Therefore they had become chums.

A chance in their freshman year had brought them together.

Watts, with the refined and delicate sense of humor abounding in collegians, had been concerned with sundry freshmen in an attempt to steal (or, in collegiate terms, "rag") the chapel Bible, with a view to presenting it to some equally subtle humorists at Yale, expecting a similar courtesy in return from that college.

Unfortunately for the joke, the college authorities had had the bad taste to guard against the annually attempted substitution.

Two of the marauders were caught, while Watts only escaped by leaving his coat in the hands of the watchers.
Even then he would have been captured had he not met Peter in his flight, and borrowed the latter's coat, in which he reached his room without detection.