Dear Hugh [he read]. You've been awfully good to me but
I can't stand it. I'm going home to-day. Give my regards
to Peters. Thanks for all you've done for me.

BERT MORSE.

CHAPTER VII

For a moment after reading Morse's letter Hugh was genuinely sorry, but
almost immediately he felt irritated and hurt.

He handed the letter to Carl, who entered just as he finished reading
it, and exploded: "The simp! And after I wasted so much time on him."

Carl read the letter. "I told you so." He smiled impishly. "You were the
wise boy; you _knew_ that he would get over it."

Hugh should really have felt grateful to Morse. It was only a feeling of
responsibility for him that had made Hugh prepare his own lessons. Day
after day he had studied with Morse in order to cheer him up; and that
was all the studying he had done. Latin and history had little
opportunity to claim his interest in competition with the excitement
around him.

Crossing the campus for the first few weeks of college was an adventure
for every freshman. He did not know when he would be seized by a howling
group of sophomores and forced to make an ass of himself for their
amusement. Sometimes he was required to do "esthetic dancing," sometimes
to sing, or, what was more common, to make a speech. And no matter how
hard he tried, the sophomores were never pleased. If he danced, they
laughed at him, guyed him unmercifully, called attention to his legs,
his awkwardness, urged him to go faster, insisted that he get some
"pash" into it. If he sang, and the frightened freshman usually sang off
key, they interrupted him after a few notes, told him to sing something
else, interrupted that, and told him "for God's sake" to dance. The
speech-making, however, provided the most fun, especially if the
freshman was cleverer than his captors. Then there was a battle of wits,
and if the freshman too successfully defeated his opponents, he was
dropped into a watering-trough that had stood on the campus for more
than a century. Of justice there was none, but of sport there was a
great plenty. The worst scared of the freshmen really enjoyed the
experience. By a strange sort of inverted logic, he felt that he was
something of a hero; at least, for a brief time he had occupied the
public eye. He had been initiated; he was a Sanford man.

One freshman, however, found those two weeks harrowing. That was Me