Inside Number 9 the company roared with laughter. “There’s no more fun for the poor fellows in this hall since Dick was put over it,” said Curtis.
“No, he takes his duties seriously,” commented Todd. “What did you do to them, Mr. Monitor,” he asked, as the official returned, “put ’em on probation?”
“Warned them,” replied Melvin, with good humor undisturbed.
“Who was that you were laboring with?”
“Tompkins.”
“What!” cried Curtis, “that wild-looking, shaggy-haired man from Butte, who looks as if he had just escaped from the menagerie?”
“That’s the one,” replied Dick; “though he isn’t as bad as all that. He’s a bit freakish, I’ll admit.”
“Not so much of a freak as he looks,” said Todd. “You ought to have seen him open the safe down at Morrison’s. They’d lost the combination, and the clerks had been guessing, and twisting, and pulling at the knob all the morning. Then this Tompkins happened in and took a try at it. He had the door open in two minutes. Just listened at the lock till he heard the right sound.”
“Couldn’t have been much of a lock,” said Curtis. “Come on; let’s see what’s doing outside.”
The big fellow went whistling downstairs, followed by Todd and Poole. Varrell and Dickinson the runner still remained, the latter too much incapacitated by the sprain he had received in the great game to make any unnecessary movements, the former apparently uninterested. The Harvard sympathizers had rallied, and, making up in numbers what they lacked in righteous cause, were shouting across the yard to the Yale band, drowning cheers of exultation with more vociferous cheers of loyalty.