The Argosy, December 1905 — page 105: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A COLLEGE “Ready, gentlemen,” he said. ‘“ One, two, three. Go.” With a mighty yell, they rushed upon Gussie Smith. At that instant something in the cor- ner clicked, but they paid no attention to it. On they came. The sun-was in their eyes, and they did not notice that Gussie had just been able to dodge aside and escape the onslaught. He stood, with a white face, looking at them as they sprawled upon his desk. Immediately they recovered themselves and grabbed him. “Come with us,” said Tomlinson. “Where?” inguired Gussie Smith, feeling limp and weak in the grasp of the big fellow. “For your Saturday constitutional,” yelled Bully Whitehead. They marched Gussie down-stairs and across the green. Students passed them here and there, but at sufficient distance to make their disguise effective. For whenever they met a man—freshie, sophomore, junior, or ezar, no matter who he was—that man lifted his: hat respectfully and dropped it back upon his head. Of course, after the first appearance in Gussie’s room they did not attempt to keep up the deception with Gussie, for any disguise is perceptible at close range. Whether Gussie knew who they really were is another question. He walked on ahead until they reached some marshy ground leading down to the stream. Then Gussie stopped. “| think T’ll go back again,” he said. “ [—we'll get our feet wet here.” He said it as though that were suffi- cient inducement to the others to right about face; but they kept on, and pushed him along, too. Now, January had been a warm month, following the heavy snowfall of December, and the river had developed into a. torrent. It was called a river, but after all it was nothing but a small stream, possibly a hundred and fifty feet wide. Now it was very turbulent and very muddy. “Mr. Charles Augustus Smith,” said Tomlinson, “possibly you may have overlooked the fact that you really are CONSPIRACY. 83 a golf ball—a pretty poor kind, but yet a golf ball. We are the professionals, the Willies of the links. We have drib- bled you down here and we are about to ‘make a great play. It is necessary for us to lift you into the air and to drive you across this stream. Of course, we may not be able to land you exactly upon the other side, but we shall do our best.” Gussie Smith looked from one to the other. “What are you going to do?” he asked anxiously. “ Throw me into the water? ” “We are not, Charles Augustus, otherwise Gussie,” said ‘Tomlinson. “You are familiar with that rule of physics that an object once propelled into space will keep on in the given direction unless its course is diverted by some influence. 3 “We are going to aim you for the dry land two hundred feet away. If you are so foolish as to divert your course and drop into the stream when you have gone but ten or fifteen feet, we cannot help it. We shall start you in the right direction. The rest is up to you.” Gussie Smith seemed lost in thought. But only for an instant. “You had better not,” he finally ex- claimed. “It will be the worse for 53 For whom did not appear, for while he was speaking the three seized him bodily and propelled him, as they had said, into space. An instant later there was a loud splash, and Gussie Smith had disap- peared into the stream. “Gee, fellows,’ said Bully White- head, scared now that they had carried out their intention, “it must be cold as ice. We ought not to have done it.” “ Aw,” returned Tomlinson, “ it’s all right. I’ve been chucked in myself. He’s all right. He'll come out and we will run him for a couple of miles and then take him back and toast his toes. It 711 do him good. Now watch.” They were gazing at the spot where they assumed that their victim would rise to the surface. But the stream was running swifter than they thought. Finally they saw him, spluttering, three hundred feet down the stream, COMMICLOOOKS (C@)