“What a spectacle!” and Tom looked as if he would have enjoyed seeing it, but Fanny's face grew so forbidding, that Tom's little dog, who was approaching to welcome her, put his tail between his legs and fled under the table.
“Then there is n't any 'Sparking Sunday night'?” sung Tom, who appeared to have waked up again.
“Of course not. Polly is n't going to marry anybody; she's going to keep house for Will when he's a minister, I heard her say so,” cried Maud, with importance.
“What a fate for pretty Polly!” ejaculated Tom.
“She likes it, and I'm sure I should think she would; it's beautiful to hear'em plan it all out.”
“Any more gossip to retail, Pug?” asked Tom a minute after, as Maud seemed absorbed in visions of the future.
“He told a funny story about blowing up one of the professors. You never told us, so I suppose you did n't know it. Some bad fellow put a torpedo, or some sort of powder thing, under the chair, and it went off in the midst of the lesson, and the poor man flew up, frightened most to pieces, and the boys ran with pails of water to put the fire out. But the thing that made Will laugh most was, that the very fellow who did it got his trousers burnt trying to put out the fire, and he asked the is it Faculty or President?”
“Either will do,” murmured Tom, who was shaking with suppressed laughter.
“Well, he asked'em to give him some new ones, and they did give him money enough, for a nice pair; but he got some cheap ones, with horrid great stripes on'em, and always wore'em to that particular class, 'which was one too many for the fellows,' Will said, and with the rest of the money he had a punch party. Was n't it dreadful?”
“Awful!” And Tom exploded into a great laugh, that made Fanny cover her ears, and the little dog bark wildly.