of, and suddenly we
heard a scream come from the corridor--I can not describe at all how it
sounded--when a tiger or other wild beast breaks loose from his cage and
throws himself on some one, then, I think, one would hear something like
it.

"It was so horrible that we three let our arms drop and stood there
quite paralyzed. And not only we, but everything in the Karreehof
stopped and suddenly grew quiet. And then everything that had two legs
to run with kept rushing up at full speed toward the corridor, so that
it fairly swarmed and thickened black around the corridor. I, naturally,
with the rest--and what I saw there--

"Little L had climbed on to Long K like a wildcat--nothing else--and
with his left hand hanging on by the latter's collar so that the tall
gawk was half-choked, with his right fist he kept up a crack--crack--and
crack right in the middle of Long K's face, wherever it happened
to strike, so that the blood was pouring from Long K's nose like a
waterfall.

"Now from the other court came the officer who was on duty and broke
his way through the cadets. 'L No. II, will you leave off at once!' he
thundered--for he was a man tall as a tree and had a voice that could be
heard from one end of the Academy to the other, and we had a wholesome
respect for him.

"But Little L neither heard nor saw, but kept on belaboring Long K
in the face still more, and with it came again and again that fearful
uncanny shriek that thrilled through us all, marrow and bone.

"When the officer saw that he-took hold himself, gripped the little
fellow by both shoulders, and by main force tore him away from Long K.

"As soon as he stood upon his feet, however, Little L rolled up the
whites of his eyes, fell his full length to the earth, and writhed on
the ground in a convulsion.

"We had never yet seen anything like it, and were shocked and, stared at
it in absolute terror.

"But the officer, who had been bending down over him, now straightened
himself: 'The lad certainly has a most serious convulsion,' said he.
'Forward, two take hold of his feet'--he himself lifted him under the
arms--'over to the infirmary!'

"And so they bore Little L over to the infirmary.

"While they were carrying him there we went up to Big L to learn just
what had happened, and from Big L and the other two who had been with
Long K we then heard the whole story.

"Long K was standing there like a whipped dog and wiping the blood from
his nose, a