Page:Lynch Williams--The girl and the game.djvu/136

 old man talking earnestly to him to-day, standing there beside one of those papier-mâché Apollos that the fool Freshmen are always stealing—heard him say: 'They are only boys; they don't mean any harm.'"

"Here he comes a-running!" cried one of those below to those climbing the stairs.

"All right; we'll be down with it as fast as we can"; and presently they reappeared, bearing in silence the white-shrouded figure, which caught the gleam of a distant streetlight.

And here was Jeremiah, confronting them at the threshold, with arms folded across his chest, a sarcastic smile on his face. The plotters pretended to be much taken aback at being caught in the act.

"So," he began, looking them over, one by one—"So there wasn't anything in the laboratory, Preston? It was all a leg pull on the old man, wasn't it? You thought you could deceive me, did you?" Then, changing his tone to one of distress: "I wish to Heaven I were mistaken." Then, again