"No you don't!" exclaimed Hudson. "You forget I'm his chum. I'll have no Welsh rarebit made in that room unless we draw lots and I get stuck. The room would smell of cheese and stale beer for twenty-four hours."
"Let's land on Rattleton then. We'll teach him to lie."
Feeling in a luxurious mood they scorned the cars, and chartered a herdic, four men getting inside and three on the roof. For those readers who know not the herdic, I will explain that it is a sort of tiny omnibus in which four thin people can sit uncomfortably. It usually has two wheels and never more than one horse—sometimes not quite as much.
"I may as well tell you before we start," said Stoughton, who sat on the top, to the driver, "that we are not Freshmen, so don't break a spring on the bridge and tell us that it will cost you ten dollars to get it mended."
"I know you're old hands," answered Jehu, with a grin, "I know youse fellers. I remember your face pertickler. Mebbe you disrecollect comin' out with me one night from Parker's. Let's see, guess it was two years ago, after the Institoot dinner."
"All right, my friend, say no more," acknowledged Dick, as the other two men shouted. "The drink is on me. Here is the price of it."
The door at the back of the herdic is held shut with a strap that leads through the roof to the driver's seat. This was secured firmly, so as to keep the inside passengers safe, for it is an established courtesy for those inside to slip out when near the college, leaving the others to pay the driver and joining them later. By means of the strap, however, and the lack of a knife among the insiders, all arrived well together at the building where Rattleton roomed.
"I'll go to the Fly and get the cheese and beer," said Gray. "You get your chafing-dish, Dick."
Stoughton roomed in the same building with Rattleton, as did Hudson and Burleigh. While he went after his chafing-dish the others reconnoitered Rattleton's quarters. The door was locked and all was dark. The glass ventilator over the door, however, was unfastened, and large enough to admit a man. Jack Rattleton always left his ventilator unfastened, for he often depended on it for his own ingress. The reason of this was very simple,—the door had a spring bolt, and it was characteristic of Mr. Rattleton's nature to frequently leave his keys inside and shut the door when he went out. It was a very simple matter for Hudson to climb over the door through this ventilator, drop down, and open the door from the inside.
"Look out for Blathers," said one man. "If that pretty pup is in there he'll take a piece out of your leg."