“Is that from the class president?” he asked. 44
“Yes,” answered the other, “hadn’t you heard? No more dancing, ‘his nibs’ says.”
They had reached the entrance to the big college building, and at that moment a great roar of voices sounded from out the second-floor windows. Simultaneously the two freshmen quickened their pace.
“The fun’s on,” commented Landers’ informant excitedly, as together they broke for the lecture-room, two stairs at the jump.
The large department amphitheatre opened up like a fan––the handle in the centre of the building on the entrance floor, the spread edge, nearly a complete half-circle, marked by the boundary walls of the building, a full story higher. The intervening space, at an inclination of thirty odd degrees, was a field of seats, cut into three equal parts by two aisles that ran from the entrance, divergently upward. The small space at the entrance––popularly dubbed “the pit”––was professordom’s own particular region. From this point, by an unwritten law, the classes ranged themselves according to the length of their university life; the seniors at the extreme apex of the angle, the 45 other classes respectively above, leaving the freshmen far beyond in space.
As guardians of the two narrow aisles, the seniors dealt lightly with juniors and “sophs,” but demanded insatiable toll of every freshman before he was allowed to ascend.
That a first-year man must dance was irrevocable. It had the authority of precedent in uncounted graduate classes. To be sure, it was neither required nor expected that all applicants be masters of the art; but, agitate his feet in some manner, every able-bodied male member must, or remain forever a freshman.
When Landers and his companion arrived at the top of the stairs they found the hall packed close with fellow-classmates. The lower rows of seats were already filled with triumphant seniors, waiting for the throng that crowded pit and lobby to come within their reach. With regular tapping of feet and clapping of hands in unison, the class as one man beat the steady time of one who marches.
“Dance, freshies!” they repeated monotonously. “Dance!”
“Clear the pit for a rush,” yelled the president 46 of the besieging freshmen, elbowing his way back into the mass.