[“‘TALK ABOUT YOUR PALATIAL MANSIONS!’ EXCLAIMED ROB.”]
Malcolm passed the crackers around and they tried their best to spoil their appetites for dinner. Luckily the supply of crackers gave out before their end was accomplished. Rob, who, stretched luxuriously on the couch, had been too busy eating to talk, suddenly began to moan and grimace in a frightful manner and roll around.
“What’s the matter with you?” asked Malcolm.
“I—I think,” muttered Rob, speaking thickly because his mouth was full, “I think there must be a crumpled rose petal under me.”
Investigation, however, proved the rose petal to be nothing more romantic than a block of wood in Rob’s pocket, a block which, so he declared, was to be fashioned into the model of his greatest invention as soon as he could borrow somebody’s knife, his own having all blades broken.
They went over to supper together and as they parted from Malcolm at the dining-room door the latter brushed against Evan and thrust a bit of paper into his hand. Puzzled but discreet, Evan dropped it into his pocket and promptly forgot all about it until supper was almost over. Then, remembering it because Malcolm’s name was mentioned, he drew it out cautiously and read it under the protection of his napkin. The message, written in a tiny neat hand on hardly more than a square inch of paper, was short.
“Hazing to-night” (it ran). “Bunk in with me and they won’t find you. Destroy this and don’t tell.”