Almost as he spoke one of the sofa legs, probably jarred loose by the unaccustomed rapid rate of progress, fell to the dormitory steps.
“Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” exclaimed Phil. “It’s beginning to fall apart, Tom.”
“Never mind, you can nail it on. Sid, you carry the leg. The stairs are so narrow that only two of us can manage the sofa. Phil and I will do that, and you come in back to catch me, in case I fall.”
Seeing that there was no chance to get the sofa away from its owners, to make a college holiday with it, Holly Cross and his friends turned back to look for another source of sport. Sid picked up the leg, and then, with Phil mounting the stairs backward, carrying one end, and Tom advancing and holding the other, the task was begun. Up the stairs they went, and when they were half way there appeared at the head of the flight two lads. They were both well dressed in expensive clothes, and there was about them that indefinable air of “sportiness” which is so easily recognizable but hard to acquire.
“Hello, what’s this?” asked the foremost of the two, as he looked down on the approaching cavalcade and the sofa. “Here, what do you fellows mean by blocking up the stairway? Don’t you know that no tradesmen are allowed in this entrance?”
“Who are you talking to?” demanded Phil, not seeing who was speaking.
“It’s Langridge,” explained Tom, as he looked up and saw his former enemy and rival.
“Oh, it’s Parsons, Henderson and Clinton,” went on Fred Langridge, as he recognized some fellow students. Then, without apologizing for his former words, he went on: “I say, you fellows will have to back down and let me and Gerhart past. We are in a hurry.”
“So are we,” said Tom shortly. “I guess you can wait until we come up.”
“No, I can’t!” exclaimed Langridge. “You back up! You have no right to block up the stairs this way!”