Trevor smuggled the puppy into his room undetected, against Dick’s advice.

“If Faculty finds it out you’ll not only lose the animal, but get into trouble. And they’re bound to learn of it before long. Why, the ‘goody’ will see the thing when she makes the beds.”

“No, she won’t; I’ll find a way to fix that,” answered Trevor confidently.

“But how’ll you keep him alive?” asked Dick. “The poor little thing has got to eat.”

“Oh, I can bring him something from dining-hall.”

Dick shrugged his shoulders and gave up the argument. And having relieved his conscience by his protest, joined his roommate in teaching the puppy to sit on his hind legs and hold a piece of cracker on his nose: a feat which the animal could not for a long time see the philosophy of. When, however, he discovered that obedience invariably gave him possession of the fragment of biscuit to crumble to his heart’s content over the hearth-rug, he began to understand the game, and to even show a certain pleasure in it. After the work in the gymnasium that afternoon Trevor and Dick walked to the village and the former purchased—I regret to say on credit, thereby infringing one of the rules—a red leather collar and a steel chain. When Trevor left the dining-hall after supper his coat pockets bulged suspiciously, and later the puppy feasted regally on cold roast beef and graham bread, while the two boys watched every mouthful with delight. When bedtime came Trevor arranged a pair of old tennis trousers by the hearth, and placing the puppy thereon, assured him sternly that he was expected to remain there quietly until morning.

Perhaps Trevor’s commands were not altogether clear. That as may be, he had no sooner put out the light and snuggled himself into bed than there arose a sound of grief and dismay in the study, followed presently by tiny footfalls on the bedroom floor.

“Lie down!” commanded Trevor sternly.

The whining ceased for a minute, and a tail thumped the floor delightedly. And then, as no further recognition seemed forthcoming, the whining began again in increased volume and with added pathos.

“Puppy, go lie down,” whispered Trevor, more mildly this time. Dick was laughing silently beyond in the darkness. The puppy again thumped the floor with his tail.

“Perhaps he’s cold,” suggested Dick.

“The poor little fellow wants to get up on the bed, I fancy,” answered Trevor. “I’ll spread my dressing-gown for him at the foot.” This was done, and the disturbing element was hauled to the bed by the nape of his neck. But stay on the dressing-gown he would not, and Trevor finally fell asleep with the small, warm bundle of dog lying against his breast, and a tiny, bullet-shaped head resting peacefully on his neck.

The real troubles began next morning. When the two boys started for breakfast they locked the door carefully, and had reached the stairs, when, faint but unmistakable as to character, came a long howl of grief. Fearfully, Trevor hurried back. The puppy was sitting erect and tragic just inside the door. His delight at Trevor’s return was, however, short-lived, for he was ignominiously shut in the closet, and Trevor, with the key in his pocket, again set forth. But he could find little enjoyment in breakfast, for all the while he was haunted by the fear that the “goody” would get into the room before he could return, hear the dog’s howls, and report the matter to Professor Tomkins, the resident instructor. He hurried back to Masters with his meal but half eaten, and breathed a sigh of relief when he found the beds still unmade and the room still untidied. From the closet came eager, questioning sniffs and whines of impatience. Trevor opened the door, tossed in a mutton chop, and quickly secured it again. And then the study door opened and the “goody” entered.

“Good-morning, Mr. Nesbitt.”

“Good-morning, Mrs. Pratt.”

Trevor seized a Latin book, subsided into a chair by the closet and tried to read. From behind the locked door came sounds of busy gnawings; once a diminutive growl was audible. But the “goody” was in the other room and so all was safe. Trevor discovered that he was holding the book upside down; he corrected the mistake and wondered why it was that the beds took so long to make this morning of all others. They were finally completed, however, and the crucial moment arrived. Armed with dust-cloth, the woman came out and slowly began to move about the study. Suddenly from behind the locked door came two distinct taps; it was only the puppy worrying the mutton bone, but the “goody” didn’t know that, and looked in alarm toward the closet.

“What was that?” she asked.

“What was what?” asked Trevor.

“That sound; them sounds—in there?”

“Pshaw, you’re dreaming; there—there’s no one in——”

Something bumped softly against the door; the woman glanced suspiciously from Trevor to the closet. Trevor looked carelessly out the window and began to whistle. A low whine issued from the prison. Trevor heard it, but apparently the “goody” didn’t; he whistled louder. The whining increased. Trevor began to sing.

Then began a most appalling series of bumps, growls, knocks, whines, jars, gnawings, and similar disturbing noises from the closet. With loudly thumping heart Trevor sang on, rapidly, loudly, unceasingly. The woman turned and viewed him in astonishment not unmixed with alarm. Trevor’s singing was more creditable from the point of vigor and whole-souledness than on the score of harmony or rhythm. His notes were nearly all flats, which, with the fact that he never for an instant varied the time, made even the most joyous of ballads lugubrious when performed by him. He had finished In the Gloaming, Way down upon the Suwanee River, and Rule, Britannia, and was now breathlessly, heroically thundering forth Hilltonians in tones that could be, and probably were, heard in the next dormitory:

And then, with her hands over her ears and her dust-cloth trailing in defeat, the “goody” fled from the room, and the day was won! Trevor sank back exhausted. From the closet the strange sounds continued to issue. He sat up and stared fearfully at the closed door. What, he asked himself with sinking heart, what could they mean? He drew forth the key, crossed the room, unlocked the door, threw it open, and—

Out tumbled the puppy and—and—could it be? It could; it was!—one of Dick’s immaculate patent-leather pumps, torn and chewed into as sorry a looking object as he had ever seen!

At sight of Trevor the puppy dropped his prize, put his small head on one side, wagged his tail proudly, and gazed up at his master as though asking “How’s that for a good job well done?”

Trevor peered into the closet and groaned. The floor was a mass of dÉbris; shoes and garments from the hooks were writhed together madly; and everywhere was set the puppy’s mark of approval. Trevor gathered up the garments and returned them to their hooks. A cold, blunt nose thrust itself into the way. Trevor’s hand rose and fell smartly twice, and with a yelp the puppy retreated to the hearth-rug, where he turned and barked defiance.

Trevor observed him wrathfully for an instant, but his attitude of insulted dignity and his ferocious challenge to combat were so ludicrous that the boy subsided amid the wreckage and laughed until the tears came. And the puppy, bounding joyfully upon him, instantly forgiving, gurgled his pleasure and licked his hands, shoes, and face with whole-souled impartiality.

And upon this scene entered Dick!

Let us draw the curtain.

That night, long after Dick had dropped off to slumber, he was awakened by Trevor’s urgent voice.

“Dick! Dick! Wake up!”

“Wha-what’s the matter?” cried Dick, starting suddenly from sleep, and sitting up in bed with confused visions of fire and flood.

“I’ve found a name for him,” answered Trevor triumphantly.

“Name? What name? Who’s name?”

“The puppy’s. I’m going to call him Muggins!”

Dick snorted wrathfully and went back to sleep.

Trevor fondled the slumberous puppy. “Isn’t he an unfeeling brute, Muggins?” he whispered. And Muggins thumped his tail affirmatively, sleepily.

The following night, when all was silent in the dormitory, a form bundled against the weather in a greatcoat, and followed by a second form, vastly smaller in outline and wearing only the coat that nature had provided him with, might have been seen—but were not—tiptoeing from study No. 16 and descending the creaking stairs. The door was locked, but the key was there, and in a moment the two forms had vanished into outer darkness and the portal had closed again.

As the discerning reader has no doubt already surmised, the mysterious forms were those of Trevor and Muggins.

Trevor had concluded that Muggins’s health demanded more exercise than his puppyship was getting, and so on the preceding night and again to-night Muggins, at the end of the steel chain, had been surreptitiously conveyed from the building for a stroll about the yard. It was bitterly cold and Trevor shivered as he ambled slowly toward the gymnasium followed by the dog; but since Muggins’s health demanded exercise Muggins should have it, though the thermometer stood at miles below zero, which luckily it didn’t to-night. Around the gymnasium plodded Trevor, slipping, sliding on the icy walks; around trotted Muggins, sniffing, shivering in the nipping wind. Then down the path by Bradley to Turner, around the corner of Turner, and——

Alas, tragedy was in the air that night!

Trevor paused, listening. Footsteps sounded loudly, frostily at a little distance, and in the darkness a dim form loomed up from the direction of the gate. It was but the work of an instant to slink into the recess of the building made by the protruding entrance, and to pull Muggins after him. The footsteps drew nearer. One of the professors returning late from the village, Trevor told himself. The form came abreast of him, a scant two yards distant, and was almost past his hiding-place when Muggins awoke to the demands of the occasion.

Muggins, despite his tender age, was valor to the tip of his wagging tail. He heard strange footsteps; he saw a strange form; he feared an attack on his master. But, what ho! was not he, Muggins, there? Certainly! And—

Away went the chain from Trevor’s numbed fingers; away went Muggins, dashing to the fray like a knight of old!

“Bow! Bow-wow!” challenged Muggins.

Trevor heard an ejaculation of alarmed surprise, saw the form of the tall professor jump back, and then—then there was a crash, and Trevor, seizing the opportunity, was off like the wind, and had gained the doorway of Masters Hall ere the astonished professor had regained his feet. For Muggins in his excess of valor had got his small body between his adversary’s legs, and great and sudden was the fall. Trevor waited long at the entrance of Masters Hall, standing with door ajar and peering anxiously into the darkness; once even venturing upon a subdued whistle and a yearning “Muggins, Muggins!” But his appeals were vain, and after a while he crept dejectedly upstairs and back into his cold and Muggins-less bed, wondering, sorrowful, fearful of the morrow.