agreeing to join would probably mean
his "getting it unusually hard." He knew that of all the fraternities,
the Rhos were the most severe in their initiations--one of the Rhos had
told him so.

At the post-office that morning he met Professor Lamb starting for a
day's botanizing in the foothills. He did not know the instructor, but
he envied him as he leaned on his wheel and watched the botany man take
the fence and start off across the brown pastures toward the hills
beyond the lake. There certainly was a strong resemblance.

"Oh," groaned the candidate for fraternity privileges, "I wish it was a
case of his resembling me instead of my looking like him. I only wish I
was the prof, now, I'd change places quickly enough. I'm afraid I'm a
coward."

He wondered if they guessed how scared he was; he hoped not. He pedaled
around to the courts, where Cap. Smith was waiting to play tennis, and
he put on an infant bravado which secretly pleased the Sophomore. After
a few sets Cap. put his racket under his arm.

"No more tennis, Professor," he said, with meaning; "you'd better rest
most of the day. Get out your work for Monday, you won't feel much like
studying to-morrow, you know, and don't forget to be at the house at six
sharp." Then, since the Freshman had visibly wilted, Smith grinned all
the way across the field.

Haviland suspected two other fellows in the Hall of being in a state of
mind similar to his own, but as he had been instructed to keep the
matter absolutely secret, he could not turn to them for relief. He
worried through the long Saturday, making futile attacks on the work
prescribed for Monday, strumming in an aimless way on his banjo, and
finally writing his mother a letter between the lines of which she at
once read malaria.

Dinner at the Rho house was the most miserable meal he had ever choked
his way through. A half-dozen graduates were present, and some men from
the Berkeley chapter. These visitors seemed a solemn lot, and
conversation included the candidates only now and then. During the lulls
in the talk, the Freshmen made audible sounds trying to swallow their
food; this was so embarrassing that they gave up the effort to eat, only
gulping water now and then during talk. It was a relief when some one
touched each Freshman quietly, and the condemned youngsters followed
upstairs, their faces wearing pitiful dumb-victim-at-the-altar
expressions, or trying with ghastly smiles to show how little the