“Then——”
“Some of ’em went in after him. The door slammed. Some went onto top of cab. The whip cracked. They went down the street on the jump. That’s all.”
A furious roar went up from the excited freshmen.
“Tricked!” they shouted. “Frank Merriwell did it! He’s taken up Ready’s challenge!”
“What challenge?” asked one, who did not seem fully enlightened.
“Why,” explained another, “Ready said he’d like to have Merriwell the leader of the sophs. He’s said publicly that he’d like to see Merriwell try to haze him.”
“And now——”
“Merriwell has started to do it!”
Mrs. Harrington’s “respectable boarding-house for students” was in a fearful uproar. The excitement had brought every freshman who lodged there into the lower hall and onto the stairs. They were all talking to one another. Their faces looked wild and wrathful. They flourished their fists in the air and uttered dire and awful threats. Their oaths of vengeance were blood-curdling in the extreme.
In an adjoining room, Mrs. Harrington herself clasped her hands and shuddered, while her daughter was on the verge of taking refuge beneath the haircloth sofa. The frightful things they heard made them stop up their ears in terror.