With the opening of the new term, when the freshmen had become more or less dignified sophomores, Phil had proposed that he and his two chums shift to a large room in the west dormitory, where the majority of the sophomores and juniors lived. His plan was enthusiastically adopted by Sid and Tom, and, as soon as they had arrived at college, ready for the beginning of the term, moving day had been instituted. But Sid, after helping Tom get their possessions in a pile in the middle of the room they were about to leave, had disappeared, and Phil, enthusiastic about getting his two best friends into an apartment with him, had come over to aid Tom. "Now, you see," went on Phil, "I'll nail this board along the front edge of the sofa--so." "But don't you think, old chap--and I know you'll excuse my mentioning it," said Tom--"don't you think that it rather spoils, well, we'll say the artistic beauty of it?" "Artistic fiddlesticks!" exclaimed Phil. "Of course it does! But it's the only way to hold it together." "One could, I suppose, put a sort of drapery--flounce, I believe, is the proper word--over it," went on Tom. "That would hide the unsightly board." "I don't care whether it's hid or not!" exclaimed Phil. "But if you don't get down here and help hold this end, while I nail the other, I know what's going to happen." "What?" asked Tom, as he carefully put in his pocket the photograph of the pretty girl. "Well, you'll have a mob of howling freshmen in here, and there won't be any sofa left." "Perish the thought!" cried Tom, and then he set to work in earnest helping Phil. "Now a board on the back," said the amateur carpenter, and for a few minutes he hammered vigorously. "It's a regular anvil chorus," remarked Tom. "Here, no knocking!" exclaimed his chum. "Now let's see if it's stiff enough." Anxiously he raised one end of the sofa. There was no sagging in the middle this time. "It's like putting a new keel on a ship!" cried the inventor of the scheme gaily. "A few more nails, and it will do. Do you think the chair will stand shifting?" "Oh, yes. That's like the 'one-horse shay'--it'll hold together until it flies apart by spontaneous combustion. You needn't worry about that." Phil proceeded to drive a few more nails in the boards he had attached to the front and back of the sofa. Then he got up to admire his work. "I call that pretty good, Tom; don't you?" he asked. The two chums drew back to the farther side of the room to get the effect. "Yes, I guess with a ruffle or two, a little insertion, and a bit of old lace, it will hide the fractured places, Phil. It's a pity----" "Here, what are you scoundrels doing to my old sofa?" exclaimed a voice. "Vandals! How dare you spoil that antique?" and another lad entered the room. "Say, why didn't you put new legs on it, insert new springs, and cover it over while you were about it?" he asked sarcastically.