"Oh, I'm as good at boning as you are," retorted Andy. "Here come the other fellows. Now I've got to tell them how to behave. You see the game is this," he went on. "You chaps will start in on the regular hazing stunts—making 'em eat salt, doing a dance, standing on their heads, and all that. Then in the midst of it we four will come bursting in, and—well, we'll see what will happen."
"That's right!" cried Tom Bennett, admiringly. "This will make a sensation all right!"
A number of luckless Freshmen had gathered for common communion and consolation in the large hall of the dormitory set aside for their special use. They were commiserating one with the other, wondering what sort of hazing would be meted out to them—for it had been rumored that the ordeal would start that night. Shortly after ten o'clock into the place burst a crowd of Sophomores and Juniors.
"Up, boys, and at 'em!" came the cry, and then began the struggle between the two forces. The Freshmen were taken at a disadvantage, and were soon overpowered. Then, too, the first-term lads did not like to put up too much of a fight.
For, be it known, hazing, as practiced at Riverview, was a sort of ancient and honorable institution, not very severe, and the lad who put up too much of a protest against "taking his medicine," had life made miserable for him the rest of his time at school. So there was more or less submission, though there were one or two rather strenuous encounters.
The Freshmen were being put through their "stunts," and being made to do all sorts of ridiculous things, when the door of the room, that was being guarded by a committee of the hazers, suddenly flew open, and a quartette of masked and bewhiskered figures rushed in.
"Hands up!" came the sharp command, and objects that glittered menacingly in the light were held forward. "Hands up!"
Instantly there was confusion, the hazers uttering louder cries of amazement than did the Freshmen.
"Go through 'em, boys!" came the command from the foremost figure, who seemed to be the leader. "See if they've got any coin. Take only gold watches, though; we can't use the dollar kind. Lively!"
"Oh, they're burglars!" yelled one of the hazers.