Midnight Sprinkler Shower Starts Yardling Fire Scare

Students living in the center entry of Thayer were aroused at 1:20 this morning by the sound of water cascading down the staircase to form a pool on the ground floor. Two panicky residents, mistaking the sound of dripping water for the crackling of flames, dashed to the nearest fire-alarm box, summoning the entire Cambridge fire department for the second time in a day. The first was a false alarm at Lowell House.

As pajama-clad Yardlings assembled, and water began to seep under first floor doorsills, firemen determined the cause of the nocturnal deluge to be the mysterious melting of wax in a second floor sprinkler. Head Fire Chief Herman E. Gutholm was heard to mutier, as he drove away in disgust. "Sabotage, no doubt."