you up?"

"Down at Moore's restaurant," said MacManus, sheepishly.

"Well, what has happened to the banquet?" they exclaimed.

"It's all eaten!" groaned MacManus.

"Who ate it?" cawed the Crows.

"The Dozen!" moaned MacManus.

And that was the last straw that broke the Crows' backs.

They threatened all sorts of revenge, and some of the smaller-minded
of them went to the Faculty and suggested that the best thing that
could be done was to expel the Lakerim men in a body. But, by a little
questioning, the Faculty learned of the attempted hazing that had been
at the bottom of the whole matter, and decided that the best thing to
do was to reprimand and warn both the Crows and the Dozen, and make
them solemnly promise to bury the hatchet.

Which they did.

And thus ended one of the bitterest feuds of modern times.

XII

Now, Heady, who had set the whole kidnapping scheme on foot as soon
as he joined the Dozen at Kingston, had brought to the Academy no
particular love for study; but he had brought a great enthusiasm for
basket-ball.

And this enthusiasm was catching, and he soon had many of the
Kingstonians working hard in the gymnasium, and organizing scrub teams
to play this most bewilderingly rapid of games.

Most of the Lakerimmers went in for pure love of excitement; but when
Heady said that it was especially good as an indoor winter exercise to
keep men in trim for football and baseball, Tug and Punk immediately
went at it with great enthusiasm.

But Tug was so mixed up in the slight differences between this game
and his beloved football, and so insisted upon running (which is
against the rules of basket-ball), and upon tackling (which is against
the rules), and upon kicking (which is against the rules), that
he finally gave up in despair, and said that if he became a good
basket-ball player he would be a poor football-player. And football
was his earlier love.

Sleepy, however, who was the great baseball sharp, made this
complaint, in his drawling fashion:

"The rules say you can only hold the ball five seconds, and it takes
me at least ten seconds to decide what to do with it; so I guess the
blamed game isn't for me."

Out of the many candidates for the team the following regular five
were chosen: For center, Sawed-Off, who was tall enough to do the
"face-off" in excellent style, and who could, by spreading out his
great arms, present in front of an ambitious enemy a surface as big
as