He had heard of hazing before, but
he had been living in such a realm of imagination for the past weeks
that the gossip had never really reached his consciousness, and now
that he was confronted with the reality he hardly knew how to face it.
"Yes," said Cleary, "they're going to haze us, and I wonder why I ever
came to this rotten place anyhow."
"Don't, don't say that," cried Sam. "You were at Hale University for a
year or two, weren't you? Did they do any hazing there?"
"Not a bit. They stopped it all long ago. The professors there say it
isn't manly."
"That can't be true," said Sam, "or they wouldn't do it here. But why
has it kept up here when they've stopped it at all the universities?"
"I don't know," said Cleary, "but perhaps it's wearing uniforms. I feel
sort of different in a uniform from out of it, don't you?"
"Of course I do," exclaimed Sam. "I feel as if I were walking on air
and rising into another plane of being."
"Well--ye-es--perhaps, but I didn't mean that exactly," answered
Cleary. "But somehow I feel more like hitting a fellow over the head
when I'm in uniform than when I'm not, don't you?"
"I hadn't thought of that," said Sam, "but I really think I do. Do you
think they'll hit us over the head?"
"There's no telling. There's Captain Clark of the first class and
Saunders of the third who are running the hazing just now, they say,
and they're pretty tough chaps.
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