Pepper/Putting It Over
VIII
PUTTING IT OVER
UNTIL the spring of 1908 the Lampoon-Crimson baseball game was a delirious farce. It was played in costume on the freshman diamond, and the team which failed to score at least forty runs was destined to sure and overwhelming defeat. There was always a small keg on the coaching lines back of third base for the refreshment of runners who progressed to that desirable haven—and in later years there was also another keg back of first, so as to circumvent the thirsty ones who insisted on running bases in reverse order.
The game of 1907 was the last contest of the good old style. Jimmy Cousins, who played center field for the Lampoon, anticipated the downpour of rain which arrived during the second inning, and provided himself with a camp chair, a mackintosh, and an umbrella, so that while his companions were dripping all colors of the rainbow, he sat comfortably in the middle distance, and hired a small boy to refill his stein at appropriate intervals. Steve Black, of the Crimson, was disguised as a deep-sea diver, and carried a bass net with which he easily garnered all the flies which came his way; and George Thorndike, who was registered from Wyoming, played shortstop for the Lampoon with the aid of a lariat, which proved valuable in roping opponents and detaining them until help arrived. The umpire tossed a coin to decide all the close plays, and Billy Maxwell was allowed six strikes instead of three, because he wore glasses. The players were variously disguised as chorus girls, pirates, policemen, clowns, and burglars, and nobody on the Crimson was in the least disturbed because the Lampoon came off victorious at the rate of 57 to 45.
Before the game of 1908, however, some misguided graduates presented a pewter loving cup as a trophy for the great event, with the wholly natural result that both teams took themselves seriously, abolished the costumes and the hilarity, and proceeded to play a ten-inning tie, 4 to 4. A very fair proportion of the men had served apprenticeship on class or prep-school baseball squads, so that when they really turned their minds upon the necessity of victory, they utterly ruined the spectacle which had delighted so many generations of Harvard students, and, instead of enjoying a riotous burlesque, fought bitterly for the possession of the pewter cup.
The worst, however, was yet to come. James Pepper McHenry, gaily ascending the stairs of the Lampoon building one May evening, paused at the bulletin board, and beheld this notice fastened to the cork surface by means of one thumb tack, one tenpenny nail, and a safety pin:
ANNUAL INTERPAPER TRACK MEET.
Stadium, May 20.
Lampoon—Crimson—Advocate—Monthly.
| Events: | Sunset Poem Hurdles, | Standing Broad Grin, | |
| Splitting the Infinitive, | |||
| Throwing the Bull, | |||
| Real Long Run, | |||
| Awfully Long Run, | |||
| 100-Word Dash. |
Or, to be as serious as we of a funny paper can afford to be, there will be the regular list of events.—Candidates register below. No costumes—no horse play this year.
P. S.—Logan, '82, has donated an interpaper track cup, and we've got to win it!
McHenry stared long at the unwelcome last sentence, sniffed scornfully, detached the bulletin, and carried it between a disdainful thumb and forefinger to the sanctum, where Morse, the president, was trying to make up a forty-page number out of eleven pages of material.
"What's all this nature fake?" demanded Pepper, indicating the reference to the cup. "You don't mean to tell me this decrepit old grad thinks we're making a collection of junk, do you? Is it a joke?"
"Pepper," said the president, "don't you know by this time that nothing about the Lampoon is a joke except the Lampoon itself? No, it's not a joke. He's put up a cup."
"But—why, look here! We killed the baseball game by the same silly stunt we—"
"I know we did. At the same time, if there's a mug to be won, we've got to win it, that's all. And there's no use trying to have the regular comic stuff if we really want to win. That's why we've got to cut out the costumes and the foolishness."
"Not in a hundred years!" exclaimed McHenry. "Ever since those fool graduates started out to put up trophies, the interpaper sports have gone straight to the bowwows. First it was hockey, and then it was tennis, and then it was baseball, and now it's track! Why, I had a bully idea for the hurdles this year—"
"Well, you'll have to forget it," said Morse. "I'm just as peevish as you are about it, but we can't turn down this Logan person very well, and so we'll just naturally have to pretend we're regular athletes, and lose some darned good fun."
"And I've been designing costumes and working up stunts for the last week," sulked McHenry. "I had a wonderful idea for the judges—you remember George Thorndike's lasso in the baseball game last year? Well, we'd give that to the judge who was to pick the winners—we'd call him the Poet Lariat—and his job would be to rope the first man in each heat, and lead him up to the grand stand to make a speech. Then the judge who was to pick the last man would be a Greek hoplite, and he'd carry a lemon on the end of a short sword—"
"I'm sorry, Pep—"
"But come to think of it, I don't know why we can't have a burlesque, and win, too."
"The other papers are going to be serious," protested Morse. "We had a meeting last week, and decided about it. Nobody else will wear costumes."
"All the more credit when we win," said Pepper promptly. "Think a minute, old top. If the usual crowd is out there to see us, and we're the only ones dressed up, and still we walk away with that tin dipper strictly according to the rules, it would make something of a hit, wouldn't it?"
"Why, yes, of course—but it can't be done! The Crime has four men on the varsity squad, and the Advocate has two—we haven't such a whale of a chance to win, anyway, and we wouldn't be anywhere if we handicapped ourselves with togas or hand organs, the way we did last year."
"You leave it to me," McHenry assured him. "I'm not so blamed selfish that I can't try to give the public a run for its money. The crowd doesn't come down there to see a set of professional games—it comes to get a laugh. Well, I'll furnish the laughs, and take the cup along, too. So it's all settled, and you'd better appoint me captain of the Lampoon track team right away, so I can get my men together."
The president gasped, and capitulated.
"All right. Pep," he said feebly. "Take it—it's yours! Only remember, I trust you to get us that pewter tank to put up on the mantel with the other trophies."
"You can clear off a place for it now, if you want to," said McHenry.
II
When it was learned that the interpaper meet might go the way of the other interpaper sports, and develop into a miniature athletic carnival instead of a roaring travesty, the university emitted a prolonged wail of disappointment and protest. They objected on the ground of tradition; they objected on the ground of amusement, and they objected on general principles. To all comment, however adverse. Captain McHenry, of the Lampoon team, shook his head eagerly.
"You can take it from me," he declared, "this is going to be the best little meet we ever pulled off, and the giddiest one to watch. Don't make any mistake about it—come and bring your friends, and, if you aren't satisfied, you'll get your money back!"
"But, Pepper," inquired his leading broad jumper, "you haven't done anything about training? What are we supposed to do?"
"Suit yourself," said the captain kindly. "I don't believe in these arbitrary methods. Eat all you want, or nothing at all—I don't give a hoot!"
The Crimson, and old Mother Advocate, and the esthetic Monthly sent conscientious track squads to practise in the Stadium and the cage—it was reported that the Crime was holding a special editorial competition for the sole purpose of allowing Dick Foster, the crack quarter miler, to qualify for the board; and that the Advocate, whose requirements for election was four stories or eight poems accepted, had engaged a Phi Beta Kappa man in the graduate school to give three husky weight throwers a little advice in the manufacture of tottering sonnets. It was perfectly evident that all four papers coveted that inexpensive little pewter cup, and it was fully as evident to all but Pepper McHenry that he was deliberately throwing away the fair chances of his team to win.
Yet there was something about McHenry's attitude toward the world which forestalled vituperation. He had a way of looking at a catechist with an expression which was productive of both embarrassment and rage—a mild, friendly expression, which seemed to infer, in the politest possible manner, "Oh, very well—I wonder what you'd be like if you had any sense?" There were not many of his classmates who cared to oppose McHenry when he looked angelic.
Now, the interpaper meet was scheduled for the twentieth of May, and Pepper's complacency was very largely due to the fact that the retiring Crimson board had scheduled a punch for the evening of the nineteenth. It was on that flimsy fabric that he had built up his offensive and defensive program; so that he was not astonished when Francis Wilcox, managing editor of the Crime, dropped into his room on the afternoon of the seventeenth to talk it over.
"It looks to me, Pepper," said Wilcox, "as though we'll have to come to some sort of agreement about this punch of ours. It's utterly impossible for our men to stay away from it when we're the hosts, and I couldn't trust one of them—except, of course, the fellows who are really in training for the varsity—not to sop up a few steins. I wanted the senior editors to postpone the affair, but they won't—and still we want to have a regular track meet on Saturday. What are going to do about it?"
"You take it very much too seriously," said Pepper. "All my gang is coming around, thank you, and I don't care if they drink enough of that weak brine you Crimson people call 'punch' to float a battleship. Of course, if it were a real punch, the way we make it over at Lampy, that would be different."
"Pepper," said Wilcox gravely, "I wish you'd look at this thing differently. Everybody seems to think that you're going to crab this meet somehow. The rest of us aren't—"
"No," agreed McHenry, "I'll admit it takes a certain amount of genius to be idiotic—artistically. Meet or no meet, we've never missed a Crimson punch yet, and it's too late to begin now. What's fair for one is fair for another—and if you'll take a friendly suggestion, boy, you'll put another ten-cents' worth of red ink in the punch bowl, and call it a real party!"
Accordingly, on the evening of the nineteenth, the Crimson sanctum was a scene of dignified revelry. A Lampoon punch is a thing to be remembered and blushed over; a Monthly smoker is a thing of pink drinks and candlelight; a beer night at the Advocate is a semioccasional matter of convention, at which the guests are in duty bound to simulate intellectual pleasure; but a Crimson punch is a combination of wake, reception, and diplomatic function, which no one is especially anxious to attend, but every one always does attend in order to show the other guests that one has been invited.
Clustered about the little mahogany table on which the official punch bowl rested was practically the entire staff of the Lampoon, waving their steins, and clamoring for a second instalment. Around the sanctum the other paper athletes sipped ginger ale or sarsaparilla, watching enviously. Of all the company, consisting of that exclusive hundred or so of undergraduates comprising the Crime's exclusive punch list, they were the only ones who contented themselves merely with looking upon the wine when it was red, and drinking something else.
"Down with alcohol!" cried Pepper McHenry, toasting his gallant warriors. "Everybody on my team put her down!"
Sterling Cox, the best high jumper of the Advocate men, approached his captain beseechingly.
"Say," he began, "what's the use of passing up a perfectly good punch, when the Lampoon crowd is sopping it up like a lot of sponges? I move we get in on it, too. It'll be as fair for one team as it is for the other—and pretty nearly every blamed funny man is over there enjoying himself. Let's see if we can't make a deal."
"You're on!" said the captain promptly, and sought out Wilcox, who was mournfully contemplating a glass of soul-destroying vichy.
"By gosh, you're right!" admitted Wilcox. "If we all go to it, it's perfectly fair enough!"
"Well, all their best men are getting in on it. Let's takeoff the lid!"
Wilcox opened a window, and carefully poured his vichy out on the grass.
"Fill one up for me, Pepper!" he caroled. "A big one!"
"Yea! Fill em all up!"
"Now you're talking!" said crafty McHenry. "What in thunder is the use of making a funeral out of an interpaper meet? I've told every man on my team to go as far as he likes. Say, why don't you have bigger steins in this miserable dump?"
The Crimson men warmed to their privilege, and the Monthly and Advocate followed suit. Some one essayed a gentle joke, and it took tremendously. Ted Sewall sat down at the piano and began to play one- steps, now and then taking refreshment without losing a note. Monk Spinden stood on the table, and gave an imitation of himself giving an imitation of Eddie Foy. A scrub quartet intoned "Down by the Stream" in a manner to make the audience wish they were at least that far away, and Jimmy Cousins went upstairs to the assembly room of the Union, where the Pierian Sodality had been practising, stole a trombone, and tried to learn how to play it so as to accompany the piano.
Important men from the upper classes began to drop in—they conceded, without much argument that it was the liveliest Crimson punch in the history of man. A member of the Student Council who suggested that the interpaper meet would be a dismal failure was told to go home and turn in and get a good night's rest. Eleven o'clock came, and twelve—the serious-minded men drifted homeward in twos and threes, but the interpaper athletes stayed on. McHenry was indefatigable. He positively refused to speak to a friend who didn't have a stein in his hand. He dictated the musical program, ordered monologues and stunts, insisted that the punch bowl be augmented every thirty minutes, and when Sewall absolutely declined to play another one-step. Pepper sang his parodies of popular songs, and commanded that the company drink his health at the end of every verse.
Eventually the punch ran out, and the guests had to go home. To each of the Lampoon men present, McHenry addressed a vivid phrase or two at parting.
"Meet at the sanctum at one o'clock to-morrow afternoon without fail," he ended. "It's vital! You won't forget, will you? The whole meet depends on it!"
"B-but where were MacManus and Vose and Hopkins and Grant and Miller?" said Morse sleepily. "They aren't athletes—they C-could have come over, all right?"
McHenry smiled his inscrutable smile.
"You're right they're not athletes," he acknowledged. "They were awfully peevish about it, but I made 'em go to bed early."
"But those fellows couldn't win a point against the Old Ladies' Home! I don't—get it."
"Of course you don't, but I do. By the way, old top, you'd better order the makings for a big party in the Lampoon building to-morrow night."
"What for?"
"What for?" echoed Pepper, in great disgust. "Why, you poor prune, for the celebration—after we bring home that cup!"
The president of the funny paper shook his head in baffled amazement, but he had known McHenry long enough to take his predictions at one hundred per cent net. In spite of the fact that he could very conveniently have gone to sleep leaning up against one of the Crimson's new job presses, he forced himself up three flights of stairs in Randolph to the room where the treasurer dwelt, and ordered the makings of the big party.
III
Down in the bowl of the Stadium a thousand or two of people who had come to see one of the most humorous spectacles of the college year groaned whole-heartedly. On the track, a few men in conventional track suits were warming up. In the jumping pits a handful of chastely attired young gentlemen were doing the same. From the whitewashed circle a heavy youth was trying out his back muscles with a twelve-pound shot. Save for the brilliant colors on their breasts, the contestants might easily have been taken for a class team at practice; and the audience, which had come to laugh, remained to regret.
The arrival of the officials created a temporary diversion, for Pepper had finally prevailed upon the other captains to include the usual picturesque cohort, and both the Poet Lariat and the Greek hoplite were among those present. A tall, slim, masked individual, who carried a six-shooter in one hand and a baseball bat in the other, wore a badge inscribed "Rougheree," while the best-dressed man in the senior class was designated as "Coarse Clerk." There were two men for Starters, and fourteen for Stoppers, there was a darky with a megaphone as Denouncer, and a willing band of volunteers with badges marked respectively Sleuth, Statistician, Pistol Shooter, Spearmint Chewer, Ma Shall, and Ma Shall Not.
Yet no one of the spectators who saw the prize trophy resting on a little table by the judges' box, or who observed the serious aspect of the interpaper athletes, could doubt for a moment that the humor of the affair was vested entirely in the officials—that is, until Pepper McHenry led his stalwart band of Lampoon athletes on the field.
McHenry was probably one of the most charming figures of the decade. He was a ballet dancer below the waist, and a gladiator above; he had long, flowing black whiskers, a crutch, a farmer's straw hat, and he was smoking a pipe. Behind him trailed fifteen or sixteen similarly striking funny men, and five slight and nervous youths with no make-up at all. The audience got to its feet, and cheered ecstatically for the Lampoon, while the editors of the other papers looked foolish.
"There's one thing about it, anyway," said the Advocate secretary to Wilcox, "Pep's throwing away the meet, that's all! We'll swamp him!"
"I'm not so sure about that," murmured Wilcox, eyeing the five renegades, and trying to remember if they had been at that punch last night.
"Why, certainly! The rest of us are all in, and so are they, and, what's more, they can't run in those outfits! And those neophytes in regular suits aren't any good, anyway!"
McHenry waltzed up to the Denouncer, and tendered him a message which he required to be read to the crowd. The Denouncer obligingly took his megaphone, and thus informed the populace: "Ladies and gentlemen, the management wishes to state that no person over the age of seventy-three, or one who reads the Theological Review, or who has entered upon the holy state of matrimony will be allowed to participate in this meet. The gentleman in the back row who is reading a newspaper will kindly stop to see me after the lecture!"
"Look here, Pep," warned Wilcox, during the roar of appreciation which followed the announcement, "you know this has got to be run off seriously!"
"Dear man," rejoined McHenry, smoothing his skirts, "I sat up until four o'clock this morning finding flaws in the intercollegiate rules!"
"You're very much too cocky, McHenry," said the Monthly president. "You think just because you're on a ha-ha paper you can make fools of the whole lot of us!"
"Far be it from me to usurp the power of creation," said Pepper religiously. "That was done, old top, long before I ever saw you!"
"Well, I think you're simply trying to make a farce out of this meet—"
A sudden shriek of joy drowned his words, and, turning, he beheld what appeared to be an animated balloon sauntering over from the locker building. It was Titherington, equipped with a circus clown's padding, which gave him a circumference of perhaps seven feet. He wore tights of purple and yellow, the Lampoon colors, and a jerkin of still more violent yellow, on which reclined three links of sausage, bent to form the L.
"For the love of Mike, what's that?" gasped Wilcox.
"That," said Pepper proudly, "is our crack sprinter."
"First call for the hundred!" bawled the Coarse Clerk.
At the beginning of the narrow lanes a little knot of sprinters gathered—heavy-eyed young men from all four papers. Miller and Hopkins, who hadn't been allowed to attend the Crimson punch the night before, Titherington, and a kangaroo.
"First heat—Wilcox, Titherington, Pope, Lewis, and Young. On your marks!"
Titherington took his mark. He not only filled his own lane to repletion, but he also crowded the men on either side of him. They protested vigorously to the Rougheree.
"Take your time, take your time!" said McHenry. "I dare you to find anything in the rules against him!"
"You're crazy, man! They say distinctly that you can't wear anything for the purpose of obstructing your opponents!"
"They certainly do," agreed McHenry. "Only he isn't wearing that outfit for any such purpose! Titherington has an awfully delicate skin—you've no idea how sensitive he is. He's padded so he won't get any cinders in him if he falls down!"
The Rougheree put his hands in his pockets, and said "Whew!"
"Well—let him start, then! He can't run, anyway!"
"On your marks! Get set!"
McHenry coughed, and all the runners but Titherington fell off their marks.
"Set 'em back a yard," advised Pepper. "That's in the rules, all right. Besides, these whiskers tickle my throat."
"McHenry, you're ruining this meet!"
"I'll be hanged if I run next to that jellyfish!" roared Lewis. "He's pushing me clear off the track!"
"Well," said Pepper mildly, "as long as it takes five men to a heat, some paper has to have two men in—put Miller in there. We don't care—Miller'll run next to the fat boy!"
Miller went in. He wasn't much of a sprinter, but he had slept well and eaten wisely, whereas the majority of the competitors wished they hadn't gone to that punch. At the pistol, he got off creditably, and, obeying instructions, kept his mind on the race and his eyes away from Titherington. Not so the others, for as they saw the gelatinous sides of the Lampoon's "crack sprinter" wabbling and shaking, they collapsed beside the track, and laughed until they cried. The audience down by the finish tape was convulsed; the officials hung on each other's shoulders and panted for breath; Miller crossed the line an easy winner, and when Young recovered his senses, struggled to his feet, and dashed after Titherington, he couldn't overtake him in time—the first heat of the hundred-yard dash gave the Lampoon two places.
In the second heat, McHenry himself started. His long black whiskers blew across the track, to the inconvenience of the runner on his left, and his villainous pipe smoke was irritating to the runner on his right. Hopkins, of the Lampoon, also was in the race, and when McHenry had succeeded in deviling his opponents into half a dozen false starts, the little sophomore won the heat hands down. McHenry stopped at the twenty-yard mark because his hat had blown off.
By this time the audience was rocking with merriment, and congratulating itself that the new order of things was even better than the old. It was the advantage of a one-ring circus as opposed to a three-ringer—attention could be more concentrated. The Crimson editors, who had expected to win an easy victory, were growing madder and madder, while those of the Monthly and Advocate, who never had a chance, and knew it, were inclined to invest McHenry with the insignia of genius, and let it go at that. Wilcox went to the Rougheree.
"Look here, Tom!" he said. "I understood that this meet was going to be pulled off according to the rules!"
"Well, it is," said the official helplessly. "The only trouble is that the guys who framed the rules didn't know Pep McHenry."
"Rules! Well, will you take a look at the high jump, and see what particular rule covers that little scheme of the Lampoon's?"
The Rougheree looked. The cross-bar was a lithe bit of pine, curved on the arc of a twenty-foot circle. If placed on the uprights, and left to itself, it sagged alarmingly at the center, so that it was some six or seven inches lower than at the ends. Lampoon jumpers were clearing it comfortably. When, however, a Crimson man approached, the measurers turned the bar over so that the center was six or seven inches higher than the ends!
"Robbery!"
"Oh, what a roast!"
"Rotten, rotten!"
"MacManus clears five feet six," declared the field judge, one of McHenry's particular friends. "MacManus, Lampoon, first; Gledhill, Crimson, second; Vose, Lampoon, third and fourth."
A fearful shout greeted his decision.
"What in thunder is this—a plant?"
"How can the same man be third and fourth?"
"That's easy," said McHenry. "Instead of entering the three men we're allowed in the high jump, we entered MacManus once and Vose twice. When he got up to five feet two, he called that one of him, and when he did five two and a half, he called that the other of him."
"But—it's highway robbery!"
"Oh, look here," said McHenry impatiently. "I'm sick of quibbling. Listen—we entered MacManus, Vose, and myself for the high jump, didn't we? Well, and I decided to drop out, and asked you if we could enter a substitute. And you all said yes. Well, Vose was my substitute, so he gets two chances!"
"It's ridiculous!"
"Cut it out, Pep—"
"Find it in the rules!" dared McHenry. "I'll give you a million dollars in cash if you can."
"Decision stands," said the Rougheree shakily. "What's the next race?"
The next race was the low hurdles. The Lampoon's entries were Grant and Miller, and seven young men in wild masquerade who were sent in simply to disconcert their adversaries. They succeeded admirably. Sir Walter Raleigh tripped himself and two Crimson men with his own sword in the first heat, the Chorus Lady ruined the second, and in the third Grant and Miller put through a typical McHenry coup. Miller, it appeared, was a fair enough runner on the flat, but useless as a hurdler, whereas Grant was of no great value in any capacity. It was therefore arranged that Grant should beat the pistol, thereby disqualifying himself, and then proceed to run over into Miller's lane, and topple all the hurdles in succession, so that Miller, by simply taking extra long strides to avoid the fallen obstacles, would run his two hundred and twenty yards on the level. The conspiracy was perfectly managed. Grant knocked over the hurdles, was disqualified, and allowed Miller to finish first.
"We protest!" howled Wilcox, to the huge delight of the audience. "It's—it's disgusting! Of course, our men couldn't beat Miller—they didn't know the hurdles were going to be knocked over, and they got all tangled up in 'em! We protest!"
"Old top," choked the Rougheree, "all we can do is to disqualify the man who did it! Then the race goes to the second man, and that was Miller! Where do you get off?"
"We'll beat 'em, anyway!" growled Wilcox. "This meet isn't over yet!"
When the entrants for the half-mile run lined up, five Lampoon men toed the mark in precisely the same costume and make-up. Their faces were blacked, and they wore tiny black gauze masks. They were of about the same physical development, and they answered to their names in a shrill falsetto, which gave no clue to their identity. It was impossible to judge whether it was really Smith who said " Here!" when Smith's name was called, or if it were Brown or Jones or Robinson. The Crimson contingent was desperate—but, after all, what is there in the rules about blacking one's face?
Even although they had attended the fatal punch, two Crimson runners jumped into the lead at the pistol, and drew away from the pack. At the end of the first lap, they were several yards in advance of the third man, but as the effects of the previous evening manifested themselves, they began slowly to drop back. Even then it looked like eight points for the Crimson since Lampoon men running third and fourth were laboring fully as hard, and showing even less signs of stamina.
The leaders were at the farthest point from the judges' stand—two hundred yards from home—when the miracle occurred. Instantly, and incomprehensively, and unbelievably there were ten men with blacked faces and gauze masks running for the Lampoon, and five of them were in the first five places! On they swept to the finish line, crossed it, and immediately withdrew from the screaming, joyous officials, and waited.
The Crimson men staggered to the tape, and fell onto the grass, from which they spoke in heated whispers. Wilcox was incoherently screeching protests to the Rougheree. One of the duly appointed Sleuths came to the rescue. He was quite professional—he hadn't discovered anything.
"But they were hiding under the Stadium!" he said. "I'm sure of it! They must have been! I saw them come out and jump on the track just as Whipple took the turn!"
Whipple, who expected to win the half, nodded vigorously.
"Here, here, what's all this about?" demanded McHenry, pirouetting professionally. "Who says there's anything wrong?"
"Good Lord, man! When five of your crowd start and ten finish?"
"Well, who started?"
"I—I don't know! I know what names they gave!"
"What were they?"
"Smith, Brown, Jones, Robinson, Cutler."
"All right, boys!" sang McHenry to the five who had finished in the lead. "Off with the masks—we know you!"
They removed their masks. They were indubitably Smith, Brown, Jones, Robinson, and Cutler.
"But what are you going to do about it?" pleaded Wilcox. "What are you going to do about it? Those fellows didn't run—only the last couple of hundred yards! We all know it! They came out from under the Stadium! Disqualify 'em, and give us the first two places!"
"I'd like to," said the Rougheree slowly, "but—the rules say the referee has got to see infractions before he can punish them, and I'm hanged if I know who I saw, and who I didn't!"
"But then the Lampoon men who did start must have given false names, and you can disqualify 'em for that!"
"Yes, but how do you know which was which? You can't blanket the whole crowd, you know. The charges must be specific!"
"Oh, suit yourself!" snapped Wilcox.
The broad jumping had started, and Hopkins, of the Lampoon, who weighed no more than a hundred and five pounds, had donned hoopskirts, which, since they were jumping with the wind, carried him prodigious distances. His first measured leap was twenty-six feet; the skirt was so extensive that it didn't hamper him when he ran, but when the wind got under it, it threatened to carry him clear over the bowl.
"We protest!" said Wilcox mechanically.
Overruled!" chorused the Monthly, the Advocate, the Rougheree, and all the audience.
The events became a monotonous repetition of success for the Lampoon. Those convivial souls who had preferred punch to training harried their opponents with badinage, hampered them with outlandish accessories, won the tumultuous greeting of the spectators, and allowed Grant and Miller and MacManus and Vose and Hopkins, who, under ordinary circumstances, wouldn't have scored a point, to take all the honors. One by one the Crimson athletes retired from the field in suspicious haste; the other two papers withdrew from competition in the belief that it was more fun to watch the Lampooners than to compete themselves, and the final event, the interpaper relay, was a walk-over for the funny sheet. McHenry gave every one a place—twenty-nine men covered small sections of the quarter mile, and all came in together.
There was no need of calling upon the statisticians for the score, for the Advocate and Monthly had each gained two points, and the Crimson twelve, so that the other eighty-five, and the prize trophy, must necessarily have gone to the Lampoon.
"Pepper," said Wilcox gravely, "you played us a mighty mean trick. You know perfectly well that our team wouldn't have touched a drop of that punch unless yours did! Only we didn't hold back anybody—like those five of yours!"
"Wilcox," returned the great strategist of the Lampoon, "you're invited to the celebration to-night at half-past eight. I'll explain it to you."
"I don't doubt it!" grudged his friend. "You can explain anything. Only I'll tell you this much—we'll never try to run a serious interpaper meet again! Next year we'll all be crazy!"
"That's what I did it for," said McHenry simply.
IV
At the appointed hour, Wilcox walked into the Lampoon building, and found McHenry loitering about the vestibule.
"Hello, old top!" said Pepper cordially. "Feeling a little better now?"
"I am not!"
"Well—you will. The trophy is full of bubbles."
"Lead me to it' said Wilcox.
They pushed through the throng of celebrants and obtained soothing liquid. Then Pepper drew the Crimson man over to the bulletin board.
"Before we look at this' he said, "I want to tell you that we've written to this man Logan, asking him to take his cup back. We get enough good track meets out here, and there's no sense in spoiling a funny one. Now for the crash. You remember you asked me yesterday if I'd let my team drink punch. I said I would. But I didn't say which team."
"Which—what?"
"Behold the bulletins!" directed McHenry.
Wilcox beheld them. They were notices written on Lampoon stationery, and affixed to the board, side by side.
LAMPOON TRACK TEAM.
J. P. McHenry, Capt.
Grant, MacManus, Miller, Vose, Hopkins.
Be in bed by nine-thirty, and keep strict training. Report at the field at three-thirty to-morrow, ready to die for dear old Ha-ha!
LAMPOON PUNCH TEAM.
J. P. McHenry, Capt.
Everybody but the above.
Be at the Crime punch at nine-thirty, and go as far as you like. Report here at one p.m. to-morrow for costumes and instructions. Don't be alarmed, because all you do is to wear wild clothes.
P. S.—Bromo seltzer.
"Wha—what!" gasped Wilcox, wide-eyed.
"Exactly," said Pepper, yawning slightly. "I'm captain of both of 'em."