"Willie, eh?"
Those of the others who were near enough to hear laughed at this.
"Well, you are rather old to be called Young—Willie Young, especially. Hereafter you shall be known as 'Deacon Young.'"
"Aw, come on, Chan," called the others.
"All right," said Channing, but he turned to the Freshman as he started off and remarked, threateningly, "We'll meet again, you big, green Freshman."
"I hope so," promptly returned Young, "you little, mouthy Sophomore."
And this was the very worst thing he could have said, as he was afterward taught, if he had wanted to avoid hazing. He did not know that the best way to get along with the Sophomores was to take their initiating—not humbly, which was almost worse than getting mad about it—but laughingly and good-naturedly, for as soon as he acknowledged the fact that he was only a Freshman and recognized that he belonged to the lowest of four grades of college importance, they would let him alone.
But Young was not of a sort readily to acknowledge subordination to anybody, and he had never been hazed and he knew very little about college custom and all that, because he had been a college man less than twenty-four hours and the tray of his trunk was still unpacked.
It was Wednesday afternoon, the first day of the term, and he was on his way to chapel to attend the opening exercises of the college year, the first real college duty of his life, and he had almost reached the quadrangle when he was interrupted by the Sophomores and the disagreeable voice which called, "Hi, there, Freshman," at him, and which he thought he would never forget.
And now he went on up the stone walk under the tall elms, wiping his brow and telling himself that he was not homesick, but that he did not propose to let anybody talk to him that way, even if he was green and from the country, and he would show them.