Not many in Southern Pacific University seriously believed that their “student reds” had any responsibility for or even guilty knowledge of the Wall Street bomb explosion. But they knew that these silly fools had been misled by sinister men who quite possibly did have part in the plot, or anyhow were bad enough to have it. Also they knew that the fools had got the university in for a lot of hideous publicity. So the fools were badgered and browbeaten on every hand; they were summoned to the Dean’s office one by one and there racked and cross-questioned—and not merely by President Cowper and Dean Squirge, but by various stern gentlemen representing the district attorney and the city prosecutor and the federal secret service and the patriotic newspapers and the defense societies and the information service of the once-upon-a-time ambassador of a no-longer-existing Russian government. When Bunny Ross realized that this was happening, there was another explosion. Being a rich man’s son, he was accustomed to having his rights, and more. So of the first of his questioners he demanded, “Who are you, and what brings you into this?” “Now, Ross,” said Dean Squirge, “if there are evil men threatening our country’s welfare, you certainly do not wish to protect them.” “It depends on what you mean by evil,” retorted Bunny. “If you mean men who are trying to tell the truth, I wish to protect them all I can.” “All we want to know is, what you know about a man called Paul Watkins.” So there it was; either Bunny must submit to being cross-questioned by detectives, or else he must have everybody decide that he was hiding some dark secrets about Paul. Said he: “Paul Watkins is my best friend. I have known him for seven or eight years. He is the straightest man I have ever known, bar none. He has come home sick, after a year and a half in the army in Siberia. He could claim an allowance from the government if he wasn’t too proud. What he did to me was to tell me what he saw with his own eyes, and I believe every word of it. And I am going to tell it to other people, inside the university or out, and no one is going to stop me.” So that was that, and Bunny was excused for the present. They would tackle the less wealthy conspirators—beginning with Peter Nagle, most guilty of all, because his name had appeared on the paper as editor. Peter was commanded forthwith to recant his impoliteness to God, and he swore by God that he wouldn’t; so the “Evening Howler” carried a two-column head: STUDENT RED LET OUT And Peter grinned and said for the rest of the bunch not to worry, he was going into the plumbing business and get his revenge on society; and when he had made some money he would publish a paper of his own and kid the life out of God every week.