“Got him.”
The cab door was standing open. Ready was snatched from Frank’s back and bundled into the cab in a twinkling, almost before he could raise a protest. Frank came leaping in after him. Slam! went the door. Crack! went the whip. Away rolled the cab.
And Ready’s friends had not even been alarmed. Now, however, the freshman boarder, who had been knocked down when Frank bolted through the door with his burden, and who had gathered himself up and looked on in stupefied amazement while Ready was being bundled into the cab, found his tongue and let out a wild cry of alarm. That cry brought a gang of freshmen clattering and tumbling down the stairs, while it filled Mrs. Harrington with dismay, for she had long ago learned to recognize it as the freshman’s battle-cry when assaulted by the dreaded “softmores.”
“What is it, Peggy?” shouted the freshmen, as they came tumbling down stairs, ready for the sanguine struggle. “Where is Ready?”
“Gone!”
“Where?”
“Kidnaped!”
“How?”
“Scooped at the door!”
“How, you fool—how?”