Bell Of The Ball Game

"Never mind. You probably know about the Sphinx Club getting permission to take the bell down to Greencastle last night...?"

"The who?"

"The Sphinx Club. The Wabash lettermen. They took it on a truck and rang the hell out of it, but those dumb DePauw guys couldn't take it off them. The cops finally chased them out of town. Well, when they got back they just chained it to the door frame in the gym lobby. And the Kappa Sigs were guarding it. Were, until a few minutes ago."

"We? Who's we? DePauw...?"

"Naw. I'm a freshman at Wabash."

"You mean you stole your own bell?" I was finally awake.

"Yeah. Wild, huh?" He was still giggling like a maniac. "You wanta see it?"

"Yeah, but I think I'll wait till dawn. Unless you plan on stealing the Lew Wallace coffee shop."

The four conspirators that made up the raiding party lived in what they called an "off-campus apartment," a ramshackle two-story building whose walls were held together by Providence and a thin coat of flaking white paint. The leader of the gang was a slightly built, deliberately scruffy-looking boy named Ken who said his father was a banker in Westchester County, New York.

Ken led me on a triumphant walk down a dark stairwell to a first-floor bathroom which, by appearances, had been out of commission for several decades. There, next to a rusting trash-laden bathtub and a sleeping black cat, was the Monon Bell, painted red (for Wabash) and gold (for DePauw).