ed, "I've got to _do_
something!"

CHAPTER IX

The day of Professor Frazer's next lecture, a rain-sodden day at the
end of October, with the stubble-fields bleakly shelterless beyond the
campus. The rain splashed up from pools on the worn brick walks and
dripped from trees and whipped about buildings, soaking the legs and
leaving them itchingly wet and the feet sloshily uncomfortable. Carl
returned to his room at one; talked to the Turk, his feet thrust
against the side of their rusty stove. He wanted to keep three
o'clock, the hour of Frazer's lecture, from coming. "I feel as if I
was in for a fight and scared to death about it. Listen to that rain
outside. Gee! but the old dame keeps these windows dirty. I hope
Frazer will give it to them good and hard. I wish we could applaud
him. I do feel funny, like something tragic was going to happen."

"Oh, tie that dog outside," yawned the Turk, stanch adherent of Carl,
and therefore of Professor Frazer, but not imaginative. "Come on,
young Kerl; I'll play you a slick little piece on the mouth-organ.
Heh?"

"Oh, thunder! I'm too restless to listen to anything except a cannon."
Carl stumped to the window and pondered on the pool of water flooding
the graying grass stems in the shabby yard.

When it was time to start for Professor Frazer's lecture the Turk
blurted: "Why don't we stay away and forget about it? Get her off your
nerves. Let's go down to the bowling-alley and work up a sweat."

"Not a chance, Turk. He'll want all the supporters he's got. And you'd
hate to stay away as much as I would. I feel cheered up now; all
ready for the scrap. Yip! Come on!"

"All right, governor. I like the scrap, all right, but I don't want to
see you get all worked up."

Through the rain, across the campus, an unusual number of students in
shining, cheap, black raincoats were hastening to the three o'clock
classes, clattering up the stone steps of the Academic Building,
talking excitedly, glancing up at the arched door as though they
expected to see something startling. Dozens stared at Carl. He felt
rather important. It was plain that he was known as a belligerent, a
supporter of Professor Frazer. As he came to the door of Lecture-room
A he found that many of the crowd were deserting their proper classes
to attend the Frazer event. He bumped down into his own seat, gazing
back superciliously at the outsiders who were edging into unclaimed
seats at the back of the room or