“I’ve too much pride to be willing to give up the fight, and let half a dozen mean fellows run the section and ruin it. I know that both Professor Keene and Mr. Horton are heartily on our side, and I’m pretty sure that if Green or Crawford or any of the rest of that set should undertake to cut up as they have done this year, they’ll find themselves bounced without much ceremony, and I do hope that all you nice fellows will make up your minds to come back and help us make such a record next year as the Central has never had yet.”
“We never could beat A section, no matter how hard we might work,” said one.
“Pooh! Don’t you believe it,” replied Hamlin. “I’m not going to admit that a girl’s section can go ahead of us, if we really set out to win.”
“Well, you see they’ve got first rank, and it’s a sight easier for them to hold it than for us to win it away from them,” said Reed. “Possession is nine points of the law, you know.”
“There spoke our future chief justice,” laughed Hamlin, for Reed’s predilection for the study of the law was well known. “But the girls of section A will find themselves ousted from their possession of first rank in the Central next year, or I miss my guess.”
When this last meeting of the L. A. O.’s adjourned, Gordon and Hamlin felt pretty well assured that all the members except Bates would return in the fall, and they discussed between themselves many and various plans for the enlargement and improvement of the society the coming year.
The graduating class was so large that it was impossible for the members of it to take part in the commencement exercises. Once or twice in recent years, one member had been selected to deliver an oration, or in some other way to represent the class, but it was a difficult matter to select one from among so many without awakening much hard feeling, and so now the class took no part in the exercises except to sit on the platform and receive their diplomas from the hand of some distinguished man who had been invited to honor the occasion. This distinguished gentleman, or some other, was also asked to address the graduates, and such was the program on this year.
But, as the two schools numbered over twelve hundred, they and the friends and relatives of the graduates made a very large assemblage, so that the exercises were always held in one of the great opera houses.
As our boys in section D were to be themselves among the graduates the next year, they were all present on this occasion, it being to them in the nature of a rehearsal.
The girls in their white dresses and ribbons, with the beautiful flowers they carried, made a pretty picture on the platform; but this time, our boys were more interested in the other portion of the graduating class. They watched the boys as they went forward to receive their diplomas, and wondered if they themselves would be able to make as graceful a bow as some did, or if they should be as stiff and awkward as other poor fellows who became sadly embarrassed when they found themselves in such a conspicuous position.