"Graves?... We haven't seen him," interjected Shorty Brown, and Dan Jordan answered gravely: "Then the sophomores have captured him, that's a certainty! He hasn't been here, and he hasn't been to the Rectory."
Shorts, now thoroughly sober, followed the big freshman into the drawing-room, where a dozen or more downcast-looking boys were curled up on divans. Swipes was being urged up the broad oak stairs, Spuddy now and then giving him a severe poke in the ribs. Preston perched the hapless boy against his chamber door with the injunction to get to bed the best he could. Swipes turned helplessly to his room-mate.
"Look here, Spuddy, help a fellow, will you? Just give me my pyjamas."
"Get them yourself!" retorted Preston, shoving Dillon into his bed-chamber. "It's a nice mess we're in with the 'Parson' gone."
With a disgusted kick at Swipes he left him reeling desperately once more. Dillon swayed forward from the center of the room toward the doorway. He had heard as in a dream Spuddy's parting shot about fellows getting drunk and forgetting how to act. Suddenly the floor rose up and hit him on the nose, but the polished boards, so bright that he could see his face in them, fell back politely, leaving Swipes standing, looking helplessly about him. Every piece of furniture, bed, bureau, table and chairs, flew around and around him in the wildest disorder.
His eyes reeled after them, in their flight through the room. Around and around past the bed to the door--once Swipes thought they would fly through. Bracing himself to catch the flying bed, he came up with a bang against the beveled mirror which broke and splintered under his weight. He was lying in the ruins when some one came and put him to bed.
The regret of the little freshman the next morning when the dismal news of the missing president came to him was intensely genuine. They told him that the whole town had been searched, but that Graves had disappeared as completely as if he were no longer on the earth.
* * * * * When Dan Jordan left Frederick Graves on the corner of Ithaca's main street, the young president began to search for his three classmates. Shorts and the other two must be somewhere near for Dan had told him so. He turned to the left, walking toward "Jay's" resort, where with his knowledge of the three little freshmen's habits, he would probably find them. It was a nuisance to be followed about and guarded as if he were a criminal, yet he would go through anything rather than be absent from the banquet.