or the amusement of their peers, but he did object to
the vulgarity and cruelty of much that was done.

The first order the sophomores often gave was, "Strip, freshman." Just
why the freshmen had to be naked before they performed, Hugh did not
know, but there was something phallic about the proceedings that
disgusted him. Like every athlete, he thought nothing of nudity, but he
soon discovered that some of the freshmen were intensely conscious of
it. True, a few months in the gymnasium cured them of that
consciousness, but at first many of them were eternally wrapping towels
about themselves in the gymnasium, and they took a shower as if it were
an act of public shame. The sophomores recognized the timidity that some
of the freshmen had in revealing their bodies, and they made full
capital of it. The shyer the freshman, the more pointed their remarks,
the more ingeniously nasty their tricks.

"I don't mind the razzing myself," Hugh told Carl after one particularly
strenuous evening, "but I don't like the things they said to poor little
Wilkins. And when they stripped 'em and made Wilkins read that dirty
story to Culver, I wanted to fight"

"It was kinda rotten," Carl agreed, "but it was funny."

"It wasn't funny at all," Hugh said angrily.

Carl looked at him in surprise. It was the first time that he had seen
him aroused.

"It wasn't funny at all," Hugh repeated; "it was just filthy. I'd 'a'
just about died if I'd 'a' been in Wilkins's place. The poor kid!
They're too damn dirty, these sophomores. I didn't think that college
men could be so dirty. Why, not even the bums at home would think of
such things. And I'm telling you right now that there are three of those
guys that I'm layin' for. Just wait till the class rush. I'm going to
get Adams, and then I'm going to get Cooper--yes, I'm going to get him
even if he is bigger'n me--and I'm going to get Dodge. I didn't say
anything when they made me wash my face in the toilet bowl, but, by God!
I'm going to get 'em for it."

Three weeks later he made good this threat. He was a clever boxer, and
he succeeded in separating each of the malefactors from the fighting
mob. He would have been completely nonplussed if he could have heard
Adams and Dodge talking in their room after the rush.

"Who gave you the black eye?" Adams asked Dodge.

"That freshman Carver," he replied, touching the eye gingerly. "Who gave
you that welt on the chin?"

"Carver! And, say, he beat H