urned handsprings over the library table. Fifty
per cent safe, anyway. The Chi Yis were trying to sort out the Smiths,
too.

It was an hour before anything else happened. Then Matheson of the
Alfalfa Delts, a ponderous personage, who wore a silk hat on Sunday and
did instructing, came over and asked if we had a man named Smith with
us. He was to be a pupil of his, he said, and he wanted to arrange his
work. Of course Matheson was hoping to get a green man at the door, but
he didn't have any luck. Bangs himself let him in and let him read two
or three magazines through in the library while we turned some more
handsprings--in the dining room this time. The Alfalfa Delts were
fishing, too. It was a fair field and no favors.

After a while Bangs told Matheson that the man named Smith presented his
compliments and said it was all a mistake. His tutor's name was not
Matheson, but Muttonhead. That sent Matheson away as pleasant as you
please.

All that day we sat around and beat off the enemy and got beaten off
ourselves. Our Smith got a Faculty notice to appear at once and
register--that is, it got as far as the door. We sent it back to the Chi
Yi house. We sent the Alfalfa Delt Smith a telegram from Chicago,
reading: "Father ill. Come at once." That only got as far as a door,
too. Some Alfalfa Delt got it and sent the boy back with the answer: "So
careless of father!" Blanchard called up the fire department and sent it
over to the Chi Yi house, hoping to be able to slip over and cut out
Smith in the confusion that followed; but the game was too old. The Chi
Yis had played it themselves the year before and refused to bite.
Meantime we had found a Chi Yi alumnus in the kitchen trying to sell a
book to the cook; and in the proceedings that followed we discovered
that the book had a ten-dollar bill in it. All around, it was an
entertaining but profitless day. By night, there wasn't another idea
left in the three camps. We sat exhausted, each clutching its Smith and
glaring at the other two.

As far as our Smith was concerned we almost wished some one would steal
him. He was about as interesting as a pound of baking powder. What with
fishing for his Bradstreet rating, and inventing lies to keep him from
going out and seeing the town, and watching the horizon for predatory
Alfalfa Delts and Chi Yis, we were plumb worn out. We were so skittish
that, when the bell rang about eight o'clock, we let it ring four times
more before