Then they told him that the first course was over, and invited him to return to earth and rest up for the second.  So he came sliddering down the rough bark with the speed of greased lightning.

The second captive was a great fat boy who had been a promising candidate for center rush on the football team until Sawed-Off appeared on the scene.  This behemoth was compelled to seat himself on a small inverted saucer and row for dear life with a pair of toothpicks.  The Crows howled with glee over the ludicrous antics of the fellow, and set him such a pace that he was soon a perfect waterfall of perspiration, and was crying for mercy.  At length he caught a crab and went heels over head backward on the ground, and they left him to recover his breath and his temper.

History had watched these proceedings with much amusement, but when he saw the hazers coming for him he lost sight of the fun of the situation immediately.

The head Crow now towered over the shivering little History, and said in his deepest chest-tones:  “These Lakerim cattle are too fresh.  They must be branded and salted a little.”

Then he fastened a handkerchief over History’s eyes, and growled:  “Are those irons hot yet?”

“Red-hot, your Majesty,” came the answer from one of the other ravens, and History heard the clanking of the pokers as they were drawn from the fire.  He had seen before that they were red-hot, and now they were brandished before his very nose, so close that he could see the red glow through the cloth over his eyes and could feel the heat in the air close to his cheek.

“Where shall we brand the wretch, your Honor?” was the next question History heard.

The poor pygmy was too much frightened to move, and he almost fainted when he heard the first Crow answer gruffly:  “Thrust the branding-iron right down the back of his neck, and give him a good long mark that shall last him the rest of his life.”

Instantly History felt a bitter, stinging pain at the back of his neck, a pain that ran like fire down along his spine, and he gave a great shriek of terror and almost swooned away.

Tug’s eyes were not blindfolded, and he had seen that, though the Crows had waved a red-hot poker before History’s nose, they had quickly substituted a very cold rod to thrust down his back.  The effect on the nerves of the blindfolded boy, however, was the same as if it had been red-hot, and he had dropped to earth like a flash.

Tug, though he knew it would heighten his own tortures, could not avoid expressing his opinion of such treatment of the sensitive History.  He did not know whether he was more disgusted and enraged at the actual pain the Crows had given their captives or at the ridiculous plights they had put them in, but he did know that he regarded the whole proceeding as a terrible outrage, a disgrace to the Academy; and ever after he used all his influence against the barbarous idea of hazing.