were heard coming up the stairs.
"They couldn't have gotten here so soon," said Ballard.
"I didn't hear any whistle," said Channing.
The footsteps came nearer.
"Is this the room?" said a voice just outside the door.
"Yes, that's the one," came the reassuring tones of the landlady below.
The Sophomores had stopped talking.
A knock.
No reply.
Another knock.
"Come in," said Young, defiantly.
Ballard stepped to one side.
The door opened.
"Is this Mr. Young?"
"That's my name," said Young. "Come in." He was still standing by the mantelpiece.
A dark-eyed, strong-faced, matured-looking man with rather long hair stood in the doorway. "I am Nolan," he said, "of the Junior class, and this is Mr. Linton," turning to a man behind him.
"Hello there, Ballard," Nolan said, casually then suddenly taking in the situation and smiling, "sorry to spoil your fun," he said. "Hello, where's your young friend going in such a hurry?"
Channing was seen slipping out of the still open door. "I'll be right back," he said, grinning. The whistle had sounded while Nolan and Linton were entering the room, and Channing wanted to get down in time to—but it was too late. The Juniors had left the front door open when they entered, and now the other Sophomores were on the way up the second flight of stairs. "Where's the Freshman's room, Chan?" they said, in a loud whisper.
"Wait, there's no use coming now," began Channing.
But Linton was now at the head of the stairs saying, in an amused tone: "Oh, come right up; don't mind us." So, rather than seem afraid of the Juniors they trooped in, all six of them looking as if caught at something they were ashamed of.
Linton smiled drolly at one of the Sophomores he happened to know personally. "Hard luck, Valentine," he said.
Nolan nodded gravely to one or two of them, and they said, "How do you do?" very respectfully.
No one said anything else for a moment.
"Don't let us interrupt you," said Channing, grinning.
"We had no intention of being interrupted," said Linton, without looking up. And Freshman Young noticed that the others seemed to consider this a good joke on Channing, and Channing noticed that Young noticed it, and this was one thing more to remember against Young.
"By the way," Linton went on in a lazy, matter-of-fact way, as he began filling a pipe, "perhaps it would be just as well if you fellows all got up and got out of here now. Billy and I came here to talk hall to this Freshman, and we have a number of others to call on, and Billy mustn't stay up late these days, you know."
"Billy" meant Nolan, the one with long hair, and he was a university football man, and the training season had begun.
Linton made this remark in an ordinary tone, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to request seven or eight men to leave a room. He struck a match for his pipe as he finished speaking, and then lifted his feet up on the table and leaned back without looking at the under-classmen.
The Sophomores said, "All right," meekly arose, murmured, "Good-night," and smiling rather sheepishly departed.
Young looked on with mingled feelings. They outnumbered the Juniors seven to two, and yet the arrogant Sophomores did not even question the Junior's power. He was learning something about these traditions and customs; evidently the authority was not in bodily strength.
But the two upper-classmen, without waiting to see what became of the Sophomores, began forthwith to tell Young how different were the two secret literary societies, whose mysterious, Greek temples looked so much alike there side by side on the campus, and to point out how superior was their own "hall," as they called it.
Nolan, who was a famous orator in this hall, did most of the talking. Linton only put in a word now and then, but he kept glancing at the Freshman in a queer, quizzical way as he blew smoke. When they arose to go Linton said, in a pleasant tone:
"I suppose the Sophomores are bothering you a good deal?"
Young wondered what made Linton say so. "No," he replied; "they tried to make me take off my hat yesterday, but I wouldn't do it."
He thought that would impress these upper-classmen.
Linton glanced at Nolan, who smiled.
"Say, Young," said Linton, kindly, "of course it's none of my business, but—well, I'd take off my hat if I were you."
"Why?"
"Oh, well, because you're a Freshman."
"But what right have they to make me take off my hat to them? They aren't any better than——"
"Because they're Sophomores. Come on, Billy." He opened the door. "You think it over, Young. Good-night. Glad to have met you, Young."
Then on his way downstairs he added to his friend Billy Nolan, "I like that big, green Freshman, but he needs hazing."
"He is rather fresh. Do you think we'll secure him, Jim?"
"But you can hardly blame him for taking himself so seriously," Linton went on as they gained the street "You see he has always lived at home, didn't go away to prep. school, was never guyed or anything of that sort in all his innocent life, and he doesn't know how to take it. He was an important person at home—probably led his class at the High School—has a lot of little brothers and sisters that bow down to him; and they've told him that he is a great man so often that he thinks there must be something in it. His hands show he has worked on a farm, but the palms are soft now—I noticed that shaking hands—so he's probably clerked in a store or taught school; yes, he's probably taught school."
Linton considered himself a student of human nature, and he did guess pretty well this time, though Young had no sisters and had never taught school.
"Anyway," he concluded, and in this he was right, perhaps, "college will be a great thing for him. No one ever made him realize his relative unimportance in the world."
"As we made big Bally realize it last year," interposed Nolan, smiling.
"Yes, and as we, too, were made to realize it the year before. My, what a big chump you'd have been, Billy, if you hadn't been hazed."
"And, oh, what a supercilious ass you'd have made, Jim. Do you remember that time——"
And these two walked on toward the campus with arms thrown carelessly about each others' shoulders, reminiscencing about days which, to hear them talk, you would have thought were half a generation ago; and so they were—half a college generation.
Meanwhile Young was doing what Linton had told him to do, thinking over what had been said to him. Also he thought over what he had observed when the Juniors and Sophomores were in the room together, and he came to certain conclusions. Then he went to bed.