And so in his speech an hour or so later Fanwell Livingston told the astonished company of the attempted kidnaping and of its failure, and never before had Odd Fellows’ Hall rang with such laughter and cheering.  And a little knot of sophomores, already bewildered by the appearance of the freshman president on the scene, were more than ever at a loss.  They stood under an awning across the street, some twenty or thirty of them, and asked each other what it meant.  Content with the supposed success of the abduction, they had made no attempt to prevent the dinner.  And now Livingston, who by every law of nature should be five miles out in the country, was presiding at the feast and moving his audience to the wildest applause.

“But I helped put him in the hack!” Carey cried over and over.

“And I saw it drive off with him!” marveled another.

“And if that’s Livingston, where’s Baker, and Morton, and Cowan, and Dyer?” asked the rest.  And all shook their heads and gazed bewildered through the rain to where a raised window-shade gave them occasional glimpses of “Fan” Livingston, a fine figure in dinner jacket and white shirt bosom, leading the cheering.

“Rah-rah-rah, Rah-rah-rah, Rah-rah-rah, Fletcher!”

The group under the awning turned puzzled looks upon each other.

“Who’s Fletcher?  What are they cheering Fletcher for?” was asked.  But none could answer.

But over in the hall it was different.  Not a lad there, perhaps, but would have been glad to have exchanged places with the gallant confounder of sophomore plots, who was pictured in most minds as starving to death somewhere out in the rain, a captive in the ungentle hands of the enemy.

However, starving Neil certainly was not.  For at that very moment, seated at the hospitable board of Farmer Hutchins, he was helping himself to his fifth hot biscuit, and allowing Miss Hutchins, a red-cheeked and admiring young lady of fourteen years, to fill his teacup for the second time.  From the role of prisoner Neil had advanced himself to the position of honored guest.  For after the first consternation, bewilderment, and mortification had passed, his captors philosophically accepted the situation, and under the benign influence of cold chicken and hot soda biscuits found themselves not only able to display equanimity, but to join in the laugh against themselves and to admire the cleverness displayed in their out-witting.  Of the four sophomores Cowan’s laughter and praise alone rang false.  But Neil was supremely indifferent to that youth’s sentiments.  The others he soon discovered to be thoroughly good fellows, and there is no doubt but that he enjoyed the hospitality of Farmer Hutchins more than he would have enjoyed the freshman class dinner.

At nine o’clock the drive back to Centerport began, and as the horses soon found that they were headed toward home the journey occupied surprisingly little time, and at ten Neil was back in his room awaiting the return of Paul.  To Neil’s surprise that gentleman was at first decidedly grumpy.