Then these two moralizers changed the subject to baseball. Both thought of taking an early opportunity of giving the big Freshman a friendly tip, for they knew him well enough by this time. And both went off and forgot; and if it recurred to them, they put it off till they "felt more like it."
What had Deacon Young actually done? Oh, nothing at all, or next to nothing. Billy Drew one morning at breakfast was telling about his experience of the night before, and then stopped suddenly when Young entered the room.
"Go on, I want to hear the rest of it," said the Deacon, smiling broadly. "I heard the first part while I was taking off my coat in the hall. Go on." So Drew went on in the grinning, boastful way of a certain sort of Freshman, with his account of how he fell upstairs, and how he tried to catch the bed as it whirled around.
Some of them began to chuckle. Lucky Lee looked at Young; so did one or two of the others. Young knew they were looking at him. Here was his chance to show them he was not so stiff and sober and green as they imagined. He leaned back in his chair and laughed heartily. Then Lucky Lee and the rest of the table laughed heartily.
And after that no one took pains to keep things away from the Deacon again. That seems a very little thing, but, as Linton said, he was not very likely to stop there.
CHAPTER XI
THE TROUBLE WITH BEING A HERO
The winter, with its jolly long evenings about cosey fire-places, was over, and the Freshman-Sophomore snowball fight was almost forgotten. The University baseball candidates had left the "Cage" and were practising outdoors on the diamond. The glorious spring term had come, and the Seniors had begun twilight singing on the steps of Old North. The elms were putting on their new leaves; the undergraduates their new flannel trousers.
The Invincibles were on their way from the club, to stretch out under the old elms and hear the Seniors sing the old songs.