Harold would at that moment have liked to follow them, but of course he couldn't. That would spoil everything. This was one of the big chances that comes once or twice in the lifetime of a man.
Harold straightened up and faced his audience smiling. "You'll be unpopular if you don't speak," he had been warned. What would Chester Trask do under circumstances like these? What would Lester Laurel, "The College Hero," do? Suddenly Harold felt in his pocket for the diary in which he had inscribed the memorable words of Lester. The book was not there. He looked down upon the stage, and there it lay, jolted out of his pocket in his encounter with the kitten. He picked it up. The familiar words came back to him out of his confusion. An inspiration!
To the amazement of the merrymakers in front of him, Harold Lamb stopped, struck an attitude, thrust out his right hand in a gesture of greeting, smiled broadly and exclaimed very cockily, "I'm just a regular fellow. Step right up and call me 'Speedy'!"
You could have knocked the entire student body of Tate over with a feather, including Harold's Sophomore stage-managers in the wings. The army of Tatians was stunned. Then it broke abruptly into mingled laughs and applause.
Several voices shouted "Atta
