For then the president came.
He came unannounced save by the telegram the dean received at breakfast on the second day.
He was driven direct to his home; and ten minutes after entering the front door he issued from the back and hastened across the campus.
The registrar met him in the main corridor.
"What is this I have been reading?" he asked sharply. "This that the papers are full of? What is it?"
The registrar followed him into his private office where, as the president unlocked his desk, he explained accurately, tersely, the frenzy that had seized the University, and the town; the state, the nation, and the world.
As he spoke he was interrupted again and again by the characteristic "ah" of the president, who as he listened, toyed with a steel envelope opener.
"And those are the facts in the case as you—that is to say the faculty—know them; are they?" he asked, when the other had done.
The registrar nodded.