It was all over in a flash, and yet it seemed as if the entire college of Wellington could be seen running across the campus to the lakeside.
By the time the half-drowned trio reached land Miss Walker herself was there looking frightened and pale. The girls were to go straight to the Quadrangle, be rubbed down with alcohol and put to bed. As for the brave young man who had saved their lives, he was to be taken to the infirmary where he could be made comfortable while his clothes were being dried.
When Jimmy Lufton, dripping like a sea god, found himself in the center of a group of beautiful young ladies all eager to show him honor as they hurried him along to the infirmary, he gave a low, amused chuckle.
"I hope I've squared myself with them now," he thought, "and there'll be no polite freeze-out for me and no lecture, either, thank heavens."
While a delegation of three went to the village inn and ordered his suit case sent up to the infirmary, another delegation made him a hot lemonade in the infirmary pantry, and a third went to the flower store in the village and purchased a huge bunch of violets. This was laid on his lunch tray with a card, "From the Senior Class of 19—in grateful recognition of your brave deed."
And so the world goes. He who is down one day is up the next and Jimmy who was to have been the victim of a blighting freeze-out by the Wellington students was now an object of tender attention.
There came to Mr. Lufton that afternoon a note stating that if he were quite recovered—("Meaning my clothes," thought Jimmy)—the students of the Quadrangle would be glad to have him dine with them that evening at six-thirty.
"I do feel like a blooming hypocrite," he exclaimed to himself remorsefully. "Here I came down to Wellington at their expense to give them a fake lecture and they are treating me like a king."
But he accepted the invitation, trusting to luck that his clothes would be dry and tipping the infirmary cook to press his trousers and black his shoes.
At half past six, then, Jimmy appeared at the Quadrangle archway. He wore some of the violets in his buttonhole and his keen, dark eyes shone with suppressed humor. A delegation of seniors met him and conducted him back to the dining-hall, where several hundreds of young persons all in their very best stood up to receive him. A seat of honor was given to him at the end of the long table and every girl in the room liked him immensely, not only for his broad jolly smile, but because at the end of dinner he arose and, without the slightest embarrassment, made the most deliciously funny speech ever heard. Then the walls resounded with the college yell, ending with "What's the matter with Mr. Lufton? He's all right. Who's all right? Lufton—Lufton—James Lufton." Never was one unknown and entirely unworthy individual more honored.