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Show ' ' ' ' '' " - i-'i ! i i ly I HATES LONG-TAILED COATS Senator Norris of Nebraska never wears a long-tailed coat. He hates long-tailed coats. One day he was asked why and he told this story: When he attended college years r.go at Baldwin university, in Berea, 0., Norris and a little crowd of students stu-dents one night conceived a merry prank. On the college campus was a towerlike building on which some repairs re-pairs were being made. A large quantity of old lumber was piled up on the top of the tower. The student comedians thought it would be pretty rich to shove this lumber right over the edge and hear it h't the ground below. They crawled into the building through a window. Two or three of the students wore cutaway coats, which were considered the snappy thing for 'varsity men in those days, but they got through the window all right, and with their combined . ' strength were able to heave overboard over-board the pile of old lumber. The lumber was to be taken down, anyhow, so why not do it all at once and have a little noise and excitement? That reasoning might have been all right except that the students neglected to take into account that the tower was wider at the bottom than at the top. The lumber scraped along the side as it fell, and smashed every window in its path. That being the case the students hastened home without needless delay. The next morning the prankish lads filed into chapel, each. looking as innocent in-nocent as a bunch of Easter card cherubs. Seemingly, there was no possible way they could be found out and they walked about with light hearts. But when they were going out from the chapel exercises, the president of the college motioned to young Norris, and bade him come in his office. "Now, Norris," said the president, in an annoying I know-all-about-it tone, "who all were with you in this escapade last night? Tell me the whole truth, and you'll all get off easily; otherwise well, you'd better tell me the truth." So Norris did. It wasn't till the end of the year that he knew how the president sleuthed him out so readily. On the closing day of college, the president handed him a little cloth-covered button. "I think," says he, "this will fit the back of your cutaway coat. Next time be more careful about going through windows when you have on a coat trimmed with buttons." "And so you know," says Norris, "why I have hated coats with buttons over the tails ever since." |