e talking about the fire and congratulating
themselves that neither had received bad burns and that Merry's injury
was not serious.

"News!" exclaimed Danny. "Morton Agnew left New Haven last night."

"I knew he would," said Frank. "He knows I am going to give his
confession to the faculty this morning, and he would not want to stay
here a minute after that. Yale will never see him again."

"Good thing for Yale!" Hodge grunted.

CHAPTER XIV.

A WILD NIGHT.

A wild lot of sophomores and freshmen were celebrating the beginning of
"secret-society week," by marching round the campus at night in
lock-step style, singing rousing college songs. They danced in and out
of the dormitories, wildly cheered every building they passed, while the
classes bellowed forth their "Omega Lambda Chi."

Down by the fence by Durfee's, on the campus, in the gymnasium, at
Traeger's and Morey's and Jackson's, and wherever Yale men congregated,
almost the sole topic of conversation was of who would go to "Bones,"
"Keys," and "Wolf's Head."

The air of mystery surrounding membership in these senior societies, the
honor which their membership confers, and the fact that but a few men,
comparatively, out of any junior class can be elected to them, create an
absorbing interest.

Skull and Bones, or "Bones," as it is popularly called, is the
wealthiest and most respected. Then follows Scrolls and Keys, or "Keys,"
with Wolf's Head third in order of distinction. The names are taken from
the society pins. Each of these societies has a handsome and costly
club-house, whose secrets are no more to be arrived at than are those of
the sphinx and the pyramids.

Conjectures as to what society would get the most prominent members of
the junior class had engrossed a good deal of thought for several weeks.
Each society takes in fifteen members, or forty-five in all, out of the
two hundred and fifty or more men that usually compose the junior class.
As every junior is anxious to become a member, the feverish interest
with which the subject is regarded by the juniors may be imagined. This
interest had gradually spread throughout the college. Now the subject
suddenly leaped to such importance that it overshadowed the ball-game
which Yale was to play against Princeton, and the coming boat-race at
New London, in which the phenomenally popular Inza Burrage was to be the
mascot of the Yale crew.

Class spirit, that wildly jovial night, seemed to melt