“I’ve got that other verse,” announced Dan, tossing his pencil aside and leaning back in his chair.

“I wondered what awful deed you were doing,” said Alf. “Let’s hear it.”

They were in 7 Dudley, a cozy, comfortable room on the first floor of the dormitory. The hosts, Alf and Tom, were stretched out on the window seat, their legs apparently inextricably mixed. Dan was seated at the table where, for the past ten minutes, he had been scribbling and erasing. Supper had been over for an hour and they had discussed the events of the day to their hearts’ content. The football game with St. John’s had been played and won in two fifteen-minute halves and each of the three was comfortably weary and happy. The contest had not been a hard one, but the weather had been warm and, to use Tom’s expression, had “taken the starch out of a fellow.” The score, 11 to 0, wasn’t anything[35] to boast of, and there had been discouraging features, but it was over with now and there was no more practice until Monday afternoon and this was no time to worry. Tom stretched his arms with a sigh of lazy contentment, kicked Alf in the shins, apologized sleepily and waited for Dan to read his effusion. Dan held the sheet to the light, frowned and hesitated.

“I don’t believe it’s quite as good as the other one,” he said apologetically.

“Who said the other was good?” asked Alf.

“You did.”

“Shut up and let him read it,” growled Tom. “Go ahead, Dan.”

“We-ell, here it is:
“‘All together! Cheer on cheer! Victory is ours to-day! Raise your voices loud and clear! Yardley pluck has won the fray! See, the vanquished foeman quails, All his vaunted courage fails! Flaunt the blue that never pales, Fighting for old Yardley!’”

“That’s all right,” said Tom. “What’s the matter with it?”

“What are foeman quails?” asked Alf. “Besides, the plural of quail is quail and not quails.”

[36]

“Go to thunder!”

“And there’s another thing, Dan. I don’t just like that line about lifting our voices. It suggests exertion. Now, I might lift my voice without much trouble, but just imagine Tom trying to lift that heavy croak of his! He’d break his back at it! Why don’t you——”

“You’re an idiot,” said Dan good-naturedly.

“Let’s sing it,” suggested Alf. “How’s the tune go? That’s it! All together, now!”

They sang it several times, until they had learned the words, much to the distress of neighbors who protested with groans and howls. Then they sang both verses.

“That’s a mighty good song,” announced Tom at last, pausing for breath. “It’s better than anything we’ve had. You ought to get somebody to write down the tune, though, before Alf changes it entirely. Can you do it, Dan?”

“No, I wish I could.”

“Take it to Paul Rand,” said Alf. “He’s a regular dabster at music. The only criticism I have to make, Dan, is that your verses lack ginger. You’ve got some awfully fine words in them, but they’re—well, sort of flabby. I’ll bet I could write a verse to that song that would wake you up a bit. Who’s got a pencil?”

[37]

He sat up and disentangled his legs.

“Lie down,” protested Tom. “Hide the pencils, Dan.”

But Alf went over to the table and dumped Dan out of his seat.

“Everyone very quiet now, please, while the muse gets busy. I feel the spell coming on.”

Dan retired to the window seat, where he and Tom uttered gibes while Alf’s pencil scratched on the paper.

“Doesn’t he remind you of Tennyson—not?” inquired Tom.

“Looks to me more like Milton,” Dan opined thoughtfully.

“I’ll bet that was a dandy line! Alf, you aren’t holding your mouth quite right. A little more curl on the left, please.”

“Bright and sparkling, showing the teeth,” advised Dan.

But Alf wrote on, supremely indifferent to interruptions, and at last dropped his pencil with a smile of triumph.

“Just you listen to this!” he cried.

“Go head,” said Tom, “but please wave your hand when you come to a rhyme so we’ll know it.”

“Subside, brute! Listen:

[38]
“‘Yell like thunder! Cheer on cheer! Kill the enemy quite dead! Punch his nose and bite his ear, Kick him on his little head! We will give old Broadwood fits, Frighten her out of her wits! We will chew her all to bits, Fighting for old Yardley!’”

“Now, that’s something like, isn’t it? Has go and ginger to it, what?”

“Wonderful!” laughed Dan. “Such pretty thoughts!”

“Just full of quaint and cheerful sentiments!” said Tom. “Sounds like an automobile accident.”

“We’ll have that for the third verse,” said Alf, grinning. “But I must have credit for it. ‘First two verses by Dan Vinton; last verse by Alf Loring; all rights reserved.’”

“‘Copyrighted in New Jersey and all foreign countries,’” added Dan. “Why don’t you send that to the Scholiast, Alf. It’s better than most of the poetry they print.”

“Well, I think myself,” responded Alf modestly, “that it has more feeling and delicacy. Say, where’s Little Geraldine to-night?”

“With Arthur Thompson, I guess,” answered Dan. “They’re getting pretty thick these days.”

[39]

“You guess!” said Alf severely. “What sort of a guardian are you, I’d like to know. What do you suppose John T. Pennimore would say if he knew that you had let the child out of your sight without being certain where he is?”

“Is he still worried about this morning?” asked Tom.

“I think so, but I tell him that no one will believe Hiltz.”

“By the way,” said Alf, squeezing himself onto the seat between them, “I’ve found out that Hiltz is expecting to get on the Second Class Admission Committee again, he and Thompson both. Of course we don’t have to worry about Thompson, but if we want to get Gerald into Cambridge this year it’s up to you, Dan, to beat Hiltz out for the committee.”

“What’ll I have to do?”

“Just let the fellows in the Second know that you’re after the place, that’s all. It’s simple enough, and you ought not have much trouble beating Jake Hiltz. If you don’t, though, he will blackball Gerald as sure as anything, especially after what happened to-day, and, as you know, one blackball will keep him out. And after that there’s nothing left for him but an ignominious admission to Oxford.”

[40]

Tom, the only Oxford Society man of the three, grunted sarcastically.

“All right,” Dan agreed. “I’ll start my campaign. I suppose the thing to do is to see all the fellows I know and get them to promise to vote for me. When does the election come off?”

“Well, the classes elect committee members about the first of November; I don’t know just what the date is, but we can find out. Then the society election comes off the first Wednesday after the second Monday in the new moon, or something idiotic like that; anyhow, it’s about the twenty-third of November. Let’s go over to Cambridge and find out all about it. Besides, there’ll be a lot of fellows there and you can get in your work.”

“All right. Better come along, Tom.”

“I’m particular where I go,” muttered Tom sleepily. Alf threw a book at him playfully and escaped before Tom could make reprisal.

Secret societies are tabooed at Yardley, although now and again one gets hints of mysterious meetings behind draped transoms at dead o’ night. But both faculty and undergraduate sentiment is opposed to such things and they soon die of inanition. The two recognized societies are[41] Cambridge and Oxford. They are both debating clubs, although of recent years they have become rather more social than anything else. At one time or another every student has the opportunity to join one or other of the societies, but to be invited to each is considered something of an honor. This had happened to Gerald Pennimore the preceding spring, when Alf and Dan had tried to get him into Cambridge, and Tom, supported by a handful of influential friends, had offered Gerald the hospitality of Oxford. Gerald had chosen Cambridge, but thanks to Jacob Hiltz, then one of the two Third Class members of the Admission Committee, he had received one blackball, sufficient to bar him out. Dan and Alf had thereupon made up their minds to secure Gerald’s election this fall, and in order to do that it was necessary to defeat Hiltz for the Admission Committee, and Dan had agreed to run against him.

The rooms of the rival societies were on the top floor of Oxford Hall. Each was large and comfortably furnished, with plenty of cushioned window seats and easy chairs, tables for writing and good reference libraries. Many fellows made use of the rooms during the day to study in between recitations, while in the evenings they were[42] pretty certain to be well filled with members reading or playing chess, checkers, dominoes, or cards. To-night, when Dan and Alf entered Cambridge, the weekly debate had just been finished and the thirty or forty fellows present were moving their chairs back against the walls, preparatory to social diversions. A few minutes later they had formed a group in a corner of the room with Paul Rand and Joe Chambers. Both were seniors and prominent in Cambridge affairs, Chambers being president and Rand secretary. Chambers was editor-in-chief of the school weekly, the Scholiast, while Rand was manager of the basket-ball team. Chambers soon supplied the information they desired as to election dates.

“Dan’s a candidate for the Second Class Admission Committee,” explained Alf. “By the way, who are the members in your class, Paul?”

“Derrick and I,” answered Rand.

“That’s all right, then. We want to get young Pennimore in next month. You haven’t anything against him, I suppose?”

“Not a thing.”

“And how about you, Joe?”

“Same here,” replied Chambers. He was a tall, intellectual-looking youth who wore glasses[43] and was popularly believed to be an embryo great journalist.

“Good enough,” said Alf. “You’d better get busy, Dan, and hunt up some of your class fellows and get them pledged. There’s Walpole over there; tackle him.”

But Walpole was very sorry and had just promised Hiltz to vote for him. “Wish I had known before, Dan,” he said. “I’d rather stood for you if you’d told me. I didn’t know you were running.”

It didn’t take Dan long to discover that Hiltz had been busy, for everyone of the dozen or so Second Classmen he spoke to had been approached by his adversary. A few only had not definitely promised their support and these willingly pledged their votes to Dan. Dan went back to the group in the corner.

“Say, Paul, how many Second Class fellows are there in Cambridge?”

“I can tell you in a minute.” Rand went to his desk, unlocked a drawer and looked over the membership list. “Twenty-nine,” he announced, returning with the list in his hand. “Want to get the names?”

“Yes,” said Dan, “that’s a bully idea. Read them out to me, will you?” So Paul read and Dan[44] jotted them down on a piece of paper. When he had finished he said: “I’ve seen eleven to-night and seven of them are promised to Hiltz. If that ratio works out with the rest I’ll get only about ten votes.” He looked doubtfully at Alf.

“I don’t believe Hiltz has seen them all,” answered Alf. “What you want to do is to get busy right away. There’s Thompson now. Talk to him, Dan.”

Arthur Thompson had just entered with Gerald in tow and Dan crossed over to them.

“Hello, Thompson, I want to speak to you a minute. This is your first visit this year, isn’t it, Gerald?”

“Yes, Arthur invited me up. Is the debate over?”

“Yes, ten minutes ago. Alf’s over there in the corner, with Paul and Joe Chambers. I want to speak to Thompson just a second.”

Gerald wandered away toward the group and Dan plunged into his subject.

“I say, Thompson, you’re up for Admission Committee, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I suppose you don’t vote for yourself, do you?”

“Hardly,” laughed Arthur. “It’s customary[45] to vote for the other candidate and he votes for you. It amounts to the same thing, I suppose.”

“Any objection to voting for me?”

“You? You’re not up, are you?”

“Yes, and I’m up to beat Jake Hiltz. We want to get Gerald through this time and Hiltz will down him as sure as fate. He did last spring, you know, and he’s bound to now after what happened this morning.”

“That’s so. All right, I’ll vote for you, Vinton. But I’m mighty afraid that Hiltz has the thing cinched. I’d withdraw and give you my votes, but that wouldn’t defeat Hiltz. I wish it would. But I’ll help you all I can.”

“Will you? Then just look at this list and see what fellows you think you can influence.”

Arthur looked it over. Then he took out his pen and copied half a dozen of the names on the back of an envelope. “I’ll look after these,” he said in a businesslike way, “the first thing in the morning. Is Jake here to-night?”

“He was before the debate, but he’s gone. Maybe he’s canvassing now. I wonder——”

“What?”

“I wonder why he’s so anxious to be re?lected, Thompson.”

“That’s so! He hasn’t said a thing about it to[46] me. It looks as though he had just started in to-day, doesn’t it? Do you suppose——”

“That he wants to get back so as to defeat Gerald again? I wouldn’t be a bit surprised. It certainly looks that way. I’ve spoken to eleven fellows here this evening and they all said that Hiltz had been after them before the debate.”

“Then that’s just what he’s up to, Vinton! You heard about the protest he made against Gerald?”

“Yes; just one of his lies, of course.”

“Yes, Gerald doesn’t cheat. And I guess he knows that Ryan isn’t likely to believe him and thinks he will get revenge in this way. Well, we’ll do our best to beat him, Vinton. But we’ve got to look sharp. He’s pretty foxy, Jake is.”

“And he’s got seven fellows pledged to him already,” said Dan frowningly.

“How about you?” asked Arthur.

“Five, counting you.”

“That’s not so bad! I’ll come around to-morrow after I’ve seen some of these chaps and let you know what I’ve done. You’ll have to have fifteen votes, won’t you? Well, there’s three on this list that I’m sure you can count on, and that makes eight. And if Jake hasn’t got ahead of us the other seven won’t be hard to find.”
 
“No, but I’m awfully afraid he has,” said Dan gloomily.

“We’ll know in the morning,” answered Arthur cheerfully. “I’ll drop around to your room in the afternoon, probably. So long.”