Part 74

"Very well, gentlemen," said Macnooder, taking off his coat and standing forth in a sudden blaze of rainbow underwear. "I will simply draw attention to this neat little bit of color that I have the honor to present to your inspection. It is the latest thing out in dainty fancies and I stand ready to fill all orders. It is rather springy, but why fall when you can spring? Don't applaud--you'll wake the baby. It is light, it is warm, it gives a sense of exhilaration to the skin. It endears you to your friends, and not even a Lawrenceville suds-lady would bite a hole in it----"

"If you don't get into bed," said Dink, "I'll rule you out."

Macnooder, thus admonished, hastened to his post, merely remarking on the distinction of his garters and impressionistic socks and the fact that he had incurred great expense to afford his schoolmates an equal opportunity.

"Are you ready?" said Turkey Reiter, for the indignant jury.

"One moment."

Macnooder, in bed, glanced carefully at the preparations without, turned on his side and brought his knees up under his chin.

"All ready?"

"Go!"

With a circular kick, something like the flop of a whale's tail, Macnooder drove the covers from him and sprang into the doubled trousers.

A cheer went up from the spectators.

"Gee, what a dive!"

"Faster, Doc!"

"Wash carefully!"

"Behind the ears!"

"Don't forget the buttons!"

"That's the boy!"

"Come on, Doc, come on!"

"Oh, you Dickinson!"

"Hurray!"

"Time--twenty-seven seconds flat," said Dennis de Brian de Boru Finnegan. "Best yet. Twenty-seven and four-fifths seconds, next on the list, made by the White Mountain Canary and the Gutter Pup."

"Next contestant," said Dink, in sing-song, "is the champion of the Rouse, Mr. Peanuts Biddle."

But here a difficulty arose.

"Please, sir," said the candidate, who as a freshman was visibly embarrassed at the ordeal before him--"Please, sir, I don't part my hair."

Every eye went to the pompadour, cropped like a scrubbing brush, and recognized the truth of this assertion.

"Please, sir, I don't see why I should have to touch a comb."

A protest broke forth from the other candidates.

"Rats!"

"Penalize him!"