pened to go and light on it and look in. Of course, that knocked the
mystery galley-west in a second. There lay the acorns, scattered all
over the floor.. He flopped his wings and raised a whoop. 'Come here!'
he says, 'Come here, everybody; hang'd if this fool hasn't been trying
to fill up a house with acorns!' They all came a-swooping down like a
blue cloud, and as each fellow lit on the door and took a glance, the
whole absurdity of the contract that that first jay had tackled hit him
home and he fell over backward suffocating with laughter, and the next
jay took his place and done the same.

"Well, sir, they roosted around here on the housetop and the trees for
an hour, and guffawed over that thing like human beings. It ain't any
use to tell me a bluejay hasn't got a sense of humor, because I know
better. And memory, too. They brought jays here from all over the United
States to look down that hole, every summer for three years. Other
birds, too. And they could all see the point except an owl that come
from Nova Scotia to visit the Yo Semite, and he took this thing in on
his way back. He said he couldn't see anything funny in it. But then he
was a good deal disappointed about Yo Semite, too."

CHAPTER IV

Student Life

[The Laborious Beer King]

The summer semester was in full tide; consequently the most frequent
figure in and about Heidelberg was the student. Most of the students
were Germans, of course, but the representatives of foreign lands
were very numerous. They hailed from every corner of the globe--for
instruction is cheap in Heidelberg, and so is living, too. The
Anglo-American Club, composed of British and American students, had
twenty-five members, and there was still much material left to draw
from.

Nine-tenths of the Heidelberg students wore no badge or uniform;
the other tenth wore caps of various colors, and belonged to social
organizations called "corps." There were five corps, each with a color
of its own; there were white caps, blue caps, and red, yellow, and green
ones. The famous duel-fighting is confined to the "corps" boys. The
"KNEIP" seems to be a specialty of theirs, too. Kneips are held, now and
then, to celebrate great occasions, like the election of a beer king,
for instance. The solemnity is simple; the five corps assemble at night,
and at a signal they all fall loading themselves with beer, out
of pint-mugs, as fast as possible, and each man keeps his own
count--usuall