“Oh, say!” groaned Dismal Jones.  “That’s the worst I ever heard!  It’s enough to give one heart failure!”

“Come out and fight!  Come out and fight!” urged the sophomores.  “You don’t dare to come out and fight!”

“You will have to excuse us this evening, gentlemen,” said Merriwell, suavely.  “We have done our best to entertain you, and we will see you again at some other date.”

“You are certain to see me again,” assented Browning.  “You ran away, or we would have settled matters between us this evening.  As it is, I am going to watch my opportunity to do you fairly and squarely.  When I am done with you one of us will be beautifully licked.”

“And that one will not be King Bruce,” declared Andy Emery.

“Say! say! say!” spluttered Rattleton.  “I’ll go you a shot that it is!  I’ll stand you a supper for twenty at any place you’ll name that Merriwell knocks the everlasting stuffing out of Browning.”

“Done!” returned Emery.

“You name plime and tace—­I mean time and place, and we’ll be there, you bet!” declared Harry.  “All we want is a fair deal.”

“You’ll get that,” assured Browning.  “This little affair shall be arranged very soon.”

“The sooner the better.  Don’t delay on our account.”

The sophomores, seeing it was useless to linger there and be taunted by the freshmen, began to stroll away one by one.

Up in Merriwell’s room Rattleton got down his banjo and began to put it in tune.  A merry party gathered there.  One of the strings snapped, and as he was putting on another Harry fell to laughing.

“What are you laughing at?” asked Bandy Robinson.

“Down at the table to-night,” explained Harry, “Merriwell was poking his finger into the butter.  I asked him what he was doing that for, and he said he was only feeling its muscle.”

The boys who dined in the house appreciated that, and there was a general laugh.  Then Harry adjusted the string and placed the banjo in tune.  Pretty soon the boys were singing “Bingo,” “Upidee,” “Nellie Was a Lady,” and other college songs.  Every one of them seemed familiar with “Paddy Duffy’s Cart” and its pretty chorus: 

  “Twinkling stars are laughing, love,
    Laughing on you and me,
  While your bright eyes look into mine,
    Peeping stars they seem to be.”

Such glorious days and such merry nights will never come again to those who have known them.  Here’s to good old Yale!

CHAPTER XIV.

The rush.

At last the sophomores were thoroughly aroused.  The freshmen had long been carrying things with a high hand, but the rushing of a lot of them who were in dress suits and bound for a swell party was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

An indignation meeting was held, and certain freshmen were placed under the ban.