Affairs at the Red Shack went on smoothly, and at the Mush and Milk Club, which the Freshmen had dubbed their eating joint, there were many assemblings of congenial spirits. Occasionally there was a session at Glory’s—a session that lasted far into the night—though Joe and his room-mate did not hold forth at many such.
“It’s bad for the head the next day,” declared Spike, and he was strictly abstemious in his habits, as was Joe. But not all the crowd at the Red Shack were in this class, and often there were disturbances at early hours of the morning—college songs howled under the windows with more or less “harmony,” and appeals to Joe and the others to “stick out their heads.”
“I think we’ll get ours soon,” spoke Spike one night, as he and Joe sat at the centre table of the room, studying.
“Our what?”
“Drill. I heard that a lot of the Freshmen were caught down the street this evening and made to walk Spanish. They’re beginning the shampoo, too.”
“The shampoo—what’s that?”
“An ancient and honorable Yale institution, in which the candidate is head-massaged with a bucket of paste or something else.”
“Paste or what?”
“You’re allowed your choice, I believe. Paste for mine, it’s easier to get out of your hair if you take it in time.”