The Tomahawk., 1917-01-25
loughby, perfectly beautiful two


ed. -Four days before it came off she
wrote and begged to be excused. She
hardly knew, she said, how to explain
except that she had had q previous en-
gagement, and that she had supposed
it broken and that she had found 1T
wasn't, and she knew I would under
stand, and wouldn't be nice about
taking a lot of dances, and she wanted
me to be nice to her escort, who was
stranger in the class-in fact, it was
Count Grabbenheim.
When 1 came to later I was gnaw-
ing contentedly at fragments Of the
furniture. Never had I been so mad.
! had eaten quite a meal of raw chair
legs before I was calm enough to rush
off to Pierce for comfort. But Pierce
was madden than I. Furniture did not
satisfy his feelings. He was chewing
the radiator. My affair with Miss VIII
loughby was just a mild little thing OF
a months standing, and I really had
her SUCCESSOR in mind, but old Noddy
had been clean and everlastingly gone
to smash on Helena TOothby, the
queen Of our clasS-and Helena had
just turned him down and broken her
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ar old friend
who had no acquaintance in the COL
lege had thrown himself On her mercy
and she felt it her duty, to go with
him to the dance.
Noddy and I leaned Oh each other
for a while and fought for language
but not for long. Keg. Eearick kicked
the door in presently. Aeg. was past
all such mild diversions as dining on
anything. :de was about to dissolve
into high explosives. Amy Vaudeville
had been tossing him up playfully and
| catching him as he came down Tor
some months and had consented to go
to the ball with him as a great favor.
Keg. was entirely devastated about her
terrible .case-and she had just writ
ten, breaking her engagement for the
party in great Observation-Disclosures
she had passed him that day and he
had been too busy looking the other
way to notice her.
| We three threw water on each other
and put two and two tOgether-thank
heaven, this was no calculus problem.
And then we went to telegraph Snod-
DIV, promising him instant death at the
earliest possible moment. But on the
way we met Walls and Etherton, and
when we saw their wild look we seized
their hands and asked: brothers,
did you get it, too?" They said they
had. So we made up Roman mob
and charged the telegraph office, where
we composed a message which had to
be revised four times before the Oper-
ator would take it. We didn't do the
subject justice then, but our money
gave out. So we sent it. on to that
skulking coward in Chicago who had
taken our own child and had ruined
us with him, and went home to dine
on more furniture.
I got q reply in the morning. 1t was
short but fairly explicit. 1t read: Il
see you're crazy, but explain further.
Never wrote said girls. Someone else
is using your Grabbenheim.''
That day we five and Andrews ana
Fudge Bigelow, who had also received
the dull, destructive drop from their
best young lady friends, met in the IL
brary, it being the most secret place
we could find, and composed a grisly
and horrible oath by which we swore
to have revenge on Grabbenheim and
other persons as yet unknown to the
jury.
We sat around the library until Miss
Hawkes., the librarian, became suspi-
cious, never having seen us there be-
fore. But it wasn't until late after
noon that we found the plan. Then it
all dawned at once like beautiful
sunrise. It was an inspiration-the
idea of lifetime.
Grabby would wreck the chemical
laboratory. In so doing he would fill a
long-felt want. We had been yearning
| to do it ever since we had had fresh
man chemistry. But we hadn't dared.
1t had been a popular diversion in
years past, but had been overdone, and
that year the faculty had served no
tice that any person found spilling sui
phuric acid around the building and
mixing up compounds that smelled to
yon high heaven would not only be
expelled but indicted by the grand jury
for malicious mischief. So we had suf-
fered all year. Heavens, how we had
suffered in that class! Professor
Grub was fiend incarnate for piling
up work and trouble and conditions.
And now we would get even. Grabby
would pile up the chemistry room for
us.
We plotted fiercely all night. The
dance was only three days away and
time was short The next day Pierce
and I disappeared from our accus-
toned haunts in the afternoon. We
had with us tools and a lunch. The
old main building stands open until
six, and it wasn't hard for us to ram
BILE casually up to the third floor with
out meeting anyone and insert our
selves into Professor; Yogg's room.
It was no trick at all to get out of