"You have given us some trouble. That is unfortunate for you. But you were kind enough yesterday to oblige me with your name; so I went to the registrar's office and asked where my dear old friend Willie Young roomed. I told them I wanted to look you up and take care of you. We'll take care of you, all right—eh, Bally?"
Ballard laughed his loud laugh at this way of talking. He thought Channing very witty, and so did Channing.
Young was leaning against the mantelpiece.
"But we mustn't waste time here," Channing went on; "pick up your hat and come on like a good little boy; we're all going for a nice little stroll to the canal together."
Young had heard, since he last saw Channing, what the Sophomores did with Freshmen at the canal. He did not move.
"Oh, I forgot," said Channing, "you have no hat; you lost yours in the rush this evening, didn't you? Well, well, that was too bad. You will have to go bareheaded. However, Freshman," he added, patronizingly stern, "this will teach you a good lesson—two good lessons. In the first place, little Willie must wear a cap and not a big felt hat like this." He took Young's hat off his own head and looked at it critically. "I suppose this is the latest thing out at Squeedunkville."
Ballard grinned. Young flushed and bit his lip.
"In the second place, you must always take it off when you meet your superiors and thus save us the trouble of taking it off for you; and," he added, looking out of the window in the direction of the canal, "and so save yourself some trouble also."
Ballard was now beginning to look interested. "I guess the Freshman's got another hat in his closet," he said, gruffly. Then he commanded, "Go get it, Freshman, and come on." Ballard was standing now.
Young did have a hat—a derby hat, the one he wore on the train and when he first arrived—in his closet, but he did not go and get it, and he did not come on.