Ready began crooning a song, as if singing to himself. It was a strange, weird sound, and it gave the listeners a creepy feeling. Frank attempted to touch him, but he leaped away, a frightful laugh breaking from his lips.
“Devil!” he snarled. “I know what you are! You are a devil! You are trying to snare me! I can see your cloven hoof and your horns!”
“Well, I feel like the devil,” said Frank, “whether I have any cloven hoof and horns or not!”
“You planned it all! You alone are guilty! You brought it on yourself!”
“I guess that’s right,” admitted Merry repentantly. “Come, old man, I won’t hurt you. Let me talk to you. You are deceiving yourself. Nobody has been killed.”
“Liar!” screamed Ready. “Get thee gone! I will destroy you!”
Then, before their eyes, he leaped at the skeleton, clutched it, tore it to pieces, and one after another he flung the bones at them! In his hands he seized the ghastly skull, sprang past Frank, who had not retreated, and pursued the others from the room. Frank quickly followed out into the banquet-chamber, and there he found the hazers huddled at the farther end of the room, while Jack Ready was sitting on a chair by the table and laughing till the tears actually streamed down his face.
“Oh, ha! ha! ha!” shouted the freshman, in a paroxysm of mirth. “Oh, I don’t know when I have had so much fun! I don’t think I ever had so much fun in all my life! Oh, ha! ha! ha! Ha! ha! ha! Why, you gents are the easiest things I ever saw! Oh, ha! ha! ha!”
Frank stopped and stood staring at Ready, who had dropped the skull of the skeleton on the table. The freshman saw Merry, and he screamed with mirth.
“I said I’d get even with you!” he shouted. “I’ve done it! I am more than even! I’ll bet I’m the first fellow in college who ever fooled you, and I fooled you good! You’re just as soft as the rest, and they’re mush!”