“This is Gerhart’s writing,” went on Phil, looking closely at the note. “He originated the scheme. Let’s see if any other fellows have suffered.”
They partly dressed, and stole silently to the rooms of some of their classmates. No one else had felt the vengeance of the freshmen, and our friends concluded that the performance had been arranged for their special benefit, on account of the friction they had had with Gerhart.
“How am I going to sleep in that bed to-night?” asked Tom ruefully, when they had returned to their room. “It’s like being in a beehive.”
“I’ll show you,” said Phil, and he carefully took off the sheets, folding them up so that the chestnut stickers would not be scattered. “You can do without sheets to-night, I guess.”
“I guess I’ll have to,” went on Tom. “But I’m going to get another pair of pajamas. Those feel too much like a new flannel shirt,” and he went to his trunk, which he began ransacking.
“What can we do to get square?” asked Sid, as he again prepared to get into bed. “We’ve got to teach Gerhart a lesson.”
“That’s what,” agreed Tom. “We’ll discuss it in the morning.”
But it was not so easy as they had supposed to think up a joke to play on the inventive freshman, that would be commensurate with the trick he had perpetrated on them. Besides, Gerhart kept pretty well with his own crowd of classmates, and, as there was safety in numbers, and as our three friends did not want a general class fight, they were, to a certain extent, handicapped. By Gerhart’s grins they knew that he was aware of their discomfiture of the night previous. Tom was sorely tempted to come to fistic conclusions with the freshman, but Sid and Phil dissuaded him, promising to unite with him on some scheme of vengeance. The mudturtle and snake were retained by Sid, who had a small collection of live things.
“We must keep this to ourselves,” suggested Phil that morning, as they started for chapel. “Only our own fellows must hear of it.”
“Sure,” agreed Tom and Sid, but they soon found, from the greetings of the juniors, seniors and freshmen, that the story was all over the school. In fact, to this day the yarn is handed down in the annals of Randall College as an example of how a freshman, single-handed, played a joke on three sophomores; for it developed that Gerhart had done the trick alone.