"Sure he is."
"It's a shame."
"An outrage."
"They've done it just to show they're independent."
Across the campus toward Vanderbilt, Allison and the last Bones man, in tandem, were streaking like water insects. Le Baron, holding on to Stover, was cursing in broken accents. But Dink heard him only indistinctly; he was looking at Dudley. The pallor had left his face, which was a little flushed; the head was thrown back proudly; and the lips were set in a smile that answered the torrent of sympathy and regret that was shouted to him. The last elections to Keys and Wolf's-Head were forgotten in the stir of the incredible rejection.
Then some one shrieked out for a cheer, and the roar went over the campus again and again.
Dudley, always with the same smile and shining eyes, made his way slowly across toward Vanderbilt, hugged, patted on the back, his hand wrung frantically by those who swarmed about him. Stover was at his side, everything forgotten but the drama of the moment, cheering and shouting, seeing with a sort of wonder a little spectacled grind with blazing eyes shaking hands with Dudley, crying:
"It's a crime—a darned crime! We all think so, all of us!"
For half an hour the college, moved as it had never been, stood huddled below Dudley's rooms, cheering itself hoarse. Then slowly the crowd began to melt away.
"Come on, Dink," said Hungerford, who had him by the arm.