"Break it in!" another added.

"Ask 'em to open first," counseled a third. "We've smashed so many now that we'll have a pretty bill to pay."

"Oh, blazes, give it your shoulder, Battersby," exclaimed a loud voice.

"Going to open, fresh?" called out a student on the other side of the portal.

"Nope!" cried Sid.

There was a moment's pause and then some one hurled himself at the door.

The bolt held for a few seconds, but on a second rush there was a splintering of wood, the screws pulled out and the portal flew open, giving admittance to a crowd of soph.o.m.ores.

CHAPTER V

A SCRUB GAME

"Stripped!" exclaimed a tall soph.o.m.ore with a broken nose. "The beggars have stripped their den!"

"I told you some one had been giving us away," added another. "They knew we were coming. Didn't you, fresh?" and he turned to Sid and Tom.

"Sure," replied Sid as he looked around the room, which was bare of the articles that usually afforded the second-year men an opportunity for causing annoyance.

"Who tipped you off?" asked he of the broken nose.

"Yes, tell us," chimed in several others. "We won't do a thing to him but make him sorry."

"Oh, we had a dream," put in Tom with a grin.

"Ha! Here's a fresh fresh!" exclaimed "Broken-nose." "Well, fellows, let's give 'em a shower bath, anyhow."

"Look under the beds," suggested a big soph.o.m.ore.

"Nope; haven't time, Gladdus. Here, some of you hold 'em while the rest of us douse 'em."

In an instant Sid and Tom were grasped each by half a dozen hands and pulled to the middle of the room. Then Broken-nose and some others took the two water pitchers and poured the contents over the two freshmen. It was not a pleasant ordeal, but Tom and his chum bore it unflinchingly.

It was useless to struggle.

"Oh, this is no fun!" exclaimed Gladdus. "They don't fight."

"The odds are too heavy," retorted Tom quickly. "I'll take any one of you alone," he added, and he looked as if he meant it.

"Let me take him on," pleaded a tall soph.o.m.ore.

"No--none of that," declared Broken-nose, who was addressed as Fenmore.

"We've got lots to do yet. I wonder where their good clothes are.

They've got on old togs. We'll give 'em a soaking."

Tom and Sid were glad that they had hidden their garments in the hall closet. There was a hasty search on the part of the soph.o.m.ores, but as nothing was disclosed the second-year men prepared to leave.

"Come on," ordered Fenmore. "There's no water left in their pitchers, anyhow."

"Oh, we could get more H{2}O if we could find their togs," spoke another.

Just then another second-year youth came along.

"I know where their clothes are," he said. "In the closet at the end of the hall. Langridge----"

"Shut up!" cried Gladdus.

"Come on, fellows!" called Fenmore. "We'll soak 'em good."

Sid groaned as the soph.o.m.ores released him and Tom and made a run for the closet.

"We'd ought to have scattered 'em," he said. "Now we'll have to wear wet duds to chapel to-morrow. We can't go in these," and he looked at his dripping garments--clothes in which he did cross-country running and played tennis--old and somewhat ragged and muddy habiliments.

"Did you hear what that soph said?" demanded Tom.

"You mean----"

"I mean about Langridge. He gave us away. He told them where our clothes were; the mean sneak!"

"That's right," chimed in Sid. "That's what he was doing up here--spying on us. Oh, I'll pay him back all right!"

"So will I!" declared Tom fervently as a triumphant shout down the corridor announced that their clothes had been discovered. The garments, dripping wet and all out of shape, were thrown into their room a little later.

"Well, wouldn't that put your nerves on the gazabo!" exclaimed Sid disgustedly. "Oh, Langridge, I'll have it in for you!"

The hazing went on until after midnight and then the dormitory quieted down. Scarcely a freshman escaped and those who absented themselves from their rooms were due to be put on the grill later.

Tom and Sid sat up late, wringing as much of the water as they could from their clothes and drying them somewhat by inserting an electric light bulb in the arms of the coats and the legs of the trousers.

Fortunately their bedding was not wet or the boys would have pa.s.sed a miserable night. As it was they did not have a good one, and they arose early to hang their moist clothes out of the window to let the morning sun finish the work of drying.

But they were not the only ones in this plight, and it was a bedraggled lot of freshmen who appeared at chapel--that is, all but Langridge. He was spick and span as he always was, dressed in expensive clothes.

"Didn't they get at you?" asked Sid as he and Tom caught up to the wealthy youth on the way to cla.s.s.

"Get at me?"

"Yes, your clothes don't seem to have suffered."

"Oh, this is another suit. They wet one for me, but I had this put away."

"And no sneak went and told the sophs where you put it, did they?" asked Tom.

"What's that?" asked Langridge quickly, and he turned a bit pale.