suppers at the president’s house.  Jones’s refusal to speak out fully on all the details of the affair pointed strongly, so West argued, to consciousness of damning guilt.  The path of administrative duty appeared plain.  West, to say truth, had not at first expected to apply the drastic penalty of expulsion at all, but it was clear that this was what the city expected of him.  The universal cry was for unshrinking firmness.  Well, he would show them that he was firm, and shrank from no unpleasantness where his duty was concerned.  Brown he ordered before him for a severe reprimand, and Jones he summarily dismissed from old Blaines College.

These decrees went into effect at noon.  At 4 o’clock in the afternoon the war-dogs broke their leashes.  Four was the hour when the “night” edition of the Evening Chronicle came smoking hot from the presses.  It appeared that young Jones was the son, not merely of a plumber, but of a plumber who was decidedly prominent in lodge circles and the smaller areas of politics.  His case was therefore precisely the kind that the young men of the Chronicle loved to espouse.  The three-column scare-head over their bitterly partisan “story” ran thus: 

     POOR BOY KICKED OUT
     BY PRESIDENT WEST

Close beside this, lest the reader should fail to grasp the full meaning of the boldface, was a three-column cartoon, crudely drawn but adroit enough.  It represented West, unpleasantly caricatured, garbed in a swallow-tail coat and enormous white gloves, with a gardenia in his buttonhole, engaged in booting a lad of singular nobility of countenance out of an open door.  A tag around the lad’s neck described him as “The Workingman’s Son.”  Under the devilish drawing ran a line which said, succinctly, “His Policies.”  On page four was a double column, double-leaded editorial, liberal with capitals and entitled:  “Justice in Silk Stockings.”

But this was only a beginning.  Next morning’s Post, which West had counted on to come to his assistance with a ringing leader, so earnestly discussed rotation of crops and the approaching gubernatorial campaign, that it had not a line for the little disturbance at the college.  If this was a disappointment to West, a greater blow awaited him.  Not to try to gloss over the mortifying circumstance, he was hissed when he entered the morning assembly—­he, the prince, idol, and darling of his students.  Though the room was full, the hissing was of small proportions, but rather too big to be ignored.  West, after debating with himself whether or not he should notice it, made a graceful and manly two-minute talk which, he flattered himself, effectually abashed the lads who had so far forgotten themselves.  None the less the demonstration cut him to the quick.  When four o’clock came he found himself waiting for the appearance of the Chronicle with an anxiety which he had never conceived possible with regard to that paper.  A glance at its lurid front showed that the blatherskites had pounded him harder than ever.  A black headline glared with the untruth that President West had been “Hissed by Entire Student Body.”  Editorially, the Chronicle passionately inquired whether the taxpayers enjoyed having the college which they so liberally supported (exact amount seventy-five hundred dollars a year) mismanaged in so gross a way.