Page:Samuel F. Batchelder - Bits of Harvard History (1924).pdf/183

 took their seats, sniffed, tasted, consulted—and then with one accord arose and marched out of the hall, immediately followed by all the rest.

For this deliberate affront the Faculty retaliated, with about the intelligence of the man who cut off his nose to spite his face, by closing Commons altogether for the time being, and demanding a written apology from every member of the College within one week, under penalty of dismission. But the students, who were now perforce faring sumptuously at the much-prized boarding-houses, showed no very keen desire to rivet the fetters of Commons upon themselves once more. The Faculty became seriously alarmed, parents and friends were appealed to, and every possible pressure was brought to bear upon the malcontents. At the end of the week so few had recanted that to save the College from practical dissolution an extension was granted, and superhuman efforts were put forth. At the courthouse in the Square, as on a sort of dignified neutral ground, formal negotiations were opened between the Faculty and the families of the transgressors, with a view to conciliating their erring offspring. Mothers wept. Fathers swore. Finally seventeen obdurate