Larry’s prediction proved to be a true one. When they reached the rendezvous on the campus, the big bonfire was already blazing, and the men of their class were gathering in full force for the final ceremony of their year as Freshmen. Though the cap-burning is strictly a Freshman rite, the other classes were out to look on, but there was no attempt made to interfere with the programme. College songs were sung, the Sheddon series given, and Wally Dixon, who, besides being a promising full-back, was pretty generally known as the class joker, made a speech in which he paid what you might call left-handed compliments to every fellow in the class whose name he could remember. After Dixon had worked off every joke, old or new, that he could think of, the men formed in line, single file, and marched solemnly around the big fire. At the third circling the green caps were flung into the blaze one by one as the procession passed a given point, and the final event of the Freshman year was over. It was at the moment of dispersal, after the last cap had gone up in smoke, that Dick halted Purdick and Larry. “Cal Rogers has lent me his car, and I want you two fellows to go over to the Brandon House with me to meet Uncle Billy and Aunt Stella. They seem to think, some way, that you saved their lives, or something, in that auto accident they had.” It was quite like both of the two invited ones that they should try to squirm out, but Dick was insistent, though he did yield far enough to give them time to go over to their room and change their clothes. “All right; chase along and put on the glad rags,” he said. “I’ll be at the Man-o’-War with the car as soon as you’re ready.” And so they parted. XIV “WESTWARD HO!” Dick picked Larry and Purdick up at Mrs. Grant’s a few minutes after the cap burning, and the three drove over to town. Leaving the borrowed Rogers car parked in front of the hotel, they found Mr. and Mrs. Starbuck and Ruth McKnight in the mezzanine lounge. Ollie McKnight, who had promised to bring a bunch of his frat brothers over after the cap burning, had not yet shown up, so Dick, Larry and Purdick had the field all to themselves for the time being. Much to Larry’s comfort, as well as to little Purdick’s, the Starbucks passed over the auto accident and the “rescue” lightly, and when the group of six began to fall apart into pairs, with Dick’s aunt asking him a lot of things about his first year’s experience in college, and “Uncle Billy” cross-questioning Larry about how far he had gone in geology and the natural sciences in his High School course, Purdick found himself sort of abandoned to the tender mercies of the pudgy little girl who had named herself as one of the prospective heirs to the McKnight millions.