For Conditions and Details Consult
MR. DENNIS DE B. DE B. FINNEGAN, Secretary.
While the announcement was running like quicksilver through the school
the souvenir toilet set was encased in cotton, packed in the smallest
compass, stowed in a wooden box, which was then sewed up in a gunny
sacking. This in turn was wrapped in colored paper, tied with bows of
pink ribbon and sealed with blue sealing wax stamped with the crest of
the school--VIRTUS SEMPER VIRIDIS. The whole was placed on a table at
the legs of which were grouped stands of flags.
By noon the next day one-half of the school had passed around the
table, measuring the mysterious package, touching the seals with
itching fingers and wanting to know the reason for such secrecy.
"There are reasons," said Stover, in response to all inquiries.
"Unusual, mysterious, excellent reasons. We ask no one to enter. We
only guarantee that the prize is worth over three dollars and fifty
cents. No one is coaxing you. No one will miss you. The entrance list
is already crowded. We are quite willing it should be closed. We urge
nobody!"
Macnooder came among the first, scratching his head and walking around
the prize as a fox about a tainted trap. Stover, watching from the
corner of his eye, studiously appeared to discourage him. Macnooder
sniffed the air once or twice in an alarmed sort of way, grunted to
himself and went off to try to pump Finnegan.
Finally, just before the closing of the entries, he shambled up with
evident dissatisfaction and said:
"Here's my quarter. It's for the championship, though, and not on
account of any hocus pocus in the box."
"Do I understand?" said Dink instantly, "that if you win you are
willing to let the prize go to the second man?"
"What are you making out of this?" said Doc hungrily, disdaining an
answer.
The contest, which began the next afternoon with thirty-one entries,
owing to certain features unusual to athletic contests, produced such
a furor of interest that the limited admissions to the struggle
brought soaring prices.
Everything was conducted on lines of exact formality.
Each contestant was required to don upper and lower unmentionables,
two socks, two shoes, which were to be completely laced and tied, a
dickey--formed by a junction of two cuffs, a collar and one
button--one necktie, one pair of trousers and one coat. Each
contestant was required satisfactorily to wash and dry both hands and
put into his hair a recognizable part.
The contestants were allowed to arrange on the chair their wearing
apparel according to their own theories, were permitted to fill the
wash basin with water, leaving the comb and towel on either side. In
order to prevent the formation of two classes, pajamas were suppressed
and each contestant, clothed in a nightshirt, was inducted under the
covers and his hair carefully disarranged.
Time was taken from the starting gun to the moment of the arrival of
the fully clothed, reasonably washed and apparently brushed candidate
at the door. Each time was to be noted and the two lowest scores were
to compete in the finals. A time limit of forty-five seconds was
imposed, after which the contestant was to be ruled out.
The first heat began with the Triumphant Egghead in the bed for the
Dickinson, Mr. Dennis de Brian de Boru Finnegan on the stop watch, Mr.
Dink Stover as master of ceremonies and Mr. Turkey Reiter, Mr.
Cheyenne Baxter and Mr. Charlie DeSoto as jurors.
The entries were admitted by all to be the pick of the school; while
the champions most favored, were the Tennessee Shad for the Kennedy,
Doc Macnooder for the Dickinson and the White Mountain Canary for the
Woodhull.
A certain delay took place on the third heat owing to Susie Satterly,
of the Davis House, refusing to compete unless there was less
publicity, and being peremptorily ruled out on a demand for a screen.
"The next on the program," said Stover, as master of ceremonies, "is
the champion of the Dickinson, the celebrated old-clothes man, Doctor
Macnooder."
Macnooder gracefully acknowledged the applause which invariably
attended his public performances and asked leave to make a speech,
which was unanimously rejected.
"Very well, gentlemen," said Macnooder, taking off his coat and
standing forth in a sudden blaze of rainbow underwear. "I will simply
draw attention to this neat little bit of color that I have the honor
to present to your inspection. It is the latest thing out in dainty
fancies and I stand ready to fill all orders. It is rather springy,
but why fall when you can spring? Don't applaud--you'll wake the
baby. It is light, it is warm, it gives a sense of exhilaration to
the skin. It endears you to your friends, and not even a Lawrenceville
suds-lady would bite a hole in it----"
"If you don't get into bed," said Dink, "I'll rule you out."
Macnooder, thus admonished, hastened to his post, merely remarking on
the distinction of his garters and impressionistic socks and the fact
that he had incurred great expense to afford his schoolmates an equal
opportunity.
"Are you ready?" said Turkey Reiter, for the indignant jury.
"One moment."
Macnooder, in bed, glanced carefully at the preparations without,
turned on his side and brought his knees up under his chin.
"All ready?"
"Go!"
With a circular kick, something like the flop of a whale's tail,
Macnooder drove the covers from him and sprang into the doubled
trousers.
A cheer went up from the spectators.
"Gee, what a dive!"
"Faster, Doc!"
"Wash carefully!"
"Behind the ears!"
"Don't forget the buttons!"
"That's the boy!"
"Come on, Doc, come on!"
"Oh, you Dickinson!"
"Hurray!"
"Time--twenty-seven seconds flat," said Dennis de Brian de Boru
Finnegan. "Best yet. Twenty-seven and four-fifths seconds, next on the
list, made by the White Mountain Canary and the Gutter Pup."
"Next contestant," said Dink, in sing-song, "is the champion of the
Rouse, Mr. Peanuts Biddle."
But here a difficulty arose.
"Please, sir," said the candidate, who as a freshman was visibly
embarrassed at the ordeal before him--"Please, sir, I don't part my
hair."
Every eye went to the pompadour, cropped like a scrubbing brush, and
recognized the truth of this assertion.
"Please, sir, I don't see why I should have to touch a comb."
A protest broke forth from the other candidates.
"Rats!"
"Penalize him!"
"Why part my hair?"
"I always do that with my fingers when I'm skating down the stairs."
"Why wash till afterward?"
"No favoritism!"
The jury retired to deliberate and announced amid cheers that to
equalize matters Mr. Peanuts Biddle would be handicapped two-fifths of
a second. The candidate took this ruling very much to heart and
withdrew.
The Tennessee Shad, closing the list of entries, slouched up to the
starting-line amid great excitement to better the record of Doc
Macnooder.
He first inspected the washstand, filling the basin higher than
customary and exchanging the stiff face towel for a soft bath towel,
which would more quickly absorb the moisture.
Doc Macnooder, who followed these preparations with a hostile eye,
protested against this last substitution, but was overruled.
The Tennessee Shad then divested himself of his coat and undergarments
amid cries of:
"Oh, you ribs!"
"What do they feed you?"
"Oh, you wish-bones!"
"Oh, you shad-bones!"
Macnooder then claimed that the undershirt was manifestly sewed to the
coat. The allegation was investigated and disproved, without in the
slightest ruffling the composure of the Tennessee Shad, who continued
his calculations while making a toothpick dance through his lips. By
means of safety pins, he next fastened the back and one wing of his
collar to his coat, so that one motion would clothe his upper half.
"I protest," said Doc Macnooder.
"Denied," said Turkey Reiter, as foreman of the jury.
The Tennessee Shad, donning the nightshirt, carefully unloosened the
laces of his low shoes, drew them off and arranged the socks inside of
them so as to economize the extra movement.
"The socks aren't his!" said Macnooder. "They're big enough for P.
Lentz."
"Proceed," said Turkey Reiter.
The Tennessee Shad then unloosened his belt and the trousers slipped
down him as a sailor down a greased pole.
Macnooder once more protested and was squelched.
The Tennessee Shad arranged the voluminous trousers, cast a final
glance, placed the toothpick on the table and went under the covers.
"All ready?" said Dink.
"Wait!" With the left hand he clutched the covers, with the right his
nightshirt, just back of the neck. "Ready now."
"Go!"
With one motion the Tennessee Shad flung the covers from him, tore off
his nightshirt and sprang from the bed like Venus from the waves.
The audience burst into cheers:
"Holy Mike."
"Greased lightning!"
"Oh, you Shad!"
"Gee, right through the pants!"
"Suffering Moses!"
"Look at him stab the shoes!"
"Right into the coat!"
"Go it, Shad!"
"Out for the record!"
"Gee, what a wash!"
"Come on, boy, come on!"
"Now for the part!"
"Hurray!"
"Hurrah!"
"Hurroo!"
"Time--twenty-six and one-fifth seconds," cried the shrill voice of
Dennis de Brian de Boru. "Equalizing the world's unchallenged
professional, amateur and scholastic record made by the late Hickey
Hicks! The champion's belt is now the Tennessee Shad's to have and to
hold. According to the program the champion and Doc Macnooder,
second-best score, will now run another heat for the mysterious sealed
prize, guaranteed to be worth over three dollars and fifty cents!"
Macnooder, adopting the Shad's theories of preparation, made an
extraordinary effort and brought his record down to twenty-six and
four-fifths seconds. The Tennessee Shad then, according to the plan
agreed upon with Stover, purposely broke a shoe-lace and lost the
match.
Dink, in a speech full of malice, awarded the mysterious sealed prize
to Doc Macnooder, with a request to open it at once.
Now, Macnooder, who had been busy thinking the matter over, had
sniffed the pollution in the air and, perceiving a wicked twinkle in
the eye of Stover, shifted the ground by carrying off the box despite
a storm of protests to his room in the Dickinson, where strategically
proving his title to Captain of Industry, he charged ten cents
admission to all who clamored to see the clearing up of the mystery.
Having thus provided a substantial consolation against discomfiture
and joined twenty other curiosity-seekers to his own fortunes, he
opened the box and beheld the prodigal souvenir set. At the same
moment Dink stepped forward and presented him with his own former bill
for three dollars and seventy-five cents.
* * * * *
That night, after Stover had returned much puffed up with the
congratulations of his schoolmates on the outwitting of Macnooder,
the Tennessee Shad took him to task from a philosophical point of
view.
"Baron Munchausen, a word."
"Lay on."
"You must come down to earth."
"Wherefor?"
"You must occasionally, my boy, just as a matter of safeguarding
future ventures, start in and scatter a few truths."
"Pooh!" said Stover, with the memory of cheers. "Any fool can tell the
truth."
"Yes, but----"
"It's such a lazy way!"
"Still----"
"Enervating!"
"But----"
"Besides, now they expect something more from me."
"True," said the Tennessee Shad, "but don't you see, Dink, if you do
tell the truth no one will believe you."