Since the episode of the freshman dance the first-year students had "sung small" whenever the sophomores were about. It was the most humiliating trick that had been "pulled off in so many years that the memory of man runneth not to the contrary," as Holly Cross put it in one of his favorite quotations. Gerhart was much downcast at first, for, as he was in charge of the affair, it was considered a sort of reflection on his ability. And he laid it all to Tom, Sid, Phil and Dutch Housenlager.