"Cork up your laughter," said Ballard. Then they were made to crow like roosters and bark like dogs, and give other imitations, until they reached the tow-path of the canal. Here they were made to strip. "Can you swim?" one of the fellows asked. Both said they could. "Then jump in and swim across. Be quick about it." The water was cool, but it did not hurt them. "Now swim back and get your clothes." While dressing they were made to sing "Home, Sweet Home"--"in order to keep warm," Channing said. "Now cheer for the illustrious class above you. Are you ready?--Hip--Hip!" The college cheer was given with the Sophomore class numerals on the end. "I don't think I heard your sweet voice, Deacon Young," said one of the Sophs, a tall fellow with glasses. "Suppose you give us one all alone. Now then, Hip--Hip!" Young kept silent. "See here, you cheer, Deacon. Do as we tell you." This from Ballard, who bellowed. Young looked around at the Sophomores--there were twelve of them--and then glanced at the canal; he did not want to go in there again; he was shivering already. "Hip--Hip!" said Ballard. Young gave a feeble cheer. The man with the glasses said: "H'm, you'll have to do better than that. Now then, a loud one." Young cleared his throat and gave a loud, full cheer. "That's the way to talk," they said, encouragingly. "It won't hurt you, you see," said one of them, rather kindly, in a low voice. "You are improving, Deacon Young," said Channing, patronizingly. "We'll make a man of you yet." Thus began a new epoch in the life of William Young. During the next week or so of his college course he was hazed perhaps more than anyone in his class, although from that first time he no longer resisted or tried to maintain his superiority. Undoubtedly hazing, as Linton, the Junior, said, was a good thing for his system, as it is for any young man, but Young certainly did not need such severe doses nor so many of them. Some of the fellows said so the third time he was taken to the canal. "The old Deacon is all right now," they said; "why d'you give it to him so hard?" But Channing was one of these small men that love to get power over big men; he loved to haze and he hated to have anyone call him little or mouthy, and Young had called him both. The next night he and Ballard, who, as will be seen later, had much of the bully in him, would bring around a different crowd and Channing would take out his pipe, shake it at Young and say to the others, "Now this old jay Deacon is innocent and meek enough to look at, but he is atrociously fresh at bottom--isn't he, Bally, you old horse?" Young said nothing and took his hazing cheerfully and patiently, hoping they would soon get tired of it. "I suppose," he said to himself, as he hurried back to his room to work until past midnight, in order to make up for lost time. "I suppose I must be very fresh, or they would not keep it up so long. I did not know I was so fresh."