“A trick?”
“Yes; the sophomores. I should have been more on the lookout, but I didn’t think they could get in. I told the men at the door not to let any one in who didn’t have a freshman pin. But—well, we’ll wait a bit and see if it dries up,” he concluded.
But the stuff on the floor didn’t dry up. Instead, it became more sticky. The ballroom was like one big sheet of adhesive flypaper, and the dancers, walking about, felt their shoes pull up with queer little noises every time they took a step. They tried to dance once more, but it was a miserable failure. One might as well have tried to waltz or two-step on the sands of the seashore.
Then from a window there sounded the old song: “[Clarence McFadden, He Wanted to Waltz].” The chagrined dancers turned to the casement, to behold a circle of mocking faces. Gerhart looked, too.
“The sophs!” he cried, as he caught sight of Tom, Phil, Sid, Dutch Housenlager and several others.
“At your service!” cried Phil. “Guess you’ll have to dance to slow music to-night!” And then, to show that it was in revenge for the fire scare, the sophomores sang: “Scotland’s Burning.”
“It worked to perfection, Dutch. However did you manage it?” asked Tom, as the sophomores, having satisfied themselves that the freshman dance had been spoiled, walked back to college.
“Easy,” answered the fun-loving student. “I mixed up a sticky preparation of glue, varnish, gum and so on, made it into a powder, and put it in alcohol. Then I sneaked in past the doorkeeper I had bribed, and sprinkled the stuff all over the floor. There was no color to it, and they didn’t notice it. The alcohol kept it from sticking until after the march, and then, when the alcohol evaporated, it left the gum ready to do its work.”
“And it did it,” commented Sid.