f for the sacrifice. I
stepped out, too, though I was so young at that time that I didn't know
any more how to go about being engaged to a girl than I did about my
Greek lessons. Then the council began to discuss the choice. And just
there the trouble began.

It all came about through the frats, of course. Frats are a good thing
all right, but they stir up more trouble in a college than a Turk's nine
wives can make for him. Ashcroft was president of the council. He was an
Alfalfa Delt. So was Evans. Ashcroft hung out for Evans like a bulldog
hanging to a tramp. Beeman, a council member, was a Sigh Whoop and so
was Petersen. Beeman argued that Petersen could win more points than the
rest of the school put together and that it would be unpatriotic,
unmanly, disgraceful and un-Siwash-like not to select him. Bailey, the
third member, was an Eta Bita Pie, and while sub-Freshmen are not
supposed to be anything with Greek letters on, we understood each other,
and I was to be initiated the next fall. Bailey pointed out caustically
that to imprison a sub-Freshman would be to ruin his reputation, break
his spirit and disgrace the school--that one world's record was worth
fifty points, and that, if allowed to, I would pole-vault so high the
next day that I would have to come down in a parachute. The result was
the council broke up in one big row and Martha Scroggs spent the
afternoon unengaged.

About five o'clock Bailey came over to the track, where we were going
through the last sad rites, and hauled me aside.

"Take off those togs, kid," he said. "I've got a stunt. These yaps are
going to hold another meeting to-night to decide on Martha Scroggs'
fiancee. In the meantime you're going out to ask the old man for her.
Understand? You're going to ask him and take what he gives you like a
little man and beg off for to-day, and then you're going to break the
pole-vault record. See?"

Unfortunately, I did. I liked the job just as well as I would like
getting boiled in oil. But one must stand by one's frat, you know--Gee,
how proud I felt when I said that! I didn't have any idea how an engaged
man ought to look or act, but I went home, put on the happiest duds I
had, and shinned up the street about eight o'clock.

The man-eating dog of the Scroggses was somewhere else, gorging himself
on another unfortunate, and I got to the front door all right. I rang
the bell. Some one opened the door. It was Judge Scroggs. He looked at
me as