“Who played that dirty trick?” questioned Fred, who had been the first to speak.
“Some joke, I’ll say!” muttered the young major of the Colby Hall battalion.
“Better say ‘choke,’” sputtered Andy. Then, as he looked at his brother and his cousins, he burst into a fit of laughter, and in this his twin joined.
“We look like a lot of Negro minstrels, don’t we?” was Fred’s comment. “Gee, what a mess!” he added, as he surveyed the table with its books and papers. “I guess my essay is spoiled.”
“Mine ditto,” responded Jack. “And I was writing it out so carefully, too,” he added mournfully.
Randy was the first to step to the door and open it. He looked up and down the corridor, but saw no one. However, a few seconds later two cadets put in appearance. They were Fatty Hendry and Phil Franklin, the latter a lad who had become a warm friend of the Rovers through a thrilling rescue on the Rick Rack River and later by sharing many perils in Oklahoma and Texas.
“Hello, there! what’s the idea?” exclaimed Phil Franklin, as he came to a halt and gazed at Randy in amazement.
“Are you getting ready for a masquerade?” questioned Fatty Hendry. “I didn’t know there was anything of that sort going on to-night.”
By this time the other Rovers had come to the doorway, and the two new arrivals gazed at them in added amazement. Then their eyes drifted to the center table and took in the wreckage there.
“Hannibal’s ghost!” ejaculated the fat boy of the school. “What’s this? It looks like lampblack.”