Just as he dismissed the probability as negligible, a sort of order became felt among those who stood immediately about him. Men stopped talking and appeared to be listening to something which Harry could not hear. Then they all began shouting a strange, unmeaning succession of syllables in concert; Harry recognized this as a cheer and lustily joined in with it. At the end came a number; repeated three times; a number which no one present had ever before heard bellowed forth from three or four hundred brazen young throats; a number that had a strange and unfamiliar sound, even to those who shouted it, and caused the upperclassmen to break into a derisive jeer.
A new class had officially started its career, and Harry was part of it. No one flushed more hotly than he at the jeer of the upperclassmen; no one jeered back with greater spirit when the sophomores cheered for their own class. No one took part more joyfully in the long and varied program of events that filled out the rest of the evening. The parade through the streets of the town was to him a joyous bacchanal, and the wrestling matches on the Campus a splendid orgy. After these were over even more enjoyable things happened, for James, with two or three fellow-juniors--magnificent, Olympian beings!--took him in tow and escorted him safe and unmolested through the turbulent region of York Street, where freshmen, who had nothing save honor to fight for, were pressed into organized hostility against sophomores, who didn't even have that.
"Well, what did you think of it all?" asked James later.
"Oh, ripping," said Harry, "I never thought it would be anything like this. We never really saw anything of the real life of the college when we lived in town here, did we?"
"Not much. It all seems pretty strange to you now, I suppose, but you'll soon get onto the ropes and feel at home. What sort of a schedule did you get?"
"Oh, fairly rotten. They all seem to be eight-thirties. Here, you can see," producing a paper.
"That's not so bad," pronounced James, approvingly. "Nothing on Wednesday or Saturday afternoons, so that you can get to ball games and things, and nothing any afternoon till five, so that you'll have plenty of time for track work."