The inhabitants of the east well of Hale became lovers of peace. Mr. Alsop had not full confidence in the change, scenting something ominous in the unnatural calm. The rumor that had spread among his colleagues that Alsop was having a sad time in his dormitory touched that gentleman in a sensitive spot. Ability to get on with pupils is considered a most desirable quality in a teacher, even in an institution like Seaton, in which the headsman’s axe is the chief disciplinary weapon, and the fear of it the great persuader to the quiet life. Trouble with his boys meant that Mr. Alsop was not in all respects a success; and the teacher, while forced to confess this fact to himself, did not wish it unpleasantly noised abroad. He was suffering for his own conscientiousness and keenness of perception; he knew Fowle and Archer as dangerous boys, while other teachers were still dull-witted or misguided enough to defend them.

One morning, as Mr. Alsop, thinking gloomy thoughts about the waste of himself which a talented man commits when he takes up the life of a teacher, swung sharply round the corner of his dormitory, he beheld a most exasperating sight.

Wally Sedgwick had been loafing in 7 Hale that morning, keeping both Sam and Duncan from work which neither wanted to do. Wally’s hat lay on the window seat. Duncan, concluding that Wally had overstopped his leave, lifted the window and pushed the hat gently from its resting-place. Then he calmly informed Wally that his “dip” had fallen out. Both peered over the sill to see where the hat had fallen.

John Fish, in the room below, had caught sight of the object falling past his window, and leaned out to investigate. It occurred to him immediately that (as the physicians say) water was indicated; so he brought his pitcher and began pouring upon the hat. Duncan, observing this manoeuvre from above, was seized with a bright idea. He too fetched a pitcher and poured his libation upon John Fish’s unprotected head as it projected from the window below. It was this spectacle of pitchers and streams of water and heads and an all-suffering hat which greeted Mr. Alsop’s gaze and outraged his sense of propriety as he emerged into view before the front of Hale.

Fish did not pour long. The chilling grip of the water upon the back of his neck quickly reminded him that his conduct was unbecoming. Duncan stopped when Fish stopped, but neither before the teacher got a good view of the offenders.

“Gee, there’s Alsop!” cried Duncan, jumping back into the obscurity of the room. “My name is mud.”

“I guess I’ll go,” said Wally, quickly, “before some one pinches the hat.”

Wally scuttled downstairs, dashed past the teacher at the door, seized his hat and sped away from danger. Mr. Alsop mounted directly to Number 7, and knocked vigorously. Sam opened the door.

“Peck, it was you who were pouring water out of your window upon the head of a boy below?”

“Yes, sir,” said Duncan, promptly, “but it was in self-defence. You see, the hat fell out, and before we could get it, some one downstairs began to dump water on it. I had to do the same thing to him to make him stop.”

“I suppose there was no other way of stopping him,” answered Mr. Alsop, with angry sarcasm. “You knew very well that all throwing of water from dormitory windows is forbidden. I shall report you at the office as on study hours.”

“That’s a pretty note!” said Duncan in disgust as soon as the enemy was out of hearing. “Put me on study hours for that! It was nothing at all. Fellows do it all the time in Sibley and Wentworth and don’t get even a call-down. That’s a way to run a dormitory, isn’t it? He probably won’t do anything to Black Hand Fish!”

Therein Duncan was wrong. Mr. Alsop stopped on his way downstairs to give Fish the same punishment, but he did it with reluctance, in fact almost apologetically, and he took the penalty off at the end of a week. Duncan, being of a proud spirit and showing evident resentment in his manner, the instructor disciplined by a longer period of restraint. During this season of penance, when Duncan was at home morning, afternoon, and evening, cut off from all visitors, the two room-mates were inevitably much together. Some of this time Duncan wasted in maledictions on his unjust fate and on all those whom he held responsible for his sufferings; some he spent profitably in studying, and in getting acquainted with his room-mate. The experience of this period, which proved effectively the value of Sam’s friendship, destroyed the last shreds of the prejudice which Duncan had nursed so long. He signalized his conversion by suggesting to Archer that it was time they addressed each other by their first names. He made atonement, not by falling on his friend’s neck and beseeching his pardon for misjudging him, but by treating him with frank cordiality at home and commending him abroad.

“Black Hand” Fish, released from the ban at the end of a week with a gentle recommendation that he restrain his sprightliness, returned most subservient thanks and went his old way. Fish’s old way was not a good one from the point of view of morality or of the happiness of his neighbors. He was the “bad boy” of the well, a natural Ishmaelite. His hand was against every one. He borrowed money without the slightest intention of paying; he rough-housed recklessly in the rooms of those not strong enough to eject him, smashed furniture, threw books, spilled ink, played hair-dresser with the shoe-brush. And withal, so strong was the code of honor among his victims, so suave and respectful was his demeanor toward Mr. Alsop, so craftily did he choose his hours of molestation, that the teacher had no suspicion of his character. When Mr. Alsop passed Fish’s room on a visit of reproof to Fowle, and saw on the door a threatening demand for money emphasized by the drawing of a black hand, he reflected sadly upon the persecution which an orderly student must suffer at the hands of the disorderly. Indeed, he felt tempted to call a meeting of the well to protest against the cowardice of anonymous threats.

Fish himself was not greatly disturbed by the sight of these manifestoes. He was not to be frightened into disgorging by the threat of a Black Hand. When, however, a similar notice appeared on the blotting-paper on his desk, he began to suspect his long-suffering room-mate Moorhead, and made him the special object of his attentions. Moorhead was a studious youth, an honor man, very ambitious to keep his rank. Fish hid his books, poured away the water from his pitcher, pulled his bed to pieces, inked his exercises. A favorite diversion was to sing Moorhead to the verge of madness when the boy wanted to study. This was especially effective when a “dec” had to be learned, or lines memorized for English.

With the occupants of Number 7 Fish took no liberties. They “wouldn’t stand for it,” and they were capable of defending themselves. The weaker inhabitants of the well safeguarded themselves and their possessions as best they could by keeping their doors locked. Even with this precaution there were times when the pest found admittance. Being debarred from outside disturbance by the serious threats of the trio, he was in a way thrown back upon the rooms for amusement.

Spring came, if a muddy windy March has any right to the name of spring. Sam, whose reputation was better with other teachers than with Mr. Alsop, sometimes got permission to go off with his gun. He returned one Wednesday night, empty-handed, as usual, but eloquent of the grandeur of the heavy surf as it broke over the rocks at the foot of Great Boar’s Head. He wrote a theme on the subject before he went to bed, and read it to Duncan.

“Gee! but it must be worth seeing!” exclaimed Duncan. “If that beast of an Alsop hadn’t put me on study hours, I might go down and get a look at it.”

“Why don’t you ask him to take you off?”

“Ask him to take me off!” repeated Duncan, indignantly. “I wouldn’t ask him to take me out of a pit, if I were dying of thirst!”

“He probably wouldn’t do it anyway,” remarked Sam, recalling the humiliating refusal which he had himself received when he asked for a special make-up on French vocabulary.

Thursday and Friday the wind blew hard from the east. Saturday was clear. At nine, after his first recitation, Duncan came dashing in with the signals of exciting news flaming in eye and cheek.

“Alsop’s gone to Boston to-day to tell the Modern Language Profs how to do it. He won’t get back until to-morrow night.”

“What of it?” asked Sam, calmly.

“I’m going to take a holiday. I’m going to see the surf, that’s ‘what of it’!”

“You’d better not. You can’t get permission; and if any of them see you, they’ll report you, and it’ll be all up with you.”

“I’m not going to stay cooped up here all the time. I did nothing to be put on probation for, not as much as John Fish, and he was let off a week ago. I’m going to see the surf!”

“Supposing they see you?”

“They won’t see me. I’ll get something to eat early down at McLane’s; then I’ll take the one o’clock car outside the town. Nobody would leave as early as that, and if they do, Brucie, who’s got permission to go, will take the same car in town, and signal me at the right place if there’s any danger. Then I’ll jump off at Leavitt’s, skip over to the rocks, have a look at the waves, and take the same car back. I’ll be here by three.”

“It’s risky,” said Sam, thoughtfully.

“I’ll take the risk!”

All that morning, Duncan’s foolhardy scheme troubled Sam’s mind. There was danger in it—a danger quite out of proportion to the pleasure to be gained. The boy who leaves town without permission goes permanently. That was a rule to which the faculty rarely made exceptions. It was useless to expostulate with Duncan; he had made up his mind, and the resolution of a boy who had studied the ins and outs of Academy discipline for four years could hardly be expected to yield to the objections of a newcomer. And yet there was an objection which appeared to Sam to be serious.

“What are you going to do about the two o’clock car going down?” he asked Duncan, as the chums came together again at twelve o’clock. “There’s sure to be some one on that who would recognize you; it will pass you at the power-house.”

“That’s easy!” answered Duncan, confidently. “I’ll duck down when we pass the cars, going and coming. If you’re trying to scare me out of this, you’re wasting your breath. I’m going, anyway.”

This ended Sam’s attempts at interference. He hung around the room for a while after Duncan had gone, then hunted up Dr. Leighton and asked permission to go to the salt marshes or elsewhere, shooting. Dr. Leighton knew Mr. Archer and believed in the boy. As a result, we may say by way of parenthesis, the boy believed in Dr. Leighton, and, what is more to the point, strove to earn his esteem by honest work for him. Dr. Leighton’s permission was quickly obtained.

Sam boarded the two o’clock car in his shooting togs, without any clear idea as to his purpose. He didn’t care much about shooting that afternoon, and he did want to help Duncan, but how he could help Duncan he had but the vaguest notion. If there were teachers aboard, he might engage them in talk at the critical time, and so divert their attention. Two teachers did get in at the square, Professor Towle and Mr. Snow, both elderly men above the temptation of spying—the fault of overzealous youth—but quite as rigid in their sense of duty as their younger colleagues. If Duncan showed himself, his head was forfeit.

The car bowled rapidly along the desolate, water-soaked highway. Sam left his seat and went forward with the motorman to catch the first glimpse of the waiting car at the turnout. As they bore down upon the power-house, they saw ahead of them a group of workmen gathered about a heavily loaded service car which appeared to have broken down, obstructing both main track and turnout.

“Looks like a block,” observed the motorman, as he crowded down the brake.

“What will they do?” asked Sam, quickly.

“Probably swap passengers with the up car when it comes, and send us back.”

The car came to a stop. The motorman opened the door of his vestibule and leaned out. Sam peered over his shoulder.

“You’ll have to go back, Jim,” said an official to the conductor. “Transfer your passengers.”

Sam seized his gun, pushed by the motorman, and strolled along the track past the obstruction. As soon as he felt himself sheltered by the derailed car from the argus eye of the faculty, he jumped the wall, and in its shelter ran headlong for the curve round which the up car was expected.