"Up with you, sir," admonished Dick. "You are still so full of
egotism that it sways you like the walking beam of a steamboat.
Up with you, mister, and up you stay until there is no ballast
of conceit left in you."

Crab-crab-crab! Mr. Briggs continued to move sidewise and backward
over the tent flooring.

Mr. Ellis was growing frightfully red in the face. But Prescott,
from the remembrance of his own plebe days, knew to a dot how
long a healthy plebe could keep that inverted position without
serious injury. So the class president, sitting as judge in the
court of hazing, showed no mercy.

Some of the yearlings who stood outside peering in should have
kept a weather eye open for the approach of trouble from tac.
quarters. But, as the ordeals of both of the once frisky plebes
became more severe, the interest of those outside increased.

Crab-crab-crab! continued Mr. Briggs. It seemed to him as though
his belt-line weighed fully a ton, so hard was it to keep his
abdomen off the floor, resting solely on his hands and feet.

Mr. Ellis must have felt that conceit and he could never again
be friends, judging by the redness of his face and the straining
of his muscles.

An approaching step outside should have been heard by some of
the yearlings looking in through the doorway, but it wasn't.