About five o'clock Bailey came over to the track, where we were going through the last sad rites, and hauled me aside.
"Take off those togs, kid," he said. "I've got a stunt. These yaps are going to hold another meeting to-night to decide on Martha Scroggs' fiancé. In the meantime you're going out to ask the old man for her. Understand? You're going to ask him and take what he gives you like a little man and beg off for to-day, and then you're going to break the pole-vault record. See?"
Unfortunately, I did. I liked the job just as well as I would like getting boiled in oil. But one must stand by one's frat, you know—Gee, how proud I felt when I said that! I didn't have any idea how an engaged man ought to look or act, but I went home, put on the happiest duds I had, and shinned up the street about eight o'clock.
The man-eating dog of the Scroggses was somewhere else, gorging himself on another unfortunate, and I got to the front door all right. I rang the bell. Some one opened the door. It was Judge Scroggs. He looked at me as one might look at a bug which had wandered on to the table and was trying to climb over a fork.
"Young man," he said, "what do you want?"
Did you ever have your voice slink around behind your larynx and refuse to come out? Mine did. I only wish I could have slunk with it. I started talking twice. My tongue went all right, but I couldn't slip in the clutch and make any sound.
"Well," roared Scroggs, "what is it?"
That jarred me loose. "Mr. Scroggs," I sputtered, "I am engaged to your daughter. I want to marry her. I want your permission. I—I'll be good to her, sir."
He glared at me for a minute. "Oh!" he said with a queer look. "Well, come on in with the rest of them."
I followed him into the parlor. There sat Evans and Petersen. They were older than I, but if I looked as scared as they did I wish somebody had shot me. In the corner was another student. His name was Driggs. His specialty was cotillons.