What were those things? Who can say? No candidate who has ever passed through the ordeal ever opens his lips to tell what happened to him. But certain it is that within those walls there was a merry old time that night, for it is there the local burlesque is given, and this has proved of spicy interest to the general public, being filtered to the outside world.
This year among the happy candidates were two of Merriwell’s friends. Jack Ready was one of them.
“La! la!” he said modestly, as he was congratulated. “Proclaim not the honor to the world. It will be a great privilege for the Four Hundred to catch me when I break away from Yale. Oh, I’m strictly the thing, and they can’t get along without me.”
“What you really need,” said Greg Carker, “is a crown. You are a king.”
“A fool’s cap would be better,” grunted Browning, who had been offering congratulations. “I don’t know how they ever made the mistake of taking him in, but I’m glad he’s made it.”
“Thanks, my fragile friend,” chirped Ready, with the old-time flirt of his hand. “When I am in need of a fool’s cap I’ll know where to come for it. Cluck! cluck! Git ap! My, my, how the wind blows!”
“I’d like to have the privilege of hauling you over the coals to-night!” said Bruce, with a baleful glare in his eye. “Oh, I wouldn’t do a thing to you! You’ll get it, anyhow, for they’ll be sure to give you a double dose to cure your freshness.”
“Alas!” sighed Jack, “it can’t be cured.”
“Try carbolic acid,” suggested Bruce.