"No, that's not it," said another, "it's Curious Customs:—a new book by a member of the faculty."
"What nonsense!" sneered a wise Senior, "it's only a hoax perpetrated by some under-classmen who think themselves funny; it isn't worth talking about," and he went on down to the club and talked half through dinner about it himself.
Those who considered themselves humorous began to make jokes about it. "Look, here," one would say, and the other would reply, "I C. C."
And now suddenly the posters disappeared. None could be found in any part of the town; Bronson, a Junior, paid half a dollar for one to put in his scrap-book. "What's become of it!" they asked.
"C. C.—can't come," answered a funny man.
They were still talking about its disappearance when, a few days later, the posters again appeared, more of them than ever, and this time it was a poster to make the undergraduate world excited. It was in the college colors, for one thing, the paper being orange and the letters black. That alone was enough to lend fresh interest, but that was not the most important change. Under the letters C. C. were the words:
"TO-MORROW, THE 12TH, AT NOON, BY THE CANNON."
The Cannon is the centre of the front quadrangle and the hub of the campus life. At half-past twelve o'clock all the morning lectures and recitations of both upper and lower classes are over, and no one has anything immediate to attend to. The next day, by the time the bell in the Old North had finished announcing the noon hour, nearly the whole university found it convenient to be in the neighborhood of the Cannon.
Old Jimmy Johnson, the ancient negro fruit-and peanut-vender, stood beside the Cannon, against which leaned his wheelbarrow heaped high with a mass of small orange-and-black objects, and over them waved an orange banner on which were two big black letters, C. C. That was all there was to look at; and old Jimmy was as silent and bored-looking as ever.
The crowd drew nearer. The orange-and-black things were small pasteboard boxes, shaped like miniature bricks. On one side of them was printed these words, "Made from the purest materials, in the most careful manner, by a secret receipt in the possession of Fraulein Hummel of New York." On the other side appeared the words, "Delicious College Caramels, five cents a box," and on either end, "C. C." Old Jimmy kept on looking solemn and silent.