The Dozen from Lakerim

busy waving farewell to the waving and farewelling crowd at the station that it was some minutes before they could find time to learn how Sawed-Off came to be among them. When

ther all the way to Kingston, their hearts too

d had to borrow money of Pretty to keep from being put off the train, and that when they reached Kingston they came near forgett

, except as they crunched by along the gravel walks of the campus or met for a hasty meal in the dining-hall. This dining-hall, by the way, was managed by an estimable widow named Mrs. Slaughter, and o

hief industry of the people of Kingston seemed to be that of selling school-books, mince-pies, and other necessaries of life to the boys at the Academy. The grown young men of the town spent their lives trying to get away to some other cities. The younger youth of the town spent their lives trying to interfere with the pleasures of t

e forced to find their whole entertainment in the Academy life, and in one another, and the campus was therefore a little republic in itself-a Utopia. Like every other

grounds were spacious enough to furnish not only football and baseball fields and tennis-courts, but meadows where wild flowers grew in the spring, and a little lake where the ice grew in the winter. Miles away-just enough to make a good "Sabbath day's journey"-w

comfortable, and so many colonies of boys had romped and ruminated there, and so much laughter and so much lore had soaked into the old walls, th

other, and the lots decided that they should room together thus: Tug and Punk were on the ground floor of the building known as South College, in room No. 2; in the room just over them were Quiz and Pretty; and on the same floor, at the back of the building, were Bobbles and Reddy (Reddy insisted upon this room because it had a third bedroom off its study-room; while, of course, he never expected to see Heady there, and didn't much care, of course, whether he came or not, still, a fellow never can

ggested their choosing room No. 13 for theirs, and he assented languidly. History had said that it was the brightest and sunniest room in the building, and if there was one thing that Sleepy loved almost better than baseball, it was a good snooze in the sun after he had

did so establish themselves in a stronghold of their own, for they clung together so steadfastly that there was soon a deal of jealousy among the ot

f reading on a divan covered with cushions made by your best girls, only to find the divan placed in the middle of the bed, with a bureau and a bookcase stuck on top of it, a few chairs and a pet bulldog tied in the middle of the mix-up, and a mirror and a well-filled bowl of water so fixed on the top of the heap that it is well-nigh impossible to

ing to do besides prowl around the dark corners of the campus at all hours of the night. Some of the men furiously resisted the efforts to haze them; but when they once learned that their efforts were vain, and had perforce to submit, none of them were mean enough to peach on their tormentors after the damage

espected him too much to attempt to haze him, though he roomed alone in the old Middle Col

*

of this invitation, and they had come with glowing dreams of new worlds to conquer. What was their pain and disgust to find that the captain of the Kingston team, elected before they came, had decided that he had good cause for jealousy of Tug, and had decided that, since Tug would probably win all his old laurels away from him if he

me they could on the scrub. When the varsity captain, Clayton by name, criticized their playing in a way that was brutal,-not because it was frank, but because it was un

nstant and petty fault-finding with the three Lakerimmers, that he was determined to keep them from the varsity, even

n the whole eleven happened to be in room No. 2, and when the hosts, Tug and Punk, were particularly sore from the out

ellows, is to pack up our duds and go b

ling rather mugg

had rather be a yello

though he was ungently told to keep still when he tried to suggest the simila

ocks through Clayton's windows, and then i

stantly on their feet and rushing out of the door to execute their v

going to take this matter into my own hands, and drill that scrub team myself, and see if we can't teach the vars

r and the Lakerim method of doing th