That figure was stranger to him than the stranger in his own entry. Together they sat looking into each other's eyes, in shy recognition, while overhead on every quarter-hour the bell from Battell Chapel announced the march toward midnight. Several times, as he sat plunged in reverie, a knock sounded imperiously on the locked door; but he made no move. Once from the campus below he heard Dopey McNab's gleeful voice mingling with the deep bass of Buck Waters:
"Oh, father and mother pay all the bills,
And we have all the fun.
That's the way we do in college life.
Hooray!"
"'OH, FATHER AND MOTHER PAY ALL THE BILLS, AND WE HAVE ALL THE FUN'"—Page 229.
For a moment the song was choked, and then he heard it ring in triumphant crescendo as the two came up his steps, pounding out the rhythm with enthusiastic feet. Before his door they came to a stop, sang the chorus to a rattling accompaniment of their fists, and exclaimed: