TURNING THE TABLES
"Frank, we are marked men!" declared Bob Upton tragically.
"Ha!" retorted Frank with a laugh. "The deadly enemy approaches!"
"No nonsense!" declared Bob, quite earnestly now. "We're in for a course of
sprouts; it's to come off this very night, and the savage horde which is to
begin the hazing operations is that gang of ten who occupy the big
dormitory room next to us."
"How did you find all this out, Bob?"
"I overheard them plotting."
"I see."
"I'm going to spike their guns and turn the laugh on them."
"How?"
"That's telling. You'd object, so I'm going to keep my own counsel. There
are four degrees of initiation. If a fellow consents to all the tests with
a good-natured grin he passes muster. If he doesn't, he's tabooed."
"Well, then, let's stand muster cheerfully."
"Not I," retorted Bob grimly. "We'll turn the tables; then they'll think
all the more of us. Ever hear of the Chevaliers of the Bath? Or the Knights
of the Garter?"
"They are new to me--some school rigmarole, I suppose."
"Yes. Then there's Scouts of the Gauntlet."
"Worse and worse."
"And finally the Guides of Mystery."
"Whew!"
"To be a free and accepted Chevalier of the Bath a fellow has to be a
water-proof rat. To be a Knight of the Garter he must consent to wake up at
midnight to find a rope tackle around one ankle, and be dragged out of bed
and down the hall."
"Well, we'll have to take our medicine, I suppose," said Frank lightly.
"To be a Scout of the Gauntlet," went on Bob, "is to be sent in the dark
down the stairs on a fool errand, and come back to face a pillow shower. A
genuine Guide of Mystery must have the grit to be left blindfolded in the
village graveyard at midnight, barefooted, and with a skeleton stolen from
the museum hitched to one arm."
"That's the program, is it, Bob?"
"Exactly," assented Frank's new chum. "The show begins to-night, as I say.
Stick close to me and you won't lose any rest."
Frank looked blandly and admiringly at his comrade, and was rather proud of
him.
There had never come so marked and agreeable a change over a boy as that
manifested in the instance of Bob Upton within three days.
There was still under the surface with Bob, when he met strangers, a
certain suspicious element that had been engrafted in him. The least hint
that any one was guying him or imposing upon him would bring the old look
back to his face, but Frank watched him closely, and coming to Bellwood
School had indeed been the beginning of a new life for Bob.
An incident had occurred the morning after their arrival that, outside of
Frank's friendly effort in behalf of Bob, had been the means of lifting the
farmer boy to a new level.
The fellows at Bellwood School were of the average class in such
institutions, a mixture of jolly and gruff, good and bad. Like attracts
like, and the very first morning stroll on the campus Frank found himself
attracted to some boys who took him into their ranks as naturally as if he
had come recommended to them by special testimonials. Of course Bob went
where Frank went, and loyally followed his leader.
Frank soon found out that there were two cliques in the so-called
"freshman" crowd. A boy named Dean Ritchie lead the coterie that had
accepted Frank and Bob as new recruits. Frank liked him from the first. He
was a keen-witted, sharp-tongued fellow, out for fun most of the time and
never still for a minute.
At any time the appearance of a lad named Nat Banbury or any of his cohorts
was a signal for repartee, challenges, sometimes a sortie. Advances were
made by Banbury toward the enlistment of the two new recruits in his ranks,
but Frank had already made his choice.
"Oh, come on, he isn't worth wasting breath on," spoke up a big, uncouth
fellow named Porter, when Frank had politely announced to Banbury that Dean
Ritchie was a friend of some old friends of his at Tipton. "Ta, ta,
Bob-up!" rallied Porter maliciously to Frank's chum. "Keep close to
brother!"
Bob flushed and his eyes sparkled. His fists clenched.
"Easy, Bob," warned Frank in an undertone.
"Say, Banbury Cross," observed Bob, "there was a fellow of your name chased
out of our county for sheep stealing, and another kept the dog pound. You
snarl just exactly like some of the curs he keeps there."
"Banbury, cranberry, bow, wow, wow!" derided Ritchie. "Good for you,
Upton--you hit the nail on the head that time."
"Upton--Robert Upton!" bellowed the old janitor, Scroggins, appearing on
the campus just then.
"That's me," acknowledged Bob.
"President Elliott wishes to see you in the library," said Scroggins.
"Aha!" snorted Banbury. "Called down already! Look out, Bob-up, you're in
for a quake in the shoes."
"No; the president is going to consult him on how to raise squashes,"
sneered a crony of Banbury.
"Say, Frank," whispered Bob, quite in a quake, "I'm going to get it for
something. What can it be?"
"Don't worry," replied Frank. "Face the music. I fancy you won't be hit
very hard."
Bob went away with the old, worried look on his face. He came back radiant,
and seemed to walk on air, and he never even heard the jeers of the Banbury
crowd as he passed them. He made a beckoning motion to Frank, and the two
strolled away together.
"Frank," said Bob, choking up, "I believe I'm some good in the world, after
all."
"I told you so, didn't I?"
"I'm glad you made me come here," went on Bob. "Oh, so awfully glad! I
declare----" and there Bob broke down and turned his face away for a moment
or two.
"Say, Frank," he continued, "so is the president glad I came, too. He told
me so. What do you think? The two children in that runaway belong to his
family."
"Well! well!" commented Frank.
"I almost sunk through the floor when the good old man, with tears in his
eyes, thanked me for saving them, as he called it. He said he was proud of
me, and that he predicted that the academy would be proud of me, too. I
tell you, Frank, it stirred me up. Strike me blue, if I don't try to behave
myself."
"Good for you, Bob!"
"Strike me scarlet red and sky blue, if I don't try to deserve his kind
words."
Nothing seemed to ruffle Bob after that. He simply laughed at the snubs and
jeers of the Banbury crowd. He seemed to lose his old-time unsociability,
and went right in with the jolly crowd that composed the stanch following
of Dean Ritchie.
It was just after the nine o'clock bell had rung that evening when Bob so
mysteriously disclosed his suspicions of the initiation plots of the
occupants of the adjoining room.
"They're all Banbury's crowd," he explained to Frank. "Get into bed and
take in the fun. They're waiting for us to quiet down. Don't speak above a
whisper. Just stay awake long enough to see the program out."
Bob turned out the light and both snuggled down on the pillows luxuriously
after a strenuous day of sport and study.
"Act first," whispered Bob. "Soon as the Banbury crowd think we're fast
asleep, you'll hear them come stealthily out into the corridor. They've
fixed the transom over our door so it will swing open without a jar. One
fellow will stand on a chair. The others will hand him up the nozzle of a
hose running to the faucet in their room."
"And we'll be Knights of the Bath--I see," observed Frank.
"Yes, without having to take any of the medicine. Hist--they're coming."
Frank could readily guess what the enemy had in view--the old school trick
of dousing them in their sleep. He relied on the mysterious promises of his
chum, and lay still and listened intently.
There was a vast whispering in the next room, a rustling about, and then
more than one person could be heard just outside in the corridor.
A stool seemed to be placed near to the door. The slightest creaking in the
world told that the transom had been pushed ajar.
"Hand up the hose," whispered a cautious voice.
"Here you are."
There was a fumbling sound at the transom. Then came the impatient words:
"It don't work."
"Turn on the screw."
"I have. The water can't be on."
"Yes, it is. I turned it."
"I tell you it won't work," was whispered from the stool. "Go back to the
room and turn on the faucet, I tell you."
Hurried footsteps retreated from the door. Some one could be heard entering
the next room. Then some one rushed out of it again.
"Say," spoke an excited voice, "we're flooded! The hose has burst, and we
are deluged, and----"
"Boys, a light--the monitor's coming," interrupted a warning voice.
"Cut for it! Something's wrong! We're caught!"
There was heedless rush now from the next room. Frank could hear the hose
dragged along the corridor. The door of the adjoining room was hurriedly
closed.
"Off with your clothes--hustle into bed," ordered some one in that
apartment.
Shoes were kicked off, beds creaked, and then came odd cries.
"Wow!"
"Murder!"
Tap--tap--tap! came a knock at the door.
"What's going on here?" asked the sharp, stern voice of the dormitory
watchman.
"Thunder!"
"Oh, my back!"
"I'm scratched to pieces!" So ran the cries, and half a dozen persons
seemed to bound from beds to the floor.
Bob Upton was shaking with suppressed laughter, stuffing the end of the
pillow into his mouth to keep from yelling outright.
"Bob," whispered Frank, "what have you been up to?"
"Drove a plug into their hose ten feet from the faucet, slit the rubber
full of holes--and filled the beds with cockle burrs," replied Bob, and,
quaking with inward mirth, he rolled out on the floor.
"Gentlemen of Dormitory 4, report at the office in the morning with an
explanation," droned the severe tones of the monitor out in the corridor.