Andy at Yale | Page 9

having a tango dance. Come on. It's great!"
"Well, a movie wouldn't be so bad," admitted Tom. "It doesn't last until midnight. What do you say, fellows?"
"Oh, I don't know," came from Andy, uncertainly.
"I'll go if you fellows will," remarked Frank.
"Oh, well, then let's do it!" cried Tom. "I guess we won't flunk to-morrow. We can burn a little midnight electricity. Let 'er go!"
And so they went to the moving picture show. It was like others of its kind, neither better nor worse, with vaudeville acts and songs interspersed between the reels. There was a good attendance, scores of the Milton lads being there, as well as many persons from the town and surrounding hamlets.
Our friends found seats about the middle of the house. It was a sort of continuous performance, and as they entered a girl was singing a song on a well-lighted stage. Andy glanced about as he took his seat, and met the gaze of Link Bardon. He nodded at him, and the young farmer nodded back.
"Who's that--a new fellow?" asked Harry, who was next to Andy.
"Not at school--no. He's a hired man we found being beaten up by an old codger of a farmer when we walked out this afternoon. We took his part and made the farmer trot Spanish. I guess Link is taking a day off with the wages we got for him," and he detailed the incident.
The show went on. Some of the students became boisterous, and there were hisses from the audience, and demands that the boys remain quiet. One lad, who did not train in the set of Andy and his friends, insisted on joining in the chorus with one of the singers, and matters got to such a pass that the manager rang down the curtain and threatened to stop the performance unless the students behaved. Finally some of the companions of the noisy one induced him to quiet down.
Following a long picture reel a girl came out to sing. She was pretty and vivacious, though her songs were commonplace enough. In one of the stage boxes were a number of young fellows, not from Milton, and they began to ogle the singer, who did not seem averse to their attentions. She edged over to their box, and threw a rose to one of the occupants.
Gallantly enough he tossed back one he was wearing, but at that moment a companion in front of him had raised a lighted match to his cigarette.
The hand of the young man throwing the rose to the singer struck the flaring match and sent it over the rail of the box straight at the flimsy skirts of the performer.
In an instant the tulle had caught fire, and a fringe of flame shot upward.
The singer ceased her song with a scream that brought the orchestra to a stop with a crashing chord, and the girl's cries of horror were echoed by the women in the audience. The girl started to run into the wings, but Andy, springing from his seat on the aisle, made a leap for the brass rail behind the musicians.
"Stand still! Stand still! Don't go back there in the draft!" cried Andy, as he jumped upon the stage over the head of the orchestra leader and began stripping off his coat.
CHAPTER V
FINAL DAYS
"Fire! Fire!" yelled some foolish ones in the audience.
"Keep still!" shouted Tom Hatfield, who well knew the danger of a panic in a hall with few exits. "Keep still! Play something!" he called to the orchestra leader, who was staring at Andy, dazed at the flying leap of the lad over his head. "Play any old tune!"
It was this that saved the day. The leader tapped with his violin bow on the tin shade over his electric light and the dazed musicians came to attention. They began on the number the girl had been singing. It was like the irony of fate to hear the strains of a sentimental song when the poor girl was in danger of death. But the music quieted the audience. Men and women sank back in their seats, watching with fear-widened eyes the actions of Andy Blair.
And while Tom had thus effectively stopped the incipient panic, Andy had not been idle. Working with feverish haste, he had wrapped his heavy coat about the girl, smothering the flames. She was sobbing and screaming by turns.
"There! There!" cried Andy. "Keep quiet. I have the fire out. You're in no danger!"
"Oh--oh! But--but the fire----"
"It's out, I tell you!" insisted Andy. "It was only a little blaze!"
He could see tiny tongues of flame where his coat did not quite reach, and with swift, quick pats of his bare hands he beat them out, burning himself slightly. He took good care not to let the flames shoot up, so that the frantic