"Nor I. We must get up a contest."
"A championship."
"Something devilishly original."
"Exactly."
"Well, what?"
"We must think."
The day was passed in fruitless searching but the next morning brought the answer in the following manner: Dink and the Tennessee Shad—as the majority of trained Laurentians—were accustomed to wallow gloriously in bed until the breakfast gong itself. At the first crash they would spring simultaneously forth and race through their dressing for the winning of the stairs. Now this was an art in itself and many records were claimed and disputed. The Tennessee Shad, like most lazy natures, when aroused was capable of extraordinary bursts of speed and was one of the claimants for the authorized record of twenty-six and a fifth seconds from the bed to the door, established by the famous Hickey Hicks who—as has been related—had departed to organize the industries of his country. Of a consequence Stover was invariably still at his collar button when the thin shadow of the Shad glided out of the door. But on the present morning, the shoe laces of the Tennessee Shad snapping in his hand, Dink reached the exit a bare yard in advance. Suddenly he stopped, clasped the Tennessee Shad by the middle and flung him toward the ceiling.
"I have it," he cried. "We'll organize the dressing championship of the school!"
That very evening a poster was distributed among the houses, thus conceived:
FIRST AMATEUR DRESSING CHAMPIONSHIP