Demarest roared with laughter.
“Great,” he gasped; “simply great! That’s a master stroke, getting Yale students to turn billposters! But, say, will they do it, do you think?”
“Do it!” Dick echoed. “They’ll fairly fall over themselves to get the chance. Perhaps you Cambridge boys were too staid for this sort of diversion, but I don’t think I shall have any difficulty persuading some of my friends, especially when it’s in such a righteous cause.”
It took but a short time to reach the campus, and Dick led the way up the stairs of Durfee, taking the steps three at a time, while Demarest followed him more slowly. Bursting into his room, he found quite a crowd of fellows there, who at once set up a shout at the sight of him.
“By thunder!” Brad Buckhart, his roommate, exclaimed. “It’s about time you showed up, you old maverick. Had us worrying our heads clean off wondering whether Harvard had roped you.”
“Yes,” put in Eric Fitzgerald. “We were just about to organize a posse to hunt you up. Where’ve you——”
He broke off abruptly, his eyes fastened with a look of horror on the entering Demarest, while he threw out both hands as if to ward off something unspeakably awful.
“Take him away!” he gasped, rolling his eyes ceilingward. “This is dreadful! I haven’t had a drink in weeks, and yet I see two Merriwells. It’s worse than snakes! For heaven sakes, somebody take one of ’em away!”
Exclamations of astonishment arose from the other fellows at the sight of the amazing resemblance between the two men.
“Stop your nonsense, Fitz!” Dick admonished. “Fellows, this is my friend, Austin Demarest, who is going to bring out a corking Yale play here next Thursday.”