quarters,
when the gong released them from further work that night.

"On with the dance, let joy be unrefined," sang out Teddy, as he flung a
pillow at Billy Burton.

"You mean un_con_fined," corrected Billy.

"I mean just what I said," replied Teddy. "I know the bunch of lowbrows
I'm talking to."

"Where have you stacked the eats, Ned?" asked Tom Eldridge, who, though
his ankle was still weak, found his appetite as good as ever.

"In here," replied Ned, throwing open his wardrobe door and displaying a
host of things that made their mouths water.

"Wow, what a pile!" exclaimed Lester Lee.

"It won't be a pile long, when you cormorants get at it," said Tom.

"He counted them at break of day,
And when the sun set, where were they?"

he quoted.

"Officer, he's in again," said Melvin.

"It takes more than a sprained ankle to keep Tom off the poetry stuff,"
laughed Fred. "Nothing less than an axe will do the business."

"How did you get all this fodder up here?" asked Slim.

"I gave Jimmy, the laundryman, half a dollar for the use of his hand
cart," explained Ned, "and he sent his boy up with it, with directions
to wait down on the other side of the gymnasium. Then I slipped out
between supper time and study period, and smuggled them in without any
one's seeing me. The janitor nearly caught me, though. Big Sluper was
just turning into the corridor as I got the last thing in and shut the
wardrobe door."

"We want to look out for Beansey, though," he warned them. "He's monitor
this week, and you know how strict he is."

"Beansey," as the boys called him, because he came from Boston, was a
monitor and assistant instructor. He was very lank and solemn, and
extremely precise in his manner of speech. In the matter of discipline,
he was almost as severe as Dr. Rally himself, and the boys sometimes
referred to him as "Hardtack's understudy."

"Who cares for Beansey?" said the irrepressible Teddy. "If he comes,
we'll sic the cheese on him. It smells strong enough to down him. What
kind is it, Ned? Brie, Roquefort, Limburger?"

"It is pretty strong," admitted Ned. "When I ordered it from the grocer,
he turned to one of his clerks and said: 'Unchain Number Eight.'"

The laugh that followed was interrupted by a warning:

"Lay low. Here he comes now."

"Beansey" came in with measured step and walked slowly through the
dormitory. His sharp eyes took in everything, but there was nothing to
awaken distrust