and sympathetic
sorrow of the Faculty who were attempting to mourn for what they had
always called a general school nuisance; and there was the phenomenally
solemn woe of the conspirators, who were spreading it on good and thick.

The Faculty spoke first. Beats all how much of a hypocrite a good man
can be when he feels it to be his duty. There was Bates, the Latin prof.
He had struggled with Hogboom three years and had often expressed the
firm opinion that, if Hoggy were removed from this world by a
masterpiece of justice of some sort, the general tone of civilization
would go up fifty per cent. Yet Bates got up that morning and
cried--yes, sir, actually cried. Cried into a large pocket handkerchief
that wasn't water-tight, either. That's more than Hoggy would ever have
done for him. And Prexy was so sympathetic and spoke so beautifully of
young soldiers getting drawn aside by Fate on their way to the battle,
and all that sort of thing, that you would have thought he had spent the
last three years loving Hogboom--whereas he had spent most of the time
trying to get some good excuse for rooting him out of school. You know
how Faculties always dislike a good football player. I think, myself,
they are jealous of his fame.

Maxfield made a telling address for the Senior class. He and Hoggy had
always disagreed, but it was all over now; and the way he laid it on was
simply wonderful. I thought of Hoggy up there behind the grilling,
swelling with pride and satisfaction as Maxfield told how brave, how
tender, how affectionate and how honorable he was, and I wished I was
dead, too. Being dead with a string to it is one of the finest things
that can happen to a man if he can just hang around and listen to
people.

Pierce got up. He was the college silver-tongue, and we settled back to
listen to him. Previous speakers had made Hoggy out about as fine as Sir
Philip Sidney, but they were amateurs. Here was where Hoggy went up
beside A. Lincoln and Alexander if Pierce was anywhere near himself.

There is no denying that Pierce started out magnificently. But pretty
soon I began to have an uneasy feeling that something was wrong. He was
eloquent enough, but it seemed to me that he was handling the deceased a
little too strenuously. You know how you can damn a man in nine ways and
then pull all the stingers out with a "but" at the end of it. That was
what Pierce was doing. "What if Hogboom was, in a way, fond of his
ease?" he thund