"Nonsense, Hol," protested Stoughton; "whoever thinks up here of taking the Dickey seriously,--except, perhaps, a few Sophomores who are fools and snobs enough to be either cocky about getting on it or sore about being left off. And as for awe and reverence, if there is any such feeling at all towards the Dickey, it is confined to less than a tenth of the Freshman class. What Senior ever cares two snaps about it one way or the other?" "That may be known well enough to us," answered Holworthy, "but what does an outsider think when he sees Harvard men making such asses of themselves, as those do who are running for the Dickey. Don't you suppose it looks pretty childish." "For instance," asked Hudson, "if he saw a handsome and accomplished gentleman holding a horse and dog-cart--as I did for you--while a low-down mucker goes in to call on the handsome gentleman's best girl--as you did for me?" "That was good for you," laughed Holworthy. "Or if he saw as I did," added Burleigh, "a dignified swell, named Hollis Holworthy, kissing all the babies he met on the street." "Or a large and portly person," rejoined Hollis, "lying on his back in the public square at Concord, and telling sympathetic citizens that he was pierced by a British musket-ball. And then running in the dead of night from Concord to Lexington, dressed in a continental uniform, banging on the door of every farm-house with the butt of a musket until he brought out the alarmed householder and told him that the regulars were coming." "Who made me do it?" retorted Burleigh. "I acknowledge I had a hand in it," answered Holworthy. "I am confessing, not defending. _De gustibus Sophomoris non est disputandum._ But that is no excuse. At Yale they don't disgrace their college that way at any rate." "They may have a lot of poppycock about their mysterious societies that seems ridiculous to us," said Rattleton, "but they don't trouble anybody else with it. Any way, they are good fellows, and they always give you a royal time when you visit down there." "Yes, they do, my child," Burleigh assented in a serious tone. "Remember that you represent the dignity of the 'Oldest and Greatest.' Take care that they do not make a painful exhibition of our boy." "Ned knows," chuckled Hudson. "No one has ever been able to find out exactly what happened to him when he stayed down there after the ball-game last year. He came back, looking like the last hours of an ill-spent life, with a confused story about some Yale beverage named 'Velvet' and a wonderful loving cup with no bottom, and a great many handles." "Hush your idle scandal," said Burleigh. "Who are you going to stay with, Jack?" "A first-rate fellow named Sheffield," answered Rattleton. "What!" exclaimed Hudson, "Joe Sheffield?" "Yes, do you know him?" "Wow!" yelled Stoughton. "Does Steve know him! Mr. Hudson, do you know Mr. Sheffield?" "Shut up, Dick," said Hudson; "you promised not to tell that."