d collectively, on seventeen great
gross of red-hot pins.

By this time we conspirators were divided between holy joy and a fear
that the thing was going to be overdone. It was plain to be seen that
the Faculty wasn't going to stand for much more loving frankness. Pierce
whispered to Tad Perkins, Hogboom's chum, and the worst victim of his
posthumous whims, to draw it mild and go slow. Perkins was to make the
last talk, and we trembled in our shoes when he got up.

We needn't have feared for Perkins. He was as smooth as a Tammany
orator. He praised Hogboom so pathetically that the chapel began to show
acres of white handkerchiefs again. Very gently he talked over his
career, his bravery and his achievements. Then just as poetically and
gently he glided on into the biggest lie that has been told since
Ananias short-circuited retribution with his unholy tale.

"What fills up the heart and the throat, fellows," he swung along, "is
not the loss we have sustained; not the irreparable injury to all our
college activities; not even the vacant chair that must sit mutely
eloquent beside us this year. It's something worse than that. Perhaps I
should not be telling this. It's known to but a few of his most intimate
friends. The saddest thing of all is the fact that back in Weeping Water
there is a girl--a lovely girl--who will never smile again."

Phew! You could just feel the feminine side of the chapel
stiffen--Hogboom was the worst fusser in college. He was chronically in
love with no less than four girls and was devoted to dozens at a time.
We had reason to believe that he was at that time engaged to two, and
spring was only half over at that. This was the best of all; our revenge
was complete.

"A girl," Perkins purred on, "who has grown up with him from childhood;
who whispered her promise to him while yet in short dresses; who sat at
home and waited and dreamed while her knight fought his way to glory in
college; who treasured his vows and wore his ring and--"

"'Tain't so, you blamed idiot!" came a hoarse voice from above. If the
chapel had been stormed by Comanches there couldn't have been more of a
commotion. A thousand pairs of eyes focused themselves on the grill. It
sagged in and then disappeared with a crash. The towsled head of Hogboom
came out of the opening.

"I'll fix you for that, Tad Perkins!" he yelled. "I'll get even with you
if it takes me the rest of my life. I ain't engaged to any Weeping Water
gir