There he found the usual ten o'clock "resting convention" in session beneath its blue cloud of nicotine. The "earnest resters," as Burleigh termed them, were stretched about in various attitudes, more of laziness than repose. They were just then engaged in the popular pastime of blackguarding the last number of the Lampoon for the benefit of Hudson, one of the editors.
"Hullo, Dick," remarked that gentleman, glad to change the subject as Stoughton entered, "we knew you were coming; smelt Mary Jane as soon as you turned the corner."
"Did you, really," replied Stoughton, making room for himself on the sofa by removing Rattleton's legs to a neighboring chair, and spilling the dog Blathers on the floor. "What was that chum of yours doing in the building last night? Were you also engaged in the unseemly disturbance?"
"No," answered Hudson, "I had nothing to do with it. I decline all responsibility for Edward Burleigh. I am not my room-mate's keeper."
"I heard him carolling on the stairs at an hour when singing should be left to the little birds. He hammered on my door for a while, but I knew enough not to get up. I wonder he didn't raise the proctor. He shouted, through my key-hole, something about the war being over."
"Yes," said Hudson, "that was what he told me when he woke me up by sitting on my chest. He was going to carry the good news all through the Yard, but I persuaded him to go to bed and wait until morning."
"Where had he been?"
"Well, you see, Jack Randolph carried him off yesterday evening to a meeting of the Southern Club, as an invited guest, to span the bloody chasm with him. They spanned it a good many times there, I guess, and then as it was a beautiful moonlight night and perfect sleighing, they decided that the bloody chasm ought to be spanned in Brookline and other neighboring towns. So they got a cutter, and must have conducted spanning operations on a wide scale all over the country, for they didn't get back until dawn. George Smith, the policeman, says he saw them sitting on the steps of Harvard Hall, singing 'John Brown's Body' and 'Dixie,' and hymns of peace while the sun rose."
"I deny the aspersion on the Southern Club," exclaimed 'Colonel' Dixey, from the other end of the long sofa. "I was present at the meeting, and we had nothing to induce sunrise hymns. I don't know what Jack and Ned did afterwards, but they didn't get it at the Southern Club."
This somewhat veiled assertion raised an incredulous chorus: "Oh, Dixey, may you be forgiven." "Come, come, Colonel, do you mean to persuade us that an organization containing at least three members from Kentucky is run on a cold-water basis?" "Where is the glory of your old commonwealth?" "Bet the meeting was full of rum—rum and rebellion! Don't deny it, Colonel." "Drink and treason!"