"No," answered Hudson, "I had nothing to do with it. I decline all responsibility for Edward Burleigh. I am not my room-mate's keeper." "I heard him carolling on the stairs at an hour when singing should be left to the little birds. He hammered on my door for a while, but I knew enough not to get up. I wonder he didn't raise the proctor. He shouted, through my key-hole, something about the war being over." "Yes," said Hudson, "that was what he told me when he woke me up by sitting on my chest. He was going to carry the good news all through the Yard, but I persuaded him to go to bed and wait until morning." "Where had he been?" "Well, you see, Jack Randolph carried him off yesterday evening to a meeting of the Southern Club, as an invited guest, to span the bloody chasm with him. They spanned it a good many times there, I guess, and then as it was a beautiful moonlight night and perfect sleighing, they decided that the bloody chasm ought to be spanned in Brookline and other neighboring towns. So they got a cutter, and must have conducted spanning operations on a wide scale all over the country, for they didn't get back until dawn. George Smith, the policeman, says he saw them sitting on the steps of Harvard Hall, singing 'John Brown's Body' and 'Dixie,' and hymns of peace while the sun rose." "I deny the aspersion on the Southern Club," exclaimed 'Colonel' Dixey, from the other end of the long sofa. "I was present at the meeting, and we had nothing to induce sunrise hymns. I don't know what Jack and Ned did afterwards, but they didn't get it at the Southern Club." This somewhat veiled assertion raised an incredulous chorus: "Oh, Dixey, may you be forgiven." "Come, come, Colonel, do you mean to persuade us that an organization containing at least three members from Kentucky is run on a cold-water basis?" "Where is the glory of your old commonwealth?" "Bet the meeting was full of rum--rum and rebellion! Don't deny it, Colonel." "Drink and treason!" "Neither, sir, neither," replied Dixey to this chaff. "I grieve to hear such narrow-minded accusations. Prexy was there and made a speech.--Oh, Holworthy! You know that man we saw yesterday in the Transept of Memorial? He was at the Southern Club with Prexy." "Oh, yes," said Holworthy, "who was he?" "A grad. from Georgia. I have forgotten his name." "I thought he was a grad., and not a stranger, for he didn't have a guide book, and didn't ask us to show him the "_campus_." Had he been a soldier?" "Didn't say. If so, he was probably a Confed." "Well, he looked like an interesting old cock anyway," said Holworthy to the others. "He was standing before one of the tablets with his hat off. Somehow, when we saw him, our own hats felt so uncomfortable that we took them off, too, as we passed through." "Holly made up all sorts of poetry about him," added Dixey. "No, I didn't; but I do think he did the right thing in uncovering."