Jack was peering through the tiny hole in the curtain.
“What?” asked Bingham.
“He comes!” palpitated Ready.
“Boltwood?”
“Sure thing!”
“No mistake?”
“Nary! Get ready to grab, Bing, you darling old knocker! We’ll be having a lively time with him in a minute. The messenger is pointing out the cab. Ha! Boltwood gives the boy a quarter! Well, that youngster has made a good thing out of the job. He approaches! He has thrust out his chest, and is walking hastily in this direction. Here is where we get into gear and have fun with the gentle poet!”
It was true that Rolf Boltwood was approaching the cab. He was a rather good-looking fellow, although he had a peculiar, melancholy cast of countenance and long hair that flowed upon the collar of his coat. Although not an athlete, he had a very attractive figure, and it was possible he could have been athletic had he tried.
In the freshman class Boltwood had attracted very little attention until he wrote a parody on something or other, in which he satirized with considerable ability a number of the prominent sophomores, including, of course, Ready and Carker. This had brought him into notice, but it had made any amount of enemies for him among the sophomores. He was, indeed, a callow youth, who regarded himself as a genuine “lady-killer,” and it had not been difficult, for that reason, to lure him into a trap of this sort.