Lawrenceville School -- Fiction; Schools -- Fiction
"Oh, Melancholy!"
"Silence!" cried the bandmaster. "Give 'em The Gym Bell--all ready
below! La-da-da-dee!"
"Too high!"
"La-da-da-_dum_. Slow and melancholy. One, two, three!"
_When the shades of night are falling
Round our campus, green and fair,
All the drowsy sons of Lawrence
To their couches then repair.
Soon the slumber god has bound them
With his spell of magic power,
And he holds them thus enchanted
Till the early morning hour._
"Up legs and at 'em now, Rip her out--chorus!"
_Till awakened
By the clanging
And the banging
And the whanging
From the cupola o'erhanging,
Of that ancient Gym bell!_
Cheered by the new fifth-formers, who came laughing to the windows to
hail them, the stage went gloriously around the Circle and came to a
stop.
"Here we are back at the same old grind," said Butcher Stevens.
"Frightful, isn't it?" said Stover; and the rest made answer:
"Back at the grindstone!"
"Hard luck!"
"We're all slaves!"
"Nothing to eat!"
"Nothing to do!"
"Stuck in a mudhole!"
XI
At the Kennedy steps The Roman was waiting for him. Stover shook hands
or, rather, allowed The Roman to pump him, as was the custom.
"Why, dear me--dear me--this is actually Stover!" said The Roman.
"Well, well! How you have grown--shouldn't have known you. Had a
pleasant vacation? Yes? Glad to have you in the Kennedy. It's a good
House--good boys--manly, self-reliant, purposeful. You'll like 'em."
The Roman released Stover's hand, which had grown limp in the process,
and said with a twinkle to his quick little eyes:
"Don't put too much ginger into them, Stover."
This remark confirmed Stover's darkest suspicions.
"I'll scatter a little ginger around all right," he said under his
breath, as he climbed the stairs to his room. "He thinks he has the
laugh on me, does he? Well, we'll see who laughs last!"
On the third floor the Tennessee Shad and Dennis de Brian de Boru
Finnegan, from their respective trunks, were volubly debating the
merits of Finnegan's victory--the Tennessee Shad claiming that the
external application of cream puffs was equivalent to doping and
invalidated the result.
"Hello!" said Dink.
"Why, it's my honorable roommate," said the Tennessee Shad, emerging
with a load of flannels.
"It's the Dink himself," said Dennis, gamboling up. "Welcome to our
city!"
"I hear I'm rooming with you," said Stover, shaking hands with the
Shad.
"You certainly are, my bounding boy."
"Where's the room?"
"Straight ahead, turret room, finest on the campus, swept by ocean
breezes and all that sort of thing."
"Why, Dink," said Dennis de Brian de Boru in affectionate octaves,
"you old, slab-sided, knock-kneed, baby-cheeked, wall-eyed, battling
Dink. You've grown ee-normously."
"How's your muscle?" said the Tennessee Shad, with an ulterior motive.
"Feel it," said Stover, who had consecrated the summer to the same.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account