d, without
having our appetites disturbed in the least. I didn't like these
methods, but if the boys did I was not going to complain.

My practice of studying at night offended my roommates. The lamplight
got in their eyes. There were three fellows in the room besides myself.
For several nights they advised me to "cut out the higher education,
douse that light and come to bed." Finally they spoke about it in the
daytime. "Majority rules," they said, "and there's three of us against
you. We can't sleep while you have that lamp burning. The light keeps
us awake and it also makes the room so hot that the devil couldn't stand
it. If you stay up reading to-night we'll give you the bum's rush."

I was so interested in my books that I couldn't help lingering with them
after the other fellows went to bed. Everything grew quiet. Suddenly six
hands sized me and flung me out the window. It was a second-story window
and I carried the screen with me. But as it was full of air holes it
didn't make a very competent parachute. I landed with a thud on the roof
of the woodshed, which, being old and soft with southern moss, caved in
and carried me to the ground below--alive. The fellows up above threw my
books out the window, aiming them at my head. They threw me my hat and
coat and my valise, and I departed from the Bucket of Blood, and took up
my abode at "The Greasy Spoon."

CHAPTER XXVI. A GRUB REFORMER PUTS US OUT OF GRUB

The Greasy Spoon isn't an appetizing name; not appetizing to men who
live a sedentary life. But it was meant as a lure to men who live by
muscular toil. It sounded good to us mill workers for, like Eskimos, we
craved much fat in our diet. We were great muscular machines, and fat
was the fuel for our engines. Muckraking was just beginning in those
days, and a prying reformer came to live for a while at the Greasy
Spoon. He told us that so much grease in our food would kill us. We
were ignorant of dietetics; all we knew was that our stomachs cried for
plenty of fat. The reformer said that our landlady fed us much fat meat
because it was the cheapest food she could buy. Milk, eggs and fruits
would cost more, and so this greedy cruel woman was lining her pocket at
the expense of our lives.

The landlady was a kindly person, and she took the reformer's advice.
She banished the fat pork, and supplied the table with other food
substitutes, but she was generous and gave us plenty of them. We ate
this reformed fo