"I say, we're going to have some great old fights together. But, do you know, I sort of feel after all, this will be the best." Then a chorus of thin shrieks rose about them. They started half-heartedly to run, pretending fury. A swarm of determined boyhood rushed over them and flung them kicking, struggling into the air. "Tough McCarty and Dink Stover!" "We've got 'em!" "On to the bonfire!" "They're ours!" "Hurray!" "Help!" "Help! We've got McCarty and Stover!" Boys by the score came tearing out. The little knot under Dink became a thick, black shadow, rushing forward with hilarious, triumphant shouts. Then all at once he landed all-fours on a cart before the flaming stack, greeted by fishhorns and rattles, his name shrieked out in a wild acclaim. "Three cheers for good old Dink!" "Three cheers for honest John Stover!" "Three cheers for the little cuss!" He drew himself up, fumbling at his cap, terrified at the multiplied faces that danced before his eyes. "I say, fellows----" "Hurray!" "Good boy!" "Orator!" "I say, fellows, I don't see why you've got me up here." "You don't!" "We'll show you!" "Dink, you're the finest ever!" "You're the stuff!" "Three cheers for good old Rinky Dink!" "Fellows, I'm no silver-tongued orator----" "Don't believe it!" "You are!" "Fellows, I haven't got anything to say----" "That's the stuff!" "Hurray!" "Keep it up!" "Oh, you bulldog!" "Fellows, they were good----" A derisive shout went up. "Fellows, they were very good----" "Yes, they were!" "Fellows, they were re-markably good--but _they didn't beat the old school team_! That's all." He dove headlong into the crowd, unaware that he had repeated for the sixth time the stock oration of the evening. "Good old Dink! Good old Rinky Dink!" The cry stuck in his memory all through the jubilant night and long after, when in his delicious bed he tossed and worried over the tackles he had missed. "It's a bully nickname--bully!" he repeated drowsily, again and again. "It sounds as though they liked you! And Tough McCarty, what a bully chap--bully! We're going to be friends--pals--what a bully fellow! Everything is bully--everything!" * * * * * With the close of the football season and the advent of December, with its scurries of snow and sleet, what might be termed the open season for masters began. A school of four hundred fellows is a good deal like a shaky monarchy: the football and baseball seasons akin to foreign wars; so long as they last the tranquillity of the state is secure, but with the return of peace a state of fermentation and unrest is due. The three weeks that lead to the Christmas vacation are too filled with anticipation to be dangerous. It is the long reaches after January fifth, the period of arctic night that settles down until the passing of the muddy month of March, that tries the souls of the keepers of these caged menageries.