A ruptured sprinkler pipe set fire alarms blaring throughout Thayer Hall at 1 a.m. Sunday morning. The break, over a stairway in the south entry, lowered the water pressure until the alarms sounded automatically. The pressure then built up again and the alarms stopped, and started, and stopped, and started.

The freshmen, agonized and delighted, dashed up and down the stairs under cover of umbrellas. Meanwhile, the cascading water created a blue grotto effect on the ground floor.

After thirty minutes of bedlam, an engineer arrived and shut the water off at a central control. "Maybe we should send out a little white dove," a watcher suggested.