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turning to his dumb-founded classmates, "that there has been foul play here." Then, taking Stevens by the shoulders, "Here are my keys; take the fellows to my rooms!" Wheeler darted swiftly to the next room in Wilson, where the second division was in session. In a few hasty, broken sentences he explained the situation, dismissed the class and passed in like manner through the remaining five divisions, which were gathered in the hall. So it came about that, before a quarter of an hour had elapsed, the entire freshman class had assembled in Wheeler's rooms, filled them to overflowing and were thronging about the door and in the corridors. Shouldering through this mass, Wheeler mounted the table and in well-chosen words, ringing with intense, suppressed excitement, made known the absence of their officers and his suspicions. With a master hand, he guided the eager but irresolute crowds into an organized, efficient body. Elected by acclamation as director, with full powers of action, he quickly selected twelve of the brightest men to assist him in the search to begin at once for their missing comrades. Every man was utilized. Headquarters were established in Wheeler's rooms, and a line of men connected with the telephone in the office on the floor below, where a committee was left in charge. Detachments spread over the city, visited the city hall, learned from the inspector of hacks that three carriages had taken a dozen men, with five prisoners, bound hand and foot, from Hope College to the Fox Point wharves; that here they had chartered an oyster boat and steamed down the river, leaving the quay just before daylight. These investigations consumed nearly the entire morning, and just as the whistles were sounding high noon Wheeler's committee, assembled on the wharf, had succeeded in chartering a swift tug to set out in instant pursuit of the fleeing sophs. and their captives. Already a picked band of the strongest, boldest freshmen had passed to the deck of the impromptu cruiser, when a messenger from headquarters on the hill, hatless and coatless, covered with dust and perspiration, rushed into their midst, gasping for breath and crying, "Hold, we win; they've got away!" As we have already seen, Willis and his fellow officers were

carried away by force. Wheeler's committee had traced them. to the wharf. Here the sophomore leaders had brought their boat and into it they hurried their shackled prisoners. The cool air from the river fanned their heated brows, and the first, faint streaks of dawn lighted the gray east as the tug steamed slowly down the river. Past the hulls of the great New York steamers, through the barges laden with coal, out among the scows half filled with dredgings from the channel, the puffing tug held on its way. By Starve Goat Island and on, past Field's and Rocky points they went, and not till the yearning eyes of the captive freshmen beheld the shores of Prudence island in the distance, did their captors deign to parley with them. Four of the prisoners accepted the proffered parole, receiving in return the liberty of the oyster boat. Willis alone, undaunted, silent, resolute, refused to treat with them and was cast into the cabin, still fettered, with the eye of a trusty guardian fixed on his every movement.

After a brief conference the sophomore leaders decided to put into Newport harbor to replenish their stock of coal and lay in some provisions for the feast they planned to make before the eyes of the fasting freshmen. The boat lay to, some little distance from the wharf, and the tender went ashore.

Meanwhile, Willis in the cabin, while pretending to be asleep was meditating a plan of escape. He had overheard the talk of his captors and knew the position of the boat. The man set to watch him, thinking him asleep, and himself wearied, moreover, with long vigil and intense excitement of the night, was nodding in his chair with drooping eyelids. Slowly and cautiously, his eyes fixed on the sentinel, and guarding against the slightest noise of a movement, Willis wormed his way toward the table, where a case knife lay beside the remnant of a loaf of bread. With infinite pains he raised himself on his knees by the table. His hands were tied behind his back, but he had used the interval of the voyage to good effect in loosening the knots to obtain greater freedom of motion with his wrists. Turning his back to the table, he groped for the knife; it was just beyond his reach. Great beads of sweat stood out on his brow and he was well nigh suffccated as he struggled to his feet and, leaning back over the table's edge, grasped the coveted blade, slowly lowered himself again to his knees and writhed back to his corner. The nodding head of his watcher had fallen over against the wall and he was sound asleep. Then the president of the freshman class began to work with desperate haste. How he blessed those long hours

on the foot-ball field and track! those fierce bone-racking, musclerending games that had built his frame anew with sinews of iron and cords of steel! It stood him in good stead now, and the man who had never "quit" on the gridiron or the track, was fighting here the gamest uphill battle of his young, courageous life. It seemed as though the dull edge of his knife made no impression on the stout cords which bound his wrists and his fingers ached with the unwonted strain. But he kept to his work with the tenacity of a bull-dog and at last a strand parted, then a cord, the knot loosened and his hands were free. It was the work of a moment to unbind his ankles, and the next instant he sprang up, freed from his bonds, ready to cope with tremendous odds. His foot struck against a chair and his watchers came wide awake. Before he could move or cry out, Willis was upon him and, dealing him a sledge hammer blow between the eyes that felled him like a smitten ox, he seized a chair, dashed up the narrow staircase to the deck, struck down two sophs. who attempted to stop him, plunged headlong over the side into the harbor and swam for the shore with mighty strokes. The dock officials, thoroughly aroused at this unusual scene, put out in a launch and prevented the sophomores who, alarmed at Willis's escape, would fain have made off from leaving the harbor with their remaining prisoners. Willis at once stated his case before the inspector, threatening the sophs. with arrest on charge of kidnapping, but at length compromising with them on condition that they give up their remaining prisoners and agree not to hinder their return to college hill. This done, the sophomore put out to sea, and Willis's party, making for the depot, had just time to send off the telegram which so happily interrupted their classmates' pursuit, and jumped aboard the 12.02 express for the city.

There remains little more to be told. Needless to say, the freshman class was on fire with joy at the safe return of their leaders, and the procession which escorted them in triumph from the depot to the college campus surpassed any celebration within the memory of the oldest post-grads. And the glory of the banquet outshone the wildest dreams of that most sanguine body of all mankind, the Freshman Class.

"There was joy supreme in the freshman heart,

There was beer in the freshman throat,

And he toasted the freshman victory,

And he toasted the 'oyster boat.""

E. G. H., 'or.

THE TUFTONIAN.

Vol. XXVI.

MAY, 1901.

No. 8

CARSON.

The room and halls were silent. The agony of dressing was over, and the last evening party cavalier had departed for the scene of action. Carson bent over his Greek with a sigh of relief, and was soon deep in antiquity. From the adjacent room came a light strain of smoke, floating carelessly across the doorway; but there was no sound save the the occasional rustle of a paper, or the hum of voices from some distant room.

Suddenly the clock began to strike. Carson picked up his lexicon and began to search among the T's. Not until the eighth and last stroke did he seem to heed; then he looked up with an air of arrested interest. The next moment there was a sound of tumbling books and descending heels; from the next room came an answering stir, and in the doorway appeared a ring of smoke, followed by a pipe, followed by a tousled head.

"Hullo!" said the head; "what's struck you?"

Carson was standing in the middle of the room staring at the clock uncertainly. His spectacles were pushed back, and one hand passed reflectively across his chin.

"Is this the twentieth?" he asked slowly.

"Yes of course it is."

"Is the gym. tonight?" with dawning anxiety.

"Well, now, what do you suppose Blake and Sheldon dressed for? Why did Martin take two collars, and-"

"Great Scott, Carl!" Carson turned upon him blankly. "I've asked a girl, and I'd forgotten all about it!"

The head in the doorway stared a second in silence. Then a hand appeared, and the pipe was slowly removed.

"You!"

The amazement, the incredulity in that one word completed Carson's bewilderment, and he sat limply on the table.

"What shall I do?" he said.

"Do! By Jove, do!" The head was spasmodically withdrawn, and the whole tall form appeared on the threshold. "Look here, Bob, do you know what you're talking about? Have you really asked a girl to this thing tonight? Do you remember doing it ?"

"Why, yes." Carson turned his mild blue eyes away from the clock, where they had been gazing confusedly. "I wrote the note at your desk, on—”

"On theme-paper, I'll bet. What ever struck you to do it? Who is it you've asked?"

"I asked Miss Hale."

Carl gasped. "By Jove there's no half-way work with you! Do you know she's the best dancer here?"

"O Lord!" groaned Carson miserably.

"Jove, but you're in a box! What are you sitting there for? It'll be half-past eight before you can possibly get there, and she's waiting for you this minute."

Carson blinked at his room-mate for a moment, as if trying to grasp the situation. Then he leaped to his feet and shot out of the room. Carl remained standing, stupefied by this most unprecedented event. Carson at an evening party was an ethical hyperbole-old, rusty, vague, absent-minded Carson, whom the men adored and the faculty admired, but who didn't know a scarf from a "party-cape." However, with masculine prudence Carl held his tongue for the present, formulating his jeers and questionings for some more promising occasion.

A coat was hurled by the half-opened door, followed, after a brief ripping sound, by a collar. A drawer was pulled out and slammed onto the floor, and there came the sound of a chair overturned. Carl sank on the couch and began to laugh.

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