There was only a week more and then it would be over. He would never come back. What was the use? And yet, as he sat there outside the life and lights of it all, he regretted, bitterly regretted, that it must be so. He felt the tug at his heartstrings. It was something to win a place in such a school, to have the others look up to you, to have the youngsters turn and follow you as you pa.s.sed, as they did with Charlie DeSoto or Flash Condit or Turkey Reiter or a dozen of others. Instead, he would drop out of the ranks, and who would notice it? A few who would make a good story out of that miserable game of baseball. A few who would speak of him as the freshest of the fresh, the fellow who had to be put in Coventry--if, indeed, any one would remember d.i.n.k Stover, the fellow who hadn't made good.

The bell clanged out the summons to bed for the Houses. One by one the windows dropped back into the night; only the Upper remained ablaze.

At this moment he heard somewhere in the dark near him the sound of scampering feet. The next moment a small body tripped over his legs and went sprawling.

"What in the name of Willie Keeler!" said a shrill voice. "Is that a master or a human being?"

"h.e.l.lo!" said Stover gruffly, to put down the lump that had risen in his throat. "Who are you."

"Me? Shall we tell our real names?" said the voice approaching and at once bursting out into an elfish chant:

_Wow, wow! Wow, wow, wow!

Oh, me father's name was Finnegan, Me mother's name was Kate, Me ninety-nine relations To you I'll now relate._

"Oh, you're Dennis de Brian de Boru Finnegan, are you?" said d.i.n.k, laughing as he dashed his cuff across his eyes. "The kid that wrote the baseball story."

"Sir, you do me honor," said Finnegan. "Who are you?"

"I'm Stover."

"The d.i.n.k?"

"Yes, the d.i.n.k."

"The cuss that translates at sight?"

"You've heard of it?"

"Cracky, yes! They say The Roman was knocked clean off his pins, first time in his life. I say----"

"What?"

"Then you're the fellow down in the Green, aren't you?"

"Yes," said d.i.n.k, thinking only of the ban of excommunication.

"Why, you're a regular cross-sawed, triple-hammered, mule-kick, beef-fed, rarin'-tearin' John L. Sullivan, ain't you?" said the exponent of the double adjective in rapid admiration.

"What do you mean?"

"Why, you're the cuss that smeared the Angel, swallowed the Canary, and b.u.mped Tough McCarty, all at once."

"Oh, yes."

"My dear boy, permit me--you're it, you're the real thing."

d.i.n.k, with a feeling of wonder, shook hands, saying:

"Well, they don't think so much of it at the Green."

"Anything wrong?"

"Nothing much."

Finnegan, perceiving the ground was shaky, switched.

"I say, you want to get into the Kennedy next year; we've got the A No. 1 crowd there. I'm there, the Tennessee Shad, the Gutter Pup--he's the president of the Sporting Club, you know; prize-fights and all that sort of thing--and King Lentz and the Waladoo Bird, the finest guards Lawrenceville ever had. And say, you'n I and the Tennessee Shad could strike up a combine and get out a rip-snorting, muzzle-off, all-the-news, sporting-expert, battle-cry-of-freedom newspaper that would put the _Lawrence_ out of biz. I say, you must get in the Kennedy."

"I'm not coming back."

"What!"

"I guess my par-ticular style of talent isn't suited around here."

"What's wrong?"

"Well, everything."

"I say, d.i.n.k, confide in me!"

Stover, at that moment, in his loneliness, would have confided in any one, especially the first human being who had given him a thrill of conscious pride.

"It's just this, youngster," he said, wondering how to begin: "they don't like me."

"You like the school, don't you?" said Finnegan in alarm.

d.i.n.k had never had the question put to him before. He was silent and his look went swiftly over to the coveted House of Lords. He drew a long breath.

"You bet I do. I love it!"

"What then?"

"I started wrong; didn't understand the game, I guess. They've put me in Coventry."

"You must have been pretty fresh."

"What!"

"Oh, don't mind me," said Dennis cheerfully. "I'm fresher than you ever thought of being. I was the freshest bit of verdure, as the poet says, that ever greened the place. I'm the freshest still. But I'm different. I'm under six inches--that's the cinch of it."

"Yes, I was fresh," said d.i.n.k, intensely relieved.

"You're always fresh if you're any good, the first term," said Finnegan. "Don't mind that. Next year you'll be an old boy, and then they'll follow you around for sugar."

"I hadn't thought of that," said d.i.n.k slowly.

"Keep a-thinking. I'm off now. Ta-ta! Got to slink in Fatty Harris'

room before The Roman makes his rounds. Proud to have met you. Au revoir!"