and abuse of his confidence, over telephone....

He looked sick and worried, as if he had run in all the way from the
little lake, five miles from town, where he had gone for his week-end of
idyllic, peaceful fishing....

"You've ruined me, you boys have!" he almost sobbed, collapsing fatly in
his chair, then he flamed, "by God, I'll have you each investigated
personally and clapped in jail," ... which threat, however, he did not
even try to carry through....

Instead, his paper, and the other two town papers, tried to turn off the
affair as a mere college joke, played on a whole community....

But we had expected just such action--rather the executive genius of
Jerome had expected it--for which reason we had confronted the readers
of the _Globe_ with damning facts and statistics, carefully gathered,
which presented an insurmountable barrier to evasion.

And as we also had expected, the Civic Betterment League was also dead
against us....

"Why," cried Langworth to me, "why didn't you bring all the evidence to
us, and let _us_ proceed calmly and soberly with the case?"

"Professor Langworth, you are a friend of mine, and a very good
one--but you know very well that the conditions exposed you people knew
of all along ... and for years you have dallied along without acting on
it."

"We were biding the proper time!"

"The reason you never started something was your fear of involving the
university in the publicity that was sure to follow!..."

Langworth was a good man, but he knew I had him. He hemmed and hawed,
then covered his retreat in half-hearted anger at me....

"You know well enough, Johnnie Gregory, that all you boys did it for was
to 'pull a stunt'--indulge in a little youthful horseplay."

"Granted--but we have effected results!"

* * * * *

"What results? merely a lot of trouble for everybody!"

"The Civic Betterment League now has a chance afforded it to make good
... we've provided you with the indisputable data, the evidence ... it's
up to you, now, to go ahead."

"So God help me, Johnnie, sometimes you make me wish I had never
sponsored you here."

* * * * *

The editor of the _Globe_ made a right-about-face--repudiating us.

Jack Travers, in the style of his beloved Brisbane, put an editorial in
the school paper, the _Laurelian_, addressed to Blair, beginning, "Get
back into the collar of your masters, you contemptible cu