right?"

"Right," Irv agreed, crossing two fingers.

In fifteen minutes, even with Fatty working one-handed, the ship vanished under a pile of stiff brush. "That's that," Irv said, taking a deep breath. "Now—"

"We can't take him like this," Fatty remarked, swinging the professor by his ears and giving him a shake by way of emphasis.

"Why not? We just been rabbit-hunting, that's all."

"Too risky. Even if the professor keeps quiet, some joker from another frat might get nosy."

"He'll be quiet," Irv said grimly. "I know how to hit a rabbit on the neck with the edge of my hand—" Here the professor began to kick frantically, and Fatty snatched his hind legs, holding him rigid from ears to toes.

"There's an old cardboard box back there," Fatty said. "That'll do the trick."

A few seconds later the sullen captive was stuffed unceremoniously into a damp, mouldy container, and the two students returned to the campus, their hearts free from mathematical worries.

"The frat will owe us plenty for this," Fatty said darkly. "We've never had anybody to coach us in math."

"They'll be licking our boots," Irv agreed. "But they always have, the poor dopes!"

That night the professor, poorly refreshed by some wilted carrot tops and water, found himself in a circle of eager Omega Pi Upsilon's, delivering a detailed lecture—mostly problem-solving—on Section 45 of Broota's "Introduction to the Elementary Rudiments of the Differential and Integral Calculus."

He was a good teacher, and when either his enthusiasm or expository art faltered, Fatty revived it quickly with a sharp pinch or stinging slap. So,[52] although the average I. Q. of the fraternity was seventy-six, a certain amount of mathematics get through; and it was almost midnight before the unhappy ambassador found himself lying in a dirty, fetid cage, formerly the residence of the fraternity parrot, who had expired for lack of intellegent dialogue to copy. Rabbits, even Venusian ones, cannot weep, but the professor's soul was heavy within him.

[52]

And so it went, day after day, week after 

 Prev. P 4/8 next