"Here she goes!" shouted Tom, and he and Sid shoved their precious old chair from the window. It fell with a great crash to the ground, two stories below.
"Broken to bits!" said Tom with a groan. "Now for the sofa. There'll be nothing left of it."
They had raised it to the window sill, after much effort, and were balancing it there while recovering their breaths. Their room was filled with the heavy fumes of smoke, and the noise in the corridor was increasing.
"Let her go!" cried Phil. "Lively, now, if we want to get out alive!"
But just as the three chums were about to release their hold on the sofa, Mr. Snell, one of the under-janitors of the college, and a sort of scout or spy of the proctor's, ran into the room.
"There's no fire! There's no danger!" he called. "Don't throw anything out."
"No. Some of the students burned red fire in the halls, that's all," went on Mr. Snell. "There's no danger. The proctor sent me around to explain. It's only some illuminating red fire."
Tom, Sid and Phil looked at each other, as they stood at the window, holding their precious sofa. The clouds of smoke were rolling away, and the noise was lessening. Tom looked out of the casement, and, in the semi-darkness below, saw the chair they had thrown out. Just then, from below, a crowd of freshmen, who had perpetrated the trick, began singing "Scotland's Burning."
Tom glanced at his chums. Then he uttered one word:
"By a nest of fresh hornets!" commented Sid wrathfully.
The scout withdrew. Phil looked at his trousers, and then he began slowly to take them off. Tom took one more look out of the window.
"They're jumping all over our chair," he said.
"They are? The young imps!" cried Sid. "Come on to the rescue! Get into some togs and capture a few freshmen." Then, as he realized that he had tossed his clothes out of the window, he groaned. "You fellows will have to go," he said. "I haven't any duds."
"They're parading around with your best go-to-meeting suit," observed Phil. Sid groaned again.
"Hurry, fellows, if you love me," he said.
"There's a crowd of sophs after 'em now," added Tom, and so it proved. The freshmen beat a retreat, and some of our friends' classmates formed a guard around the things on the ground.