"I've been so busy with getting ready for the exams and baseball, that I haven't given the dinner much thought," declared Tom. "Of course we've got to have it, and we must fool the freshies."

"Sure," agreed Phil. "Let's go have a talk with Holly Cross. He may be able to suggest something."

"Come on!" called Dutch. "We'll call on Holly."

As the three strolled down the corridor, out on the campus, and in the direction of Holly's room, the genial center fielder having an apartment in one of the college club houses, Dutch nudged his companions.

"Look," he remarked, "there go Ford Fenton and Bert Bascome, with several freshies. I don't like to see one of the sophs mixing it up so close with the first years."

"Me either," agreed Tom. "Ford ought to stick to his own cla.s.s. The trouble is few of our fellows like him, on account of his ways and his 'uncle,' whereas the freshmen will stand for them. That's why Ford hangs out in their camp. But with our annual spring dinner coming off, I don't like it."

"Oh, Ford wouldn't dare betray us," was Phil's opinion. They kept on across the campus, and were soon in Holly's room, where plans for the dinner were eagerly discussed.

If they could have seen what took place a little later in the room of Bert Bascome, the four soph.o.m.ores would have had more cause than ever to regret the intimacy between Ford Fenton and some of the first-year crowd.

"It's your best chance to get even with them for making fun of you, Ford," Bascome was urging the lad whose uncle had once been a coach at Randall. "It will serve them right."

"But I hate to give their plans away," objected Ford. "I'm a soph.o.m.ore, and----"

"They don't treat you as one," urged Henry Delfield, Bascome's crony.

"It will be a fine chance to get back at them."

"Suppose they find out that I told?" asked Ford.

"They never will. We'll see to that," promised Bert eagerly. "All we want you to do is to tell us where the dinner is going to be held. We'll do the rest. There'll be a fight, of course, when we arrive, to break it up, and, just so Parsons, Clinton, Henderson and that crowd won't be suspicious, you can pitch into me--make believe knock me down, you know, and all that. Then they won't have any suspicion of you."

"Think not?" inquired Ford.

"Sure not. All we want is a tip, and when you've given it you'll be in a position to laugh at those fellows who are laughing at you so often."

"That's right, they do make a lot of fun of me," said Ford weakly. "All right, I'll let you know, as soon as I find out where the dinner's going to be held. But don't squeal on me," and the prospective traitor looked apprehensively at the plotting freshmen.

"Not for worlds," Bascome a.s.sured him solemnly, and Ford left, promising to deliver his cla.s.smates into the hands of their traditional enemies.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE SOPh.o.m.oRE DINNER

When Phil, Tom and Dutch Housenlager came from Holly's room that evening, they were just in time to see Ford Fenton emerge from his plotting conference with Bascome and his cronies.

"I don't like that," exclaimed Phil. "Ford has been in with those fellows for some time."

"Probably trying to think up some scheme so he can get to be baseball manager next year," suggested Tom.

"No!" cried Phil. "By Jove, I believe I have it. Come on back to Holly's room for a few minutes," and he took hold of his chums and fairly led them away, much to their mystification. There was another conference, which lasted a long time, and for a day or two thereafter much activity in the ranks of the soph.o.m.ores.

The dinner was to be a "swell" affair, to quote Holly Cross. An elaborate menu had been decided on, and there were to be several "stunts" more or less elaborate on the part of the "talented" members of the cla.s.s. The affair was to be held in a hall in Haddonfield, and the great object of the second-year fellows, of course, was to prevent the time and place of the dinner becoming known to their enemies, the freshmen.

"Do you s'pose they'll bite?" asked Tom, an evening or two later, as he, together with Phil and Sid and Holly, were in the room of the "inseparables."

"It depends on us," answered Holly, who was the president of the soph.o.m.ores. "I think they'll trail along when they see us go out."

"If they don't have some of their number trail after the main bunch,"

spoke Phil.

"We'll have to take our chances; that's all," came from Sid. "Well, are we all ready?"

"Pretty nearly," answered Holly. "I want to wait until it's a little darker. Then we'll slip off. I hope the chap is there with the auto."

"He promised to be," said Tom, and they sat about, waiting impatiently for the hour of action to arrive. It came finally, ticked off by the impatient little clock, and four figures stole from the soph.o.m.ore dormitory, and hurried across the campus.

"There they come," said Tom, in a low voice, a moment later. "They're trailing us all right. See 'em sneaking along on the other side?"

"Sure," spoke Phil. It was just light enough to discern a number of hazy figures creeping along a boxwood hedge.

"See anything of that traitor, Fenton?" asked Holly, in a low voice.

"No, he's with the other crowd," answered Tom. "He's in fear of his life that we'll find him out."

"As if we hadn't already," added Sid.

Hurrying along, the four lads entered a trolley that was headed for Haddonfield. They looked back, as they were on the platform, and saw the shadowy figures leap into an auto which they knew belonged to Bert Bascome.

"They're coming," spoke Sid.

"And we'll be ready for 'em," added Tom.

A little later Tom and his chums were in the town and they hurried to a building, containing several halls or meeting rooms, where the students frequently held dinners, or gave dances and other affairs.

"Did you see anything of them since we arrived?" asked Holly of Tom as they scurried into the structure.

"No, but they'll be on hand. Ford has tipped them off all right; the little puppy! Say, what ought we to do to him? Tar and feathers, or give him the silence?"

"We can settle that later," remarked Phil. "Just now let's see how we make out against the freshies. It's tough to have to acknowledge that there's a traitor in the cla.s.s."

"It sure is. Come on, now I hope everything is here."

A man came out of a room as the four soph.o.m.ores knocked on the door.

"All arranged?" asked Tom eagerly.

"Yes. Now I hope you young gentlemen don't have too much of a fight.

Don't break the furniture."

"Not any more than we can help," promised Sid.