“I’m off,” he announced. “Good night, you chaps.”
“Good night,” said Tom. “See you to-morrow.”
Alf only waved a hand.
The next evening Alf haled Tom over to Cambridge Society. Tom was a member of Oxford, but occasionally allowed himself to be led astray, as he termed it. Dan had received summons to be present, and was on hand with Gerald.
“Come over here in the corner,” said Alf, mysteriously. “I wouldst a tale unfold. Come on, Gerald; you can keep a secret, I guess.”
He led the way to an uninhabited corner of the big room and pulled four chairs together. When they were all seated with heads close together, Alf began with lowered voice:
“Remember Joe Chambers’s wager last night?” he asked. Tom and Dan nodded. “You don’t, Gerald, because you weren’t there. But Joe bet me a feed at Farrell’s that I couldn’t get out a livelier number of The Scholiast than he had ever published.” Alf leaned back and grinned at the puzzled faces. “Well, I’m going to do it.”
“Do it! How can you?” asked Dan.
“You don’t suppose for a minute, do you, that Joe’s going to let you get out The Scholiast for him?” inquired Tom.
“No, my slow-witted friend,” replied Alf, engagingly, “but he can’t prevent me—us, I mean—from getting out a Scholiast of our own, can he?”