Part 46

"Frightful, isn't it?" said Stover; and the rest made answer:

"Back at the grindstone!"

"Hard luck!"

"We're all slaves!"

"Nothing to eat!"

"Nothing to do!"

"Stuck in a mudhole!"

At the Kennedy steps The Roman was waiting for him. Stover shook hands or, rather, allowed The Roman to pump him, as was the custom.

"Why, dear me--dear me--this is actually Stover!" said The Roman. "Well, well! How you have grown--shouldn't have known you. Had a pleasant vacation? Yes? Glad to have you in the Kennedy. It's a good House--good boys--manly, self-reliant, purposeful. You'll like 'em."

The Roman released Stover's hand, which had grown limp in the process, and said with a twinkle to his quick little eyes:

"Don't put too much ginger into them, Stover."

This remark confirmed Stover's darkest suspicions.

"I'll scatter a little ginger around all right," he said under his breath, as he climbed the stairs to his room. "He thinks he has the laugh on me, does he? Well, we'll see who laughs last!"

On the third floor the Tennessee Shad and Dennis de Brian de Boru Finnegan, from their respective trunks, were volubly debating the merits of Finnegan's victory--the Tennessee Shad claiming that the external application of cream puffs was equivalent to doping and invalidated the result.

"Hello!" said Dink.

"Why, it's my honorable roommate," said the Tennessee Shad, emerging with a load of flannels.

"It's the Dink himself," said Dennis, gamboling up. "Welcome to our city!"

"I hear I'm rooming with you," said Stover, shaking hands with the Shad.

"You certainly are, my bounding boy."

"Where's the room?"

"Straight ahead, turret room, finest on the campus, swept by ocean breezes and all that sort of thing."

"Why, Dink," said Dennis de Brian de Boru in affectionate octaves, "you old, slab-sided, knock-kneed, baby-cheeked, wall-eyed, battling Dink. You've grown ee-normously."

"How's your muscle?" said the Tennessee Shad, with an ulterior motive.

"Feel it," said Stover, who had consecrated the summer to the same.

"Hard as a goat," said Dennis after an admiring whistle. "All nice little cast-iron, jerky bunches, ready and willing. Been in training, Dink?"

"Yes, just so."

"Feels sort of soft to me," said the Tennessee Shad pensively.

"Oh, it does?"