"Oh well, any name will do to call you by," Janet went on. "Suppose we say that you are Miss Mute, Miss Silence Mute. Now, Miss Mute, you'll have to go through this exercise. Up with you."
The girl struggled as Janet charged upon her, but was forced to the side of the room to which she objected to go.
"Boost her up, Ted," cried Janet. "What will become of you, Miss Mute, if you defy authority in this way at the very beginning of your college career? There you go. Hand over hand is the way. Now then, into the first square."
The girl managed to get this far, and sat mutinously swinging her feet, but refusing to go through any further performance. "I am no college girl," she declared, looking down from her perch. "I live in town, and just came here for fun."
"Don't believe a word of it," said Janet. "We will not have any hashed up excuse like that. You've got to go through all those holes before you come down."
With a row of determined girls below her, the victim saw no means of escape. She must either do as she was commanded, or stay where she was in rather an uncomfortable position.
"It's a shame to treat us so," she cried. "I think it is barbarous."
"Now don't get excited, my child," said Janet suavely. "It isn't becoming."
In vain, did Miss Mute protest that they had no right to detain her; the row of girls below simply jeered at her. In vain, she appealed to their humanity; they charged her with obstinacy, and at last, in desperation, she awkwardly and angrily obeyed their order, all the time insisting that it was an outrage.
Cordelia's pupil did a little better, and was willing to keep up the spirit of the thing longer; expressed herself as entirely ready to swing from a bar, to vault over a rope, and to do most of the things insisted upon, but even she at last pleaded fatigue. She had come only to see what it looked like anyhow, and it was not right to keep her there against her will. She wanted to go home.