McNab, like most gentlemen of determined leisure, worked indefatigably every minute of the day. Having slept through chapel and first recitation, with an occasional interruption to rise and say with great dignity "Not prepared," he would suddenly, about ten o'clock in the morning, awake with a start, and drifting into Stover's room plaster his nose to the window and restlessly ask himself what mischief he could invent for the day.
After a moment of dissatisfied introspection, he would say fretfully:
"Boning out an infernal problem in spherical geometry."
"Sure, it's too hard--what's the use of wasting time over it, then? What do you say to a game of pool?"
"Come over to Sheffield and get up a game of poker with Tom Kelly."
At this juncture, Stover and McCarthy rising in wrath, McNab would beat a hurried retreat, dodging whatever came sailing after him. Much aggrieved, he would go down the hall, trying the different doors, which had been locked against his approach.
About this time Buck Waters, moved by similar impulses, would appear and the two would camp down on the top step and practise duets, until a furious uprising in the house would drive them ignominiously on to the street.
Left to their own resources, they would wander aimlessly about the city, inventing a hundred methods to accomplish the most difficult of all feats, killing time.
On one particular morning in early November, McNab and Buck Waters, being refused admission to three houses on York Street, and the affront being aggravated by jeers and epithets of the coarsest kind, went arm in arm on mischief bent.
"I say, what let's do?" said McNab disconsolately.
"We must do something new," said Buck Waters.
"Well, let's try the old clothes gag," said McNab; "that always amuses a little."
Reaching the thoroughfare of Chapel Street, McNab stationed himself at the corner while Waters proceeded to a point about half-way down the block.
Assuming a lounging position against a lamp-post, McNab waited until chance delivered up to him a superhumanly dignified citizen in top hat and boutonnière, moving through the crowd with an air of solid importance.
Darting out, he approached with the sweep of an eagle, saying in a hoarse whisper: