The scout withdrew. Phil looked at his trousers, and then he began slowly to take them off. Tom took one more look out of the window.
“They’re jumping all over our chair,” he said.
“They are? The young imps!” cried Sid. “Come on to the rescue! Get into some togs and capture a few freshmen.” Then, as he realized that he had tossed his clothes out of the window, he groaned. “You fellows will have to go,” he said. “I haven’t any duds.”
“They’re parading around with your best go-to-meeting suit,” observed Phil. Sid groaned again.
“Hurry, fellows, if you love me,” he said.
“There’s a crowd of sophs after ’em now,” added Tom, and so it proved. The freshmen beat a retreat, and some of our friends’ classmates formed a guard around the things on the ground.
The three chums were not the only ones who had tossed articles out of their windows in the moments of excitement. Many possessions of the sophomores were on the ground below, and, now that the scare was over, they began collecting them. Tom and Phil managed, with the help of some of their classmates, to get Sid’s garments and the chair back to their room. The chair was in sad shape, though, and Sid groaned in anguish as he viewed it.
“Oh, quit!” begged Phil, as he tossed Sid’s clothes on the bed. “We can fix it up again.”
“It’ll never be the same,” wailed Sid as he tried it. “There was a place that just fit my back, and now——”