"Aye har yu!" roared Ole, coming through a chicken yard. "Aye har yu, you leetle Baked Pies! Aye gat yu purty soon. Yust vait."
We didn't wait. We put on a little more gasoline and started for the frat house. We didn't have to whistle any more. Ole was right behind us. We could hear him thundering on the pavement and pleading with us in that rich, nutty dialect of his to stop and have our heads pounded on the bricks.
I shudder yet when I think of all the things he promised to do to us. We went down that street like a couple of Roman gladiators pacing a hungry bear, and, by tangling Ole up in the parkings again, managed to get home a few yards ahead.
There was an atmosphere of arnica and dejection in the house when we got there. Ill-health seemed to be rampant. "Did you lose him?" asked Bangs hopefully from behind a big bandage.
"Lose him?" says I with a snort. "Oh, yes, we lost him all right. He loses just like a foxhound. That's him, falling over the front steps now. You can stay and entertain him; I'm going upstairs."
Everybody came along. We piled chairs on the stairs and listened while Ole felt his way over the porch. In about a minute he found the door. Then he came right in. I had locked the door, but I had neglected to reënforce it with concrete and boiler iron. Ole wore part of the frame in with him.
"Come on, yu Baked Pies!" he shouted.
"You're in the wrong house," squeaked that little fool, Jimmy Skelton.
"Yu kent fule me!" said Ole, crashing around the loafing-room. "Aye yust can tal das haus by har skagaroot smell. Come on, yu leetle fallers! Aye bet Aye inittyate yu some, tu!"
By this time he had found the stairs and was plowing through the furniture. We retired to the third floor. When twenty-seven fellows go up a three-foot stairway at once it necessarily makes some noise. Ole heard us and kept right on coming.