There was a crash and a howl of rage from the colonel. He floundered about in a tangle of bedclothes for a moment, filling the room with his angry ejaculations, and endeavouring, helplessly, for a moment, to extricate himself from his uncomfortable position on the floor. Then he arose, raging like a tempest, stumbling over a chair in his confusion, and nearly sprawling on the floor again. He rang the electric button in his room till the clerk in the office thought the house was on fire, and came running up, breathless, to see what was the matter. “Fire! Who said there was any fire, you idiot!” shrieked the colonel, as his clerk dashed into the room and ran plump into him. “There isn’t any fire,” he cried. “Somebody’s been breaking the furniture in here; tearing down the beds, ruining the lamps. Get that room on the next floor, down at the end of the hall, ready for me. I can’t stay here to-night. Don’t stand there, gaping like a frog. Hurry up. Get Mrs. Carlin to fix that bed up for me. She’s gone to bed, do you say? Well, then, get somebody else. Don’t stand there. Go along!” The clerk hurried away, as much to prevent the colonel seeing the broad grin on his face as to obey orders. The colonel, stumbling around in the darkness, managed to partly dress himself; and, five minutes later, the boys heard him go storming along the hall to the stairway, which he mounted, and was seen no more that night. The closet door in Henry Burns’s room swung softly open, and there rolled out helplessly on the floor four boys, choking with suppressed laughter, the tears fairly running down their cheeks. Henry Burns, calm as ever, quietly arose from bed, removed the bandage from his brow, slid into his clothes, and remarked, softly, “I feel better now.” “Oh, don’t, Henry,” begged George Warren. “If you say any more I shall die. I can’t laugh now without its hurting me.” “You need something to eat,” said Henry Burns. Pinning a blanket up over the transom to hide the light, and stopping his keyhole, to prevent any ray of light from penetrating into the hallway, and throwing down a blanket at the door-sill for the same purpose, Henry Burns lighted both his lamps, carefully locked his door, and made ready to entertain his guests. “It’s not just according to the rules of etiquette,” he said, producing a package from the basket, “but we’ll have to start on the ice-cream first before it melts. Then we’ll work back along the line, to salad and ginger ale.” He drew forth from the package, which proved to be a box filled with chopped ice, a small brick of ice-cream. It was beginning to melt about the edges, but they made short work of it. “Now,” said Henry Burns, “if you please, we’ll start all over again. Here are the sandwiches.” “It’s the finest spread I ever had,” said young Joe, appreciatively, as he stowed away his fourth sandwich and helped himself to an orange.