The fellow who had addressed him was a leader among the Hotchkiss crowd, out for coxswain, already spoken of for one of the class managerships. He was a diminutive type, immaculately neat, black hair exactly parted and unflurried, well jacketed, turn-down collar embellished with a red-and-yellow four-in-hand, a rather large, bulbous nose, and thin eyes that were never quiet--shrewd, direct, inquisitive, always estimating. He was smiling again, raising his glass to some one else down the table, and the smile that passed easily over his lips had the quality of seeming to come from the heart. McNab and Buck Waters, natural leaders of the revels, arms locked, were giving a muscular exhibition of joint conducting, while the room in chorus sang: "_Should fortune prove unkind,_ _Should fortune prove unfair,_ _A cure I have in mind_ _To drive away all care._" "By George!" said Hungerford, at his side, laughing, "it's good to be in the game at last, isn't it, Dink?" "It certainly is." "We've got a great crowd; it's going to be a great class." "Who's Bain?" said Dink, under his breath. "Bain--oh, he's a clever chap, probably be a class deacon. That's another good thing about this place: we can all get together and drink what we want." "Chorus!" cried McNab and Waters, with a twin flourish of their arms. "Chorus!" shouted Hungerford and Bain, raising their glasses in accompaniment. "_For to-night we will be merry_ _As the rosy wine we drink--_ _The rosy wine we drink!_" "Yea!" "A little more close harmony!" A great shout acclaimed the chorus and another song was started. Hunter and Bain were opposite each other, surrounded as it were by adherents, each already aware of the other, measuring glances, serious, unrelaxing, never unbending, never departing a moment from the careful attitude of critical aloofness. In the midst of the rising hilarity and the rebellious joy of newly gained liberty, the two rival leaders sat singing, but not of the song, the same placid, maliciously superior smile floating over the perfectly controlled lips of Bain, while in the anointed gaze of Hunter was a ponderous seriousness which at that age is ascribed to a predestined Napoleonic melancholy. "Solo from Buck Waters!" "Solo!" "On the chair!" "Yea, Buck Waters!" Yielding to the outcry Waters was thrust upward. "The cowboy orchestra!" "Give us the cowboy orchestra!" "The cowboy orchestra, ladies and gentlemen." With a wave of his hand he organized the room into drums, bugles, and trombones, announcing: "The orchestra will tune up and play this little tune, "'_Ta-de-dee-ra-ta-ra-ta-rata,_ _Ta-de-dee-ra-ta-ra-ta-rata-ta!_'