"Ole Skjarsen, son of Skjar Oleson, stand up!" he said, sinking his voice another story.
Ole got up. It was plain to be seen that he was getting interested.
"The president of this powerful order will now administer the oath," said Petey, shoving Bangs forward.
So there, at five A. M., with the whole chapter treed in a garret, and the officers, the leading lights of Siwash, crouching around a scuttle and shivering their teeth loose, we initiated Ole Skjarsen. It was impressive, I can tell you. When it came to the part where the neophyte swears to protect a brother, even if he has to wade in blood up to his necktie, Bangs bore down beautifully and added a lot of extra frills. The last words were spoken. Ole was an Eta Bita Pie. Still, we weren't very sanguine. You might interest a man-eater by initiating him, but would you destroy his appetite? There was no grand rush for the ladder.
As Ole stood waiting, however, Petey swung himself down and landed beside him. He cut the ropes that bound his wrists, jerked off the pillowslip and cut off the blindfold. Then he grabbed Ole's mastodonic paw.
Nobody breathed for a few seconds. It was darned terrifying, I can tell you. Ole rubbed his eyes with his free hand and looked down at the morsel hanging on to the other.
"Shake, Ole!" insisted Petey. "You went through it better than I did when I got it."
I saw the rudiments of a smile begin to break out on Ole's face. It grew wider. It got to be a grin; then a chasm with a sunrise on either side.
He looked up at us again, then down at Petey. Then he pumped Petey's arm until the latter danced like a cork bobber.
"By ying, Aye du et!" he shouted. "Ve ban gude fallers, ve Baked Pies, if ve did broke my nose."
"What's the matter with Ole?" some one shouted.
"He's all right!" we yelled. Then we came down out of the garret and made a rush for the furnace.
It's a cinch that college life would be a whole lot more congested with pleasure if it wasn't for the towns that the colleges are in. I don't mean that a town around a college hasn't its uses. Wherever you find a town you can find lunch counters and theaters with galleries from which you can learn the drama at a quarter a throw, and street cars that can be tampered with, and wooden sidewalks that burn well on celebration nights, and nice girls who began being nice four college generations ago and never forgot how. All of these things about a town are mighty handy when it comes to getting a higher education in a good, live college where you don't have to tunnel through three feet of moss to find the college customs. But even all this can't reconcile me to the way a town butts into college affairs. It is something disgusting.