“All loyal Stuck-Ups come to the Throne Room!” came a call through the megaphone on the lodge porch.
“So long,” said Slater. “I’ve got to go up now. I’ll see you later. Take my advice and don’t get fresh with the Grand Mogul, or it’ll be all the worse for you.”
He departed, swinging his club with gusto. Blackie left to join the group of new campers who were gathered under the big black-cherry tree by the baseball field to await the summons to their doom. There were about forty of them; among them he found many he knew, mostly boys who had never spent a season at Lenape. Lefkowitz, Guppy, Fat Crampton, and Gallegher were those from Tent Four who, beside himself, were to prepare to undergo the awful ordeal. They sat about nervously on the stone fence, trying to reassure themselves by bold talk and a great deal of forced laughter.
“Here they come!” shouted one boy after a while, and instantly there was silence. All eyes were turned to watch the approach of the Outer Guard, which consisted of four older boys marching toward them in formation. Each one of them wore nothing but a towel caught about his hips and knotted on the side, and fantastic peaked hats some three feet high that had been made by wetting an ordinary felt hat and pulling it over the end of a baseball bat until the crown had stretched to a high point. The faces and bodies of the Guard were barbarically daubed and streaked with colored grease-paint, and each bore over his shoulder a broad-bladed canoe paddle.
They solemnly halted beside the secretly trembling neophytes, and “Kipper” Dabney, who was in charge, spoke in hollow tones: “Line up by the alphabet—those with names beginning with A are in front. You are all about to undergo the dread inquisition of the Omnipotent Stuck-Up Society. Meditate upon your benighted souls, and ponder how best you can serve the spirit of Lenape!”
He counted off the first four boys in the line, and marched them away to the lodge porch. Blackie saw Dabney give a secret knock and a password; the portals of the Throne Room unclosed; there was a flourish of trumpets, and then an ominous silence that lasted until the Outer Guard again came to take four more aspirants to the great hall of the society.
Four by four, Blackie Thorne saw his fellows vanish into the echoing Throne Room. He was almost at the end of the line, and did not know whether to be pleased or sorry that he would be one of the last to be initiated; but Fat Crampton went with the second bunch, and both Guppy and Gallegher with the fourth. Blackie was surprised to see the latter, about twenty minutes after he had entered, ejected somewhat roughly through the door and escorted down the steps by two stalwart guards.
“What’s the matter?” he called. “What did they do to you, Irish?”
“Aw, they booted me out of their old society!” mumbled Gallegher. “They let that little squirt Guppy stay in, though. Guess I didn’t bow down and lick their boots enough to suit ’em.”
“Key down, you!” ordered one of the guards. “You have been told to go to your tent. You, Thorne, get back in line and wait your turn.”