That evening Tubb’s letter fell to the floor when Toby moved a book on the study table, and Toby, with a qualm of conscience, rescued it and re-read it, a perplexed frown on his countenance. Then he drew a pad of paper toward him and poised his pen above it. But that is as far as he got. After a minute of thought he put the pen down and resolutely, if reluctantly, pushed back his chair. “How late is the office open, Arn?” he asked.

“Eight, I think,” replied his roommate, without raising his eyes from his work. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. I—just want to find out where some one lives. Back after a bit.”

Toby made his way downstairs and followed the walk to Oxford. At the end of the corridor the ground-glass panel marked “Office” still glowed with light, and when Toby pushed it open, Mr. Forisher, the secretary, was still at work beyond the railing. Toby made known his wants and the secretary silently pointed with his pen toward a list tacked to a board beside the door. The names of the students were there, arranged alphabetically, and Toby found the T’s and went down the list: Tolliver, Tooker, Traine, Tubb, Tucker——

“Whoa!” murmured Toby. “‘Tubb, G. W., Fremont, N. H., 4 C., W. 31.’ What do you know? Right over my head! That’s the room Felter and Dunphy had last year. He and I are side by side on the list. Hope that isn’t a what-you-call-it—omen!” He retraced his steps to Whitson and ascended two flights of worn stairs. The upper corridor awakened memories, some pleasant, some otherwise. As ever, it was but dimly lighted by a single gas-jet near the head of the stairs, and its farther ends were pockets of gloom. For some reason electricity as a lighting method had never penetrated to Whitson, although the other buildings had it. Toby glanced toward the door of his old room ere he turned his back to it and made his way along the rough boards of the hall. Number 31 was on the front of the building, about halfway between stair-well and corridor end. It was too dark to read the single card thumb-tacked to the portal and Toby knocked instead. There was a noticeable interim of silence before a voice that was strange to the caller called an ungracious “Come in!”

Toby accepted the invitation. The only light in the room came from the green-shaded droplight on the littered table directly before the door, and its radius was small, leaving most of the room in shadow. For a moment Toby thought he had imagined the voice and that the room was empty. Then, however, his eyes accustoming themselves to the gloom, he saw a blur of white and gray beyond the table that gradually evolved into the form of George Tubb. Tubb was minus coat and waistcoat, and one suspender had escaped from a shoulder.

“Hello,” said Toby uncertainly. There was something in the strained silence of the room that made him uncomfortable. “I got your note, Tubb,” he went on awkwardly, “and I meant to answer it——”

“That’s all right,” growled Tubb. “Forget it. I had a brain-storm.”

Toby had advanced to the side of the table, and now his host was plainly revealed. Tubb had a towel in one hand and with it, as he spoke, he dabbed at his face. Each time the towel came away there was a new stain on it.

“Hasn’t that cut healed yet?” asked Toby in surprise.

“Doesn’t look so, does it?” muttered Tubb. He pulled the dropped suspender over his shoulder and turned as though in search of his coat.

“But——” began Toby.

“It was all right till I landed on it!” interrupted a strident voice from the other side of the room. “I hope he bleeds to death!”

Startledly, Toby swung about and peered into the shadows. Tubb laughed mirthlessly. “That’s what I’ve got to live with,” he announced. “Its name’s Ramsey. Have a look at it, Tucker. Show the gentleman your face, Percy.”

“You big bully! You—you country jay! You wait! I’ll get square, all right. You’ll have——”

“What is this?” broke in Toby, disgusted and resentful. “You fellows been scrapping?” He stepped around to where the second occupant of the room could be discerned beyond the confusing radiance of the droplight. The appearance of the unhealthily-stout youth confronting him answered the question. Ramsey’s nose was bleeding profusely, and an already overworked handkerchief was doing little to disguise the fact. The boy’s face, pale save for flaming disks of red about the cheek bones, was convulsed with childish, helpless passion, and his dark eyes flashed as venomously as a snake’s.

“You ought to be proud of your friend,” he exclaimed in a voice still high and trembling with anger. “The country jay! All he can do is call names and—and use his fists. I’ll get even, though! I guess the faculty will have something to say! I’ve stood all I’m going to from the dirty-neck——”

“Drop it!” shouted Tubb, springing toward him. Toby pushed him back.

“Listen, you two,” he said vehemently. “There’s been enough of this. I don’t know what it’s all about, but you ought both to be ashamed of yourselves. Any one would think you were a couple of—of gutter kids! This sort of thing doesn’t go here, and you’d better learn that right now. Get a towel, Ramsey, and wash your face. Best way to stop that bleeding is to keep a cold bandage there. You——”

“No one asked your advice,” sputtered Ramsey. “He’s broken my nose——”

“I hope so,” growled Tubb. “I’d like to break your fat neck, Percy!”

“That’s what he does!” Ramsey fairly shrieked. “You heard him! He’s always doing it! I’m going to the Office——”

“What is it he’s always doing?” asked Toby, puzzled and impatient. Ramsey became incoherent; but Tubb, with a laugh of derision, explained.

“He doesn’t like being called Percy.”

“Then why——”

“Because that’s what he is, a regular Percy. Besides, Percy isn’t any worse than Horace, and that’s his real name!”

“Yes, and you call me by it! I’d rather be named Horace than Tubb any day! At least, I wash my neck sometimes, and that’s more than you do, you dirty——”

“I told you to drop it,” growled Tubb, again trying to push past Toby. “I’m as clean as you are, you fat sissy! One more crack about my neck and I’ll finish you for keeps!”

“No, you won’t do anything of the kind,” said Toby severely. “Stop calling each other names and keep quiet a minute. The first thing you know you’ll have a faculty up here! What’s the matter with you fellows? Are you crazy?”

“He’s always nagging me!” Ramsey’s wrath was turning to grief, and there was a sob in his voice. “He’s always calling me Percy——”

“Then let me alone,” retorted Tubb. “It’s bad enough having to room with a mother’s pet like you, without getting your lip all the time. I’ve warned you fifty times, haven’t I? Tell the truth now! Haven’t I told you over and over that I wouldn’t stand for your sneers and your silly jokes?”

“I’m not afraid of you, you big——”

“Stop!” commanded Toby sternly. “I’ll take a hand myself now, and the first one of you who calls names will get a licking from me. I mean it. It may not be my business, but I’m going to make it that. Tubb, you sit down in that chair. Ramsey, you sit in the other one.”

Tubb, with a fleeting grin, obeyed unhesitatingly. Horace Ramsey looked rebellious, muttered, smeared his face anew with the gory handkerchief and finally subsided. There was no lavatory on the third floor of Whitson and the rooms up there were supplied with washstands. Toby poured water from pitcher to bowl and soaked a towel in it. Silence reigned save for occasional muffled gasps from Ramsey. Toby wrung the towel half dry.

“Hold that tight to your nose, Ramsey, and keep your head back as far as you can,” he directed. Ramsey twitched his heavy shoulders resentfully, but Toby tipped his chin back and planked the folded towel over the leaking nose. “That’s it. Hold it there with your hand. It will stop in a minute, I guess. Anyway, cold water will take the soreness out.”

“Yes, it will,” snuffled Ramsey. “I don’t think! He’s broken it, I tell you! I ought to see the doctor.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” replied Toby reassuringly. “Noses don’t break very easily. They feel broken lots of times when they’re just bruised.”

“I didn’t hit him hard enough——” began Tubb.

“You did, too! You—you hammered me!”

“No, I didn’t,” the other growled, “but I will the next time!”

“There isn’t going to be any next time,” said Toby quietly. He found a chair beside one of the beds and set it in front of the belligerents. Secretly, he was rather amused at the rÔle he had assumed. He was no more than a year older than Tubb, and he might be Ramsey’s senior by even less; and he was far from certain that, should he be required to fulfill his threat, he was much more than a match for Tubb when it came to a fight. But he kept his doubts to himself and viewed the two with assurance. “Let’s get this cleared up now,” he went on pleasantly. “You two fellows will have to room together at least until Christmas recess, and you might just as well make up your minds to do it peacefully. What’s your objection to Tubb, Ramsey? You shut up, Tubb: you’ll have your say in a minute.”

“He doesn’t like me,” said Ramsey, after a moment’s hesitation, “and he’s always nagging at me. He calls me Percy and makes fun of me because I wear decent socks and underwear and things——”

“You ought to see ’em,” muttered Tubb scathingly.

“Please!” said Toby. “Ramsey’s doing the talking now. And what else, Ramsey?”

“Well, he’s—he’s always at it! It would make any fellow mad, I guess! And he says I’m fat!”

“All right. Now, Tubb, what’s your grouch?”

“Oh, he makes me sick, Tucker! Look at him! How’d you like to live with him all the time? Looks like a fat white toad!”

“I’d rather be a toad——” But Ramsey stopped under Toby’s warning look, and subsided in mutters.

“He says I don’t wash my neck and that I’m a country greenhorn,” resumed Tubb. “He’s one of these Willie Boys from the city who think they know it all. He wears lavender and old-rose socks and the cutest little union suits you ever saw, Tucker. And—oh, he makes me tired!”

“Fine!” said Toby. “Now I’ll talk.” He turned to Ramsey. “Tubb says you’re fat, and so you are, Ramsey. You’re disgustingly soft and fat. You ought to be ashamed of it. If I were you I’d get rid of twenty pounds if I had to lose sleep to do it. Stop eating sweet stuff for a month, get outdoors and exercise. As for lavender socks, that’s your affair. If you don’t like being called Percy, don’t act Percy.” He turned to Tubb. “Ramsey says you don’t wash your neck, Tubb, and you don’t. At least, you don’t wash it enough. It’s not clean. I’ve noticed that myself. As for being from the country, why, you are, aren’t you? There’s nothing to be ashamed of in that, and if you aren’t ashamed of it you won’t mind being reminded of it. Now the real trouble with you two fellows is just this. You are both of you too much concerned with yourselves. You need to think about something else for awhile. Neither of you has a good big interest in life, and you need one. Know any game, Ramsey?”

“Game?” repeated the boy vaguely.

“Well, sport, then. Ever play football or tennis or golf?”

“I’ve played tennis,” said Ramsey uninterestedly. “I don’t care for sports.”

“You don’t need to tell me that. But wouldn’t you rather play tennis or golf, or even football, than have to take an hour in the gymnasium every day?”

“I don’t think so,” muttered Ramsey.

“You’ll change your mind presently, then. What about you, Tubb? You’ve played baseball, I guess.”

“Sure.”

“Football?”

“Some.”

“Good enough! I’ll get you started to-morrow. Got any togs?”

Tubb shook his head. “I didn’t bring ’em. They weren’t—weren’t dressy enough for this dump!”

“Can you afford to buy some new ones?”

“Yes, if I want to.” Tubb sounded defiant.

“Get some to-morrow before three, then. There are two or three stores in Greenburg where you can get fixed up. I’ll come up here for you at three sharp. What hour have you got free in the morning, Ramsey, on Tuesdays?”

“Nine to ten,” replied Ramsey, after consideration.

“Good! So have I. Meet me at the tennis courts at five past nine. Got a racket?” Ramsey nodded. “All right. That’s settled. Now I want you fellows to promise me something.” He eyed them both sternly. “I want you to promise me that you’ll both keep silent the rest of the evening. You’re not to speak a word, either of you, until you wake up in the morning. That is,” he added, smiling, “after I go. And I’m going now. Nine-five at the courts, Ramsey. Three sharp up here, Tubb. Good-night!”

A sort of dazed silence held them both until the door was almost shut on Toby. Then:

“Good-night,” stammered Ramsey, and:

“Go to thunder!” growled Tubb.