"No, it isn't," said Bangs earnestly. "You ought to know your own name!" he went on severely. "It's Smith—and you're a barb from the cornfield! You've come to Siwash to forget how to plow and to-morrow you're going to organize a Smith Club. Do you hear? Don't let me catch you forgetting your name now—and listen closely."
It was all as simple as beating a standpat Congressman. Maxwell was a stranger, of course. He was to pin his Eta Bita Pie pin on his undershirt and go forth in the morning a brand-new Smith, green and guileless. It was to occur to him just before chapel that a Smith Club ought to be formed and he was to post a notice to that effect. He would get a couple of well-known non-fraternity Smiths interested and have them visit the houses and see the Chicago Smiths. With all the Smiths in session that night he ought to have no difficulty in finding out which was the son of old man Smith. He could be lowdown and vulgar enough to ask right out if he wished. If he found out he was to cut out that Smith and bring him to our house—if he had to bind and gag him. If he didn't he was to bring all three—if he could.
There was a quiet and most reassuring tone in Maxwell's voice as he said: "I can." They evidently had their little troubles at Muggledorfer, too.
"After we get them here," said Bangs earnestly, "we'll just pledge all three. We'll surely get the right one that way and perhaps the other two will not be so bad."
Upstairs, Petey Simmons was wearily explaining to our Smith for the ninth time that Freshmen were not allowed to appear on the campus for the first three days; and that it was considered good form to keep indoors until the Sophomore rush; and that there wasn't a room left in town anyway, and he might as well stay with us a while; and that the police were looking for college students downtown and locking them up, as they did each fall, to show their authority. Blanchard relieved him of his task and he came downstairs mopping his brow. Then we went to work and planned details until midnight. It was to be the plot of the century and every wheel had to mesh.
We spent the next day in a cold perspiration. Neither Alfalfa Delt nor Chi Yi paraded any pledged Freshmen. They were still hunting for the right Smith, too—evidently. They fell for the Smith Club plan with such suspicious eagerness that it was plain each bunch had some nasty, low-lived scheme up its sleeves. We were righteously indignant. It was our game and they ought not to butt in. But Maxwell only smiled. He was a Napoleon, that boy was. He just waved us aside. "I'll run this little thing the way we do at Muggledorfer," he explained. "You fellows can play a few lines of football pretty well, but when it comes to surrounding a Freshman and making a Greek out of him, I wouldn't take lessons from old Ulysses himself." And so we left him alone and held each other's hands and smoked and cussed—and hoped and hoped and hoped.
Maxwell went after the three Smiths himself that night. He had taken a room in an out-of-the-way part of town and his plan was to take them over there after the meeting to discuss the future good of the Smith Club. Then about a dozen of us would slide gently over there—and a curtain would have to be drawn over the woe that would ensue for the other gangs. Meanwhile, all we had to do was to sit around the house and gnaw our fingers. Maxwell called for our Smith last and he had the other two in tow. Oh, no; we didn't invite them in. Two Alfalfa Delts and three Chi Yis were sitting on our porch, visiting us. Three Chi Yis and two Eta Bita Pies were sitting on the Alfalfa Delt porch. Four Eta Bites and two Alfalfa Delts were calling on the Chi Yi house. It was a critical moment and none of us was taking chances. We couldn't keep our Smiths from wandering, but we could make sure they didn't wander into the wrong place.
Maxwell led his flock of Smiths away and we all sat and talked to each other in little short bites. The Chi Yis were nervous as rabbits. They looked at their watches every five minutes. The Alfalfa Delts listened to us with one ear and swept the other around the gloom. The night was charged with plots. Innumerable things seemed trembling in the immediate future. When the visitors excused themselves a little later, and went away very hurriedly, we learned with pleasure from one of our boys, who had been wandering around to break in a new pair of shoes or something, that the Smith meeting, which had been called for the Erosophian Hall, had been attended by four nondescript and unknown Smiths and fourteen Chi Yis, who had dropped in casually. First blood for us! Maxwell had evidently succeeded in segregating his Smiths. We expected a telephone call from his room at any minute.
We kept on expecting it until midnight and then strolled down that way. The house was dark. A very mad landlady came down in response to our earnest request and informed us that the young carouser who had rented her room had not been there that evening; and that if we were his rowdy friends we could tell him that he would find his trunk in the alley. Then we went home and our brains throbbed and gummed up all night long.
We went to chapel the next morning to keep from going insane outright. The Chi Yis were there looking perfectly sour. The Alfalfa Delts on the other hand were riotous. Every one of them had a pleasant greeting for us. They slapped us on the back and asked us how we were coming on in our rushing. Matheson was particularly vicious. He came over to Bangs and put his arm around him in a friendly way. "I am going to have dinner with my pupil to-night," he said triumphantly. "He wants me to come over and get his trunk. Says he's got a good room now and he's much obliged to you fellows for your trouble. Have you heard that there's another Smith in school—son of a big Chicago man? There's some great material here this fall, don't you think?"