There was silence for a time.
"Saunders is that fellow with the crooked nose, isn't he?" asked Sam.
"Yes; when they hazed him last year they made him stand with his nose in the crack of a door until they came back, and they forgot they had left him, and somebody shut the door on his nose by mistake. But he's an awfully plucky chap. He just went on standing there as if nothing had happened."
"Splendid, wasn't it?" cried Sam, beginning to see the heroic possibilities of hazing. "Do you suppose that they have always hazed here?"
"Yes, of course."
"And that General German and General Meriden and all the rest were hazed here just like this?"
"Yes, to be sure."
Sam felt his spirits soaring again.
"Then I wouldn't miss it for anything," said he. "It has always been done and by the greatest men, and it must be the right thing to do. Just think of it. Meriden has walked up this very hill like you and me to be hazed!" There was exultation in his tone.
"Well, I only hope Meriden looked forward to it with greater joy than I do," said Cleary, with a dry laugh. "But here we are."