From door to center table, from table to the two chiffoniers, which stood at each end of the room, were spread sheets of sticky fly paper. The two couch beds had been dismantled, and the mattresses, pillows and bed clothing had disappeared. Every mirror in the room had been painted in large checks of red and blue. On one of the dressing tables was coiled a huge mottled rubber snake which elicited a general cry of horror on first sight. The door of both girls’ dress closets stood wide open, revealing every item of wearing apparel in each, lying in disorderly heaps on the floor.
The crowning outrage was a crude effigy of Gussie made from a handkerchief bag and a dark green velvet one-piece frock of hers on a hanger. The handkerchief bag, stuffed, served as a head; the frock on the hanger, the body. Gussie’s blue velvet sports hat topped the effigy. The whole figure had been smeared with very thick molasses and feathered. The feathers had come from one of the couch pillows, the slashed case of which lay on the floor. It was a decidedly discouraging sight. The three shocked, amazed women gazed dumbly at the damaged room.
“A band of savages couldn’t have done much more,” was Miss Remson’s curt opinion. “You girls had better move into the room Miss Langly formerly occupied for the night. Your bedding will have to be found. It is in the house somewhere, I presume. It is too late to make inquiries about it tonight. There will be a searching inquiry tomorrow in this house or my name is not Miranda Remson. Such vandalism against another student! To say nothing of the damage done to the room! The rug is ruined by that white paint. A workman alone can remove the paint from the mirrors. Dear knows where the bedding is. Shocking, and disgusting!”
Seized by a sudden thought, Gussie went to one of the open windows and leaned far out. Presently she left the window and announced: “I think the bedding is on the ground under the windows. Please let Flossie and I go down and see. If it is there, we can bring it in at the back door, and up the back staircase. No one will see us. The mattresses are light. I can carry them, one at a time. Flossie can carry the smaller pieces. I’d rather stay in my own room tonight, if I can.”
Flossie, meanwhile, had been engaged in gathering up the fly paper and putting the room partly to rights. Miss Remson having given a reluctant consent, the two freshmen went down stairs on the trail of the lost bedding. As Gussie had thought, there it was, under the windows from which it had been dumped to the ground.
The chimes had sung a silvery eleven and the wall clock ticked off half an hour more before a semblance of order settled down upon the outraged room. Miss Remson had long since left the two victims of the hazing.
“You know who did this?” interrogated Gussie, the moment the manager had retired from the room.
“T don’t know, but I think it was Miss Walbert and some of her pals.” quickly returned Flossie. “What’s the use of suspecting her when one can’t prove a single thing against her? She chose a good night. Who can prove that she wasn’t at the concert?”
“We can’t,” returned Gussie gloomily. “I wish I had just one little proof against her. I believe some of the team helped her. Alma Hurst dislikes me most. Perhaps she was mixed up in it. Miss Remson is going to call a meeting. It won’t do any good. It will only put the hazers on their guard. One real bit of proof against Elizabeth Walbert would do more good than forty meetings.”