Carl and one or two other lads in Surrey with whom he picked up an
acquaintance, and Carl clung close to Hugh, careful to hide the fact
that he felt very small and meek. For the first time _he_ realized that
he was just a freshman--and he didn't like it.

Then suddenly the tension, which had been gathering for a day or so,
broke. Orders went out from the upper-classmen that all freshmen put on
their baby bonnets, silly little blue caps with a bright orange button.
From that moment every freshman was doomed. Work was their lot, and
plenty of it. "Hi, freshman, carry up my trunk. Yeah, you, freshman--you
with the skinny legs. You and your fat friend carry my trunk up to the
fourth floor--and if you drop it, I'll break your fool necks."...
"Freshman! go down to the station and get my suit-cases. Here are the
checks. Hurry back if you know what's good for you."... "Freshman! go
up to Hill Twenty-eight and put the beds together."... "Freshman! come
up to my room. I want you to hang pictures."

Fortunately the labor did not last long, but while it lasted Hugh was
hustled around as he never had been before. And he loved it. He loved
his blue cap and its orange button; he loved the upper-classmen who
called him freshman and ordered him around; he loved the very trunks
that he lugged so painfully up-stairs. He was being recognized, merely
as a janitor, it is true, but recognized; at last he was a part of
Sanford College. Further, one of the men who had ordered him around the
most fiercely wore a Nu Delta pin, the emblem of his father's
fraternity. He ran that man's errands with such speed and willingness
that the hero decided that the freshman was "very, very dumb."

That night Hugh and Carl sat in 19 Surrey and rested their aching bones,
one on a couch, the other in a leather Morris chair.