What rejoicing there was among the members of the nine and the supporters of the team! How the lads howled, their hoarse voices mingling with the shrill cries of the girls! Sober men danced around with their gray-haired seat-mates, and several “old grads” who had witnessed the contest jumped up and down pounding with their canes on the grandstand until it seemed as if the structure would collapse. “Good boy, Cap!” cried Bill, clapping his brother on the back. “Good boy!” “All to the horse radish,” added Pete. “Oh, you fellows didn’t do so worse yourselves,” remarked John, as he tried to fight off a crowd that wanted to carry him on their shoulders. He was unsuccessful, and a moment later was hoisted up, while a shouting, yelling, cheering procession marched around the grounds, singing some of the old school songs of triumph. It was a glorious victory. It was fought all over again in the rooms of the boys that night, and the team was praised on all sides. “Still it was a narrow squeak,” declared the coach to the captain, “and we’ve got to do better if we want to keep the championship.” “Oh, I guess we’ll do it,” answered Graydon. “Those Smith boys are a big find.” “I should say so! I don’t know what to do about the battery, though. We can’t let Mersfeld and Denby slide altogether.” “No, we’ll have to play them occasionally. And Mersfeld isn’t so bad sometimes. He gets rattled too easily, and Bill Smith doesn’t. Well, come on out and I’ll blow you to some chocolate soda.” Meanwhile the Smith boys were having a jollification of their own in their rooms, whither many of their friends had gone. Bill brought out some packages of cakes, and bottles of ginger ale and other soft stuff, on which the visitors were regaled. “Here’s more power to you!” toasted Billie Bunce, a little fat junior, who was not above making friends with the freshmen. Mersfeld did not attend the little gathering in the rooms of our heroes. And had they seen him, in close conversation with Jonas North, a little later, and had they heard, what the two were saying, they would not have wondered at his absence. Mersfeld met North as the latter was strolling about the campus. “What’s going on up there?” asked North, as he motioned to where lights gleamed in the rooms of our friends, for it was not yet locking-up time. “Oh, Smith Brothers and Company are having some sort of an improvised blow-out,” replied the temporarily deposed pitcher. “Those fellows make me tired. Just because they helped pull one game out of the fire they think they’re the whole cheese. I’d like to get square with Four-eyes somehow or other.” “Why don’t you?” proposed North, with a grin. “Seems to me you ought to be able to ‘do’ him.” “I am, if it came to a fight, but I wouldn’t dare mix it up with him.” “Why not?” “Because there’d be a howl, and everyone would say I did it because I was jealous. I’d have to have some mighty good excuse to warrant wading into him.”