"Are you going along?" asked that youth.
"I don't believe so," answered Joel. "I have a Latin recitation at two."
"Well, chuck it! Everybody is going--and the band, worse luck!"
"Is there a band?" West threw up his hands in mock despair.
"Is there a band? Is there a band! Mr. March, your ignorance surprises and pains me. It is quite evident that you have never heard the Hillton Academy Band; no one who has ever heard it forgets. Yes, my boy, there is a band, and it plays Washington Post, and Hail Columbia, and Hilltonians; and then it plays them all over again."
"But I thought Mr. Remsen was not coming until Saturday?"
"That," replied West, confidentially, "was his intention, but he heard of a youngster up here who is such an astonishingly fine punter that he decided to come at once and see for himself; and so he telegraphed to Blair this morning. And you and I, my lad, will March--see?--with the procession, and sing--"
"'Hilltonians, Hilltonians, your crimson banner fling
Unto the breeze, and 'neath its folds your anthem loudly sing!
Hilltonians! Hilltonians! we stand to do or die,
Beneath the flag, the crimson flag, that waves for victory!'"
And, seizing Joel by the arm, West dragged him out of the corridor and down the steps into the warm sunlight of a September noon, chanting the school song at the top of his voice. A group of boys on the Green shouted lustily back, and the occupant of a neighboring window threw a cushion with unerring precision at West's head. Stopping to deposit this safely amid the branches halfway up an elm tree, the two youths sped across the yard toward Warren Hall and the dinner table.
"You sit at our table, March," announced West. "Digbee's away, and you can have his seat. Come on." Joel followed, and found himself in the coveted precincts of the Hampton House table, and was introduced to five youths, who received him very graciously, and invited him to partake of such luxuries as pickled walnuts and peach marmalade. Joel was fast making the discovery that to be vouched for by Outfield West invariably secured the highest consideration.