“Not as happy as I would be with it.”
“But even admitting that this missing young man may be around here,” suggested Terry, “what chance have we of finding him? We have so much college work to do. For, after all, we were sent here to learn something,” she sighed.
“Granted,” laughed Arden. “But we may find time for a little detective work on the side as well as for hazing. Oh, it’s a wonderful prospect!” She swung around in a few dance steps right there in the old post office.
“Well, we’d better be getting back,” suggested Sim after this. “Oh, look at the clock!” she gasped. Then followed a hurried sending of some picture postcards they had bought; cards on which they marked with an X the location of their room.
The three chums were bubbling with life, laughter, and merriment as they turned to leave the little building, but their mirth was turned to alarm as a stern voice assailed them.
“Young ladies!”
They looked around to see Rev. Dr. Henry Bordmust sternly regarding them from the doorway.
“Yes, Dr. Bordmust,” Sim almost whispered as the chaplain appeared to be waiting for formal recognition.
“You are freshmen!” he accused, with a glance at their mortarboards, the tassels of which told the tale. “You know you are not permitted over here—in the post office. It is against the college rules—for you freshmen. Return at once! You must! You must!”
He appeared strangely stirred and angry, and his dark brows, shading his bright little eyes, bent into a frown. But somehow, after that first booming and accusative “young ladies,” the chaplain seemed exhausted, as though the anger pent up in him had taken something from his none too profuse vitality. He was an old man. Now he essayed a wintry smile and added, as he gently waved them out with motions of his thin white hands: