An assistant was in charge of the shop, who pretended to be very much mystified at his employer's absence. Whether he was telling the truth or not could not be proved.
The main fact was clear; Miller had played his trick so successfully on Frank that he was afraid of the consequences and was keeping out of sight.
Frank was a little lame on the following day, but not sufficiently so to be kept from going about as usual. The initiation, therefore, proceeded during the week according to regular custom.
During the daytime Frank attended lectures and recitations with regularity, and as he afterward said, did rather more studying than at any other week during his college career.
Every evening there was a meeting of the "Pigs" in the room of some senior member, where exercises of a more or less ridiculous nature, similar to those already described, were had. Usually, too, there was an excursion upon the street, but in these instances the neophyte was not blindfolded.
Frank had had to do numberless small errands, and one evening was devoted almost wholly to sending him from house to house to ask for a piece of cake or a slice of bread.
His mentors always stood near to see that he followed out the instructions literally, and in every case he complied.
Rattleton and Diamond suffered more from the experiences of these evenings than they had on the occasion when their nerves were tested by being driven blindfolded through the streets.
Diamond lost his temper several times and flatly refused to go on with the initiation, whereupon the seniors would give him a host of black marks.
He took the black marks as seriously as Frank did, and always became very penitent.