Bink and Danny, Gamp and all the others of Merriwell's friends who chanced to be grouped there, had already suffered the amputation of their shirt-tabs, and having no further fear on that point, were hilariously anxious that not a shirt-tab should be worn by a Yale man that night. The "fruit" on the tree at Durfee was increasing in quantity and variety at a prodigious rate.
"A dollar apiece for its ears!" some one else screeched.
But the cat was too agile for the hands that were reached out to stop its flight. It whisked under the legs of the students and was out and away like a shot.
"Been up there watching the performance!" some one sung out.
"Gug-gug-goshfry! There's a man up there!" Joe Gamp howled, as his eyes fell on Donald Pike. "It will be raining mum-mum-men, as well as cuc-cuc-cuc-cats, next thing! Ahaw! ahaw! ahaw!"
As his lips flew open to their widest extent to emit this roar, the other cat sailed downward out of the tree and struck him squarely in the mouth. He tumbled backward with a roar, which, however, was not at all hilarious, and began to dig sputteringly at his tongue and lips, which were liberally coated with cat hair.
"More cats!" said Dismal. "I'd as soon have the frogs of Egypt, as to have the trees showering down cats."
"How do you like cat diet, Gamp?" screeched Bink, who did not relish the way he had been laughed at.
"I'll die-it, if one of 'em hits me!" Dismal solemnly asserted.
"Look out!" a student warningly yelled. "The man is coming, too!"