ver.

On a platform carried by eight hilarious members, was displayed Dennis
de Brian de Boru Finnegan, clothed in a suit of dark gymnasium tights,
over which were superimposed a mangled set of upper and lower
unmentionables, whose rents and cavities stood admirably out against
the dark background, while the Irishman sat on a chair and alternately
stuck a white foot through the bottomless socks that were fed him.

Above the platform was the flaring ensign:

RATHER FRANK NUDITY THAN THIS!

Now it happened that at the auspicious moment when Dink Stover led the
apparently scantily-clothed Finnegan and the procession of immodest
banners around to the Esplanade of the Upper, the Doctor suddenly
appeared through the shrubbery that screens Foundation House from the
rest of the campus, with a party of ladies, relatives, as it
unfortunately happened, of one of the trustees of the school.

One glance of horror and indignation was sufficient for him to wave
back the more modest sex and to advance on the astounding procession
with fury and determination.

Before Jove's awful look the spirit of '76 vanished. There was a cry
of warning and the hosts hesitated, shivered and scampered for
shelter.

Now, at any other time the Doctor--who suffered, too, from the common
blight--would have secretly if not openly enjoyed the joke; but at
that moment the circumstances were admittedly trying. Besides, there
was the delicate explanation to be offered to the ladies, who were
relatives of one of the influential members of the board of trustees
of the Lawrenceville School, John C. Green Foundation. As a
consequence, in a towering rage, he summoned the ringleaders, chief
among whom he had recognized Dink Stover and, corraling them in his
study that night, exposed to them the enormity of their offense
against the sex of their mothers and sisters, common decency, morals
and morality, the ideals of the school, and the hope that the Nation
had a right to place in a body of young men nurtured in such homes and
educated at such an institution.

The ringleaders, being veterans, viewed the speech from the point of
view of artists, and were unanimous in their appreciation. The episode
had for Stover, however, unfortunate complications. With the closing
of the scholastic season came the elections in the Houses. The Kennedy
House, unanimously and with much enthusiasm, chose the Honorable
Honest John Stover to succeed the Honorable King Lentz as