“Oh, gentle friend, why dost thou try to flee?” Ready purred, holding onto Bert with iron grip. “Dost thou not see that the enemy surrounds thee?”
“What’s up?” Starbright again asked.
“Morgan! Morgan!” came as if in answer; and it seemed strange to Starbright, too, for he was thinking more of Morgan at the moment than he was of what Ready was saying, or of the antics of the rollicking sophomores near the fence.
For the sophomores, he cared little enough, having long ago made up his mind that the only way to deal with them was to let them have their way, if it was not too rough, and so get rid of them in the shortest order.
Morgan, following Starbright toward the campus, had been suddenly surrounded by a lot of sophomores who seemed to be lying in wait near the entrance to capture straggling freshmen. Morgan was in an ugly mood, because of the events of the evening; and, instead of gracefully submitting, he began to fight, using his fists freely. In consequence of this he was roughly thrown down, tied snug and tight with a stout cord, and then carried bodily toward the rioting mob near the fence, who seemed to be waiting for just such obstreperous victims.
“I guess I’ll go along and see the fun!” said Starbright good-humoredly, though his heart was panting against Dade Morgan. Then to himself, as he moved on with Dashleigh and another freshman who had been caught in the sophomore net, he said:
“I’ll see Morgan after this thing is over, whatever it may be. I’ll see him, ask him some questions, and get the answers, too!”
The howling mob gave way, and Starbright saw a large picture of the rotund proprietor of “Billie’s,” the freshman inn. It was a mere daub on wood, displaying the round stomach and the shining, bald head of the genial proprietor. It had been painted by some humorous student and placed in front of “Billie’s” one night in lieu of a sign-board which some other student or students had stolen. The proprietor, knowing the ways of college youths, had smiled his benediction on it and set it up over the show-case between his two front parlor windows.
And now this gem of art had been surreptitiously extracted from the tavern, and all the freshmen caught in the sophomore drag-net that jubilant, crisp evening were being made to go down on their knees before it and affectionately kiss the bald head.
Morgan was hurt and indignant. He somehow fancied that, because he was conspicuous as a leader of the freshmen and had done many things to draw about him a circle of adherents, he should not be forced to do so humiliating a thing as to kneel on the frosty sand and plant an unctuous kiss on the pictured bald head.