CHAPTER XIV.
A WILD NIGHT.
A wild lot of sophomores and freshmen were celebrating the beginning of "secret-society week," by marching round the campus at night in lock-step style, singing rousing college songs.

They danced in and out of the dormitories, wildly cheered every building they passed, while the classes bellowed forth their "Omega Lambda Chi." Down by the fence by Durfee's, on the campus, in the gymnasium, at Traeger's and Morey's and Jackson's, and wherever Yale men congregated, almost the sole topic of conversation was of who would go to "Bones," "Keys," and "Wolf's Head." The air of mystery surrounding membership in these senior societies, the honor which their membership confers, and the fact that but a few men, comparatively, out of any junior class can be elected to them, create an absorbing interest.
Skull and Bones, or "Bones," as it is popularly called, is the wealthiest and most respected.

Then follows Scrolls and Keys, or "Keys," with Wolf's Head third in order of distinction.

The names are taken from the society pins.

Each of these societies has a handsome and costly club-house, whose secrets are no more to be arrived at than are those of the sphinx and the pyramids.
Conjectures as to what society would get the most prominent members of the junior class had engrossed a good deal of thought for several weeks.
Each society takes in fifteen members, or forty-five in all, out of the two hundred and fifty or more men that usually compose the junior class.
As every junior is anxious to become a member, the feverish interest with which the subject is regarded by the juniors may be imagined.