That evening at dinner Burleigh and Rattleton entertained the table with a glowing description of a new play they had seen on the previous night, at the Howard AthenÆum. They were most enthusiastic about it.

"I can't understand," declared Burleigh, "how such a piece and such a troupe happened to drop into the old Howard. Such scenery! Why, the stage setting was the best I ever saw. One act was laid in the pine woods; you could look way through them, apparently, live birds flew about among the branches, and they must have burned some sort of balsam in the wings, for you could actually smell the pines."

"That's a new smell for the Howard," remarked Hudson.

"Yes, and those two girls!" added Jack Rattleton. "By Jove, wasn't that blonde a beauty!"

"The brunette was better," averred Burleigh. "How she did sing! They have splendid songs all through the play."

"Never saw such acting," said Jack, "even—certainly never at the Howard."

"The hero was a magnificent young man," Burleigh went on. "You ought to see him throw down the villain in the last act. I'm going again as soon as I can."

"Why haven't we heard of it before?" queried Stoughton, suspiciously.

"It was a first night," explained Burleigh, promptly. "Jack and I were pioneers. You fellows ought to go see it. You'll hear enough of it before it is over; but go in now while it is fresh."

"I have nothing to do to-night," said Hudson. "I believe I'll go. Who is with me?"

Stoughton and Gray both agreed to join him. Holworthy and Randolph were going to drive over to a ball in Brookline.

"I'd give anything to go with you chaps," said Burleigh, "but I have got to work into the wee sma' hours on my forensic. It is due to-morrow morning, and I haven't done a thing on it."

"I'd like to see that show again, too," said Jack, "but I don't feel very well to-night. I'm going to turn in early."

The three theatre-goers started for town immediately after dinner. They stopped at one of the clubs first, and picked up three or four other men on the strength of Burleigh's eulogy of the play.

Whoever has been through Harvard College and never been to the Howard AthenÆum has neglected his advantages; fortunately such deplorable instances are rare. Who, that has improved his opportunities, does not remember the old stamping-ground, where the commingled perfumes of orange-peel, humanity, and peanuts would smell to high heaven, were they not stopped in a concentrated mass by the grimy roof. There things are real, things are earnest, unweakened by affectation and refinement. The villains are real bad villians, and carry knives, not cigarettes. They know how to gloat. The heroes have red undershirts and true nobility, and don't mind showing either. The heroines are not ashamed of sentimentality. Neither is the audience. There, too, is music that you can remember and whistle, that you can sing afterwards on the way back to Cambridge; not music that you must contemplate with rapt gaze on the ceiling. There you will find humor of the broad, plain, unmistakable variety, humor at which you can laugh for its own sake, not for the maker's wit or your own in detecting it. Nor, in that shrine of the Muses, does pleasure always end with the fall of the curtain. Frequently you may see two or three excellent fights on the way out, and perhaps be granted a share in one yourself. Oh, you get your money's worth at the classic AthenÆum, for it is all for fifty cents (thirty-five in the gallery).

"I have a suspicion," said Stoughton, on the way in town, "that those fellows were lying to us. I'll bet this show is something awful, they were probably bored to death, and conceived the happy thought of getting us sold in the same way."

"Never mind," said Hudson, philosophically; "we'll have a good time anyway."

Before the curtain had been up ten minutes, Dick's suspicion gained ground; it's truth was fully confirmed long before the end of the play. The scenery, the birds, and the pine balsam effects were wholly creatures of Burleigh's capable brain; as for Jack Rattleton's houris, Stoughton declared that "Noah was a fool to have saved them; he ought to have shut them out in the rain long enough to get a wash any way."

Even the AthenÆum audience was dissatisfied and inclined to jeer. Gray wanted to leave at the end of the first act.

"Hold on," insisted Hudson, "let's stay here and make this a success. There's lots of good sentiment all through it, just your style Gray. All it needs is a little enthusiasm in the house to warm up the actors. Let's lead the applause on the strong points."

So they stayed, and their efforts were attended with such success, that they might have had a free pass for future performances. Every time the hero said, "I am the just man and you are the villain," or the heroine declared she would never leave him while life lasted, or showed other symptoms of heroism, the knot of students would stamp, and applaud, and rouse the finer feelings of the whole house. The grateful actors certainly did warm up, and delivered with more and more vim their honest expressions of lofty sentiment and occasional touches of patriotism, the latter utterly uncalled for, but always welcome. The audience became worked up as well, but in the last act suddenly began to hiss.

"Hullo! what's up now?" asked Gray, who had not taken the AthenÆum course faithfully, and was not learned in it; "what are they hissing at?"

"Good gracious, man," answered Hudson, "don't you see? Don't display your ignorance. They are hissing the villain. It's the greatest compliment you can pay him. Go ahead, hiss like a good one."

On the whole, the performance was a grand success, and Hudson insisted that Gray had made an undoubted conquest of the second lady. After it was over some one mentioned "broiled lob. and musty," at Parks, but it was voted to return to Cambridge and make a rarebit there.

"We'll go pull out Ned Burleigh, and have it in his room," suggested Dick.

"No you don't!" exclaimed Hudson. "You forget I'm his chum. I'll have no Welsh rarebit made in that room unless we draw lots and I get stuck. The room would smell of cheese and stale beer for twenty-four hours."

"Let's land on Rattleton then. We'll teach him to lie."

Feeling in a luxurious mood they scorned the cars, and chartered a herdic, four men getting inside and three on the roof. For those readers who know not the herdic, I will explain that it is a sort of tiny omnibus in which four thin people can sit uncomfortably. It usually has two wheels and never more than one horse—sometimes not quite as much.

"I may as well tell you before we start," said Stoughton, who sat on the top, to the driver, "that we are not Freshmen, so don't break a spring on the bridge and tell us that it will cost you ten dollars to get it mended."

"I know you're old hands," answered Jehu, with a grin, "I know youse fellers. I remember your face pertickler. Mebbe you disrecollect comin' out with me one night from Parker's. Let's see, guess it was two years ago, after the Institoot dinner."

"All right, my friend, say no more," acknowledged Dick, as the other two men shouted. "The drink is on me. Here is the price of it."

The door at the back of the herdic is held shut with a strap that leads through the roof to the driver's seat. This was secured firmly, so as to keep the inside passengers safe, for it is an established courtesy for those inside to slip out when near the college, leaving the others to pay the driver and joining them later. By means of the strap, however, and the lack of a knife among the insiders, all arrived well together at the building where Rattleton roomed.

"I'll go to the Fly and get the cheese and beer," said Gray. "You get your chafing-dish, Dick."

Stoughton roomed in the same building with Rattleton, as did Hudson and Burleigh. While he went after his chafing-dish the others reconnoitered Rattleton's quarters. The door was locked and all was dark. The glass ventilator over the door, however, was unfastened, and large enough to admit a man. Jack Rattleton always left his ventilator unfastened, for he often depended on it for his own ingress. The reason of this was very simple,—the door had a spring bolt, and it was characteristic of Mr. Rattleton's nature to frequently leave his keys inside and shut the door when he went out. It was a very simple matter for Hudson to climb over the door through this ventilator, drop down, and open the door from the inside.

"Look out for Blathers," said one man. "If that pretty pup is in there he'll take a piece out of your leg."

"He knows my voice," answered Hudson, as he "shinned" over. He let the rest in and lit the gas. Rattleton was not in his bedroom.

"Humph," grunted Hudson. "Said he wasn't well and was going to turn in early. The abominable liar."

They poked up the fire and had it roaring when Stoughton returned, bearing the chafing-dish and a long pipe, his dear Mary Jane.

"That's a good idea," said Hudson, as his eye fell on the latter article. "You've brought that disgusting black pipe. We can stand it for a while, and it will permeate Jack's room and teach him the beauty of truth. Puff away on Mary; serve Jack right."

Rattleton's plates and other necessities were foraged out by the time Gray appeared with the cheese and beer. Not seeing Rattleton, he asked how the others had got in. Hudson explained. "This open ventilator habit of Jack's" he added, "is worse than rooming on the ground floor. Ned Burleigh and I had enough of that in Freshman year, before we moved up here. Our room was a regular darned club. Everybody would drop in there between lectures, chin when we wanted to study, and smoke our tobacco, just because it was too much trouble to go up-stairs. We couldn't leave our window open at night without having some fools crawl in, at any time after midnight, and raise the deuce."

"Yes, I remember. It was very pleasant," remarked Stoughton.

The creation of the rarebit was well under way with the usual accompaniment of advice and altercation over the ingredients, when shouts were heard from under the window, of "Jack, Jack Rat, Oh, Jack!"

Hudson threw up the window and saw Holworthy and Randolph below in a buggy. "Mr. Rattleton is not in, gentlemen," he said, "but come right up and make yourselves at home."

"All right; be with you in a moment, as soon as we have taken this trap round to Blake's."

"It is the two society fritterlings," announced Hudson, as he drew in his head. A few minutes later Randolph and Holworthy appeared in their big coats.

"Seems to me you're back from your ball pretty early," observed Gray.

"Hol didn't find the person there he wanted to see, so he soured on the whole thing and dragged me away early," Jack Randolph explained.

"What a whopper," said Holworthy, as he took off his ulster. "It was very stupid, and Jack himself suggested that we should be happier in Cambridge."

"Aha," cried Stoughton, who was stirring the "bunny" with a master hand. "Very nice. Two gentlemen in faultless evening attire. They'll do for the waiters. Here, quick, hand up your plates before this thing gets cold."

While they were eating the rarebit, a step was heard in the entry, accompanied by the trotting feet of a dog, and the locked door was tried. Then a familiar voice drawled "What the devil is going on in here?"

"Hullo, Jack," cried Stoughton, "come right in. Don't be bashful."

"Open the door, you arrant burglars," demanded Rattleton. "My keys are on my bureau, or somewhere inside."

"Climb over the transom as I did," Hudson called. "You'll have to turn your back to the company in the performance, but don't mind the awkwardness of the position."

"We'll excuse your back. We have your hair-brushes and the fire shovel already," added Randolph, cheerily.

"Don't be such babies," said Jack, (whenever any of the gang was at a disadvantage, he was apt to age suddenly) "come, let me in."

"Are you sorry you told a naughty fib to-night?" asked Hudson, with his hand on the knob.

"Yes."

"Will you set up the ingredients for a punch?"

"Yes."

"All right then, you may come in," said Hudson, graciously, opening the door.

"How was the play?" inquired Jack, pleasantly, as he went into his bedroom after the wash-basin, the regular understudy for a punch-bowl.

"Enjoyed it immensely, in spite of your wishes for our entertainment," Hudson declared. "We know now your ideal of talent and beauty."

"Don't blame me. That was all Burleigh's rot," protested Jack, apologetically, but with a chuckle. "Why don't you pull him out?"

"That is a good plan," assented Hudson. "Two of you come up and help me capture the elephant. He may resist." A committee of three went up to wait upon Burleigh.

"What is the sense of this meeting as to the temperature of the grog?" asked Rattleton.

"Hot!" promptly moved the two who had driven over from Brookline. The motion was carried, so Jack put the kettle on the fire.

"Speaking of the drama and brother Burleigh," said Holworthy, "do you remember the time, Dick, that we saw the old man suping in that spectacular play in Sophomore year?"

"I'm not likely to forget it," answered Dick. "You fellows remember that show called 'Albrachia,' or some such name, full of red fire and fairies? Hol. and I went in to see it one night, and whom should we discover as leading demon in the grand climax, but the stout Edward. We nearly stood up and cheered,—but we'll make him tell about it to-night."

"Hullo, here is the sylph now!" exclaimed some one, as the committee returned in triumph with Ned in tow.

"The perjured loafer told us he was going to work on his forensic," cried Hudson. "Look at this," pointing to Burleigh, whose generous proportions were swathed in gaudy pajamas.

"I hear you enjoyed the play exceedingly," remarked Burleigh, as he made for the fireplace, and spread his huge form all over the front of it.

"So we did, no thanks to you," answered Gray.

"Any men who are such AthenÆum Lotharios as to be decoyed in town by the mere mention of two pretty actresses, deserve to get sold," declared Ned, severely.

"Here, take your toddy and stop your mouth," said Stoughton. "As a penance for your lies, you can give us some reminiscences of your disreputable career on the stage."

After some demurring, Burleigh was persuaded to begin his yarn. The "tea" was made by this time, and enthroned on the student's desk in the centre of the room. With "tod and tobac." the party disposed itself about the room, every one with a view more to ease than grace. Blathers, as usual, chose his master's outstretched legs. Ned Burleigh, with a cigar, stood in front of the fire in his airy raiment, his feet apart, warming his exterior with the genial blaze, and his interior with the genial toddy. Would that we could have those evenings again!