The day after Birdie Fowle reached home for the spring recess, a letter arrived from the Seaton authorities containing a printed blank, filled in with an alternation of D’s and E’s. There was likewise enclosed a short note from the school secretary, giving the startling information that the boy’s conduct in the dormitory had been so reprehensible that he would not be permitted to return except on trial from day to day; and that any further complaint from his dormitory master would be followed by immediate notice to withdraw.

The Fowle household was burdened with sorrow during the six days which Birdie spent at home. Mr. Fowle was taciturn and grave, Mrs. Fowle wept, and Birdie (properly named James), after a day or two of aggrieved expostulation, settled into a mood of deeply despondent fatalism. He knew that he was not a bad boy; he did not follow the evil ways of some of his schoolmates; he did not drink nor play poker nor run in debt nor cut recitations. Other fellows who did these and worse got off clear, while for a little rough-housing, much of which had been forced upon him by others, he was to be branded as a criminal. Of what use was it to try to be good, if he got the punishment of the worst? He might as well be bad and have the fun of it.

So Birdie returned to school, his ears still tingling with the stern warnings of his father and the tearful entreaties of his mother, his heart saddened by a presentiment of failure. He was like an unwilling soldier marching to expected defeat.

Sam and Duncan came back in a very different state of mind. They had spent the week at the Archers’ in Portland, where Duncan, who was on his best behavior, by his deferential politeness and open-hearted cordiality made amends to the parents for his early churlish treatment of the son. The family were charmed with him.

“We are so glad to have had you here,” Mrs. Archer confided to Duncan on the day of their departure. “We always like to know Sam’s friends, and we have been interested in you since Sam first wrote about you.”

At this Duncan looked a trifle conscious, and shot a swift glance at Sam, whose face was turned away. “It’s very good of you to let me come,” he said politely, trying to escape the unpleasant reminder of the past by dwelling on the agreeable present.

“He used to write us, you see,” went on Mrs. Archer, smiling, “that he liked you, but that you had other friends and did not care for him. I knew it would be different when you got to know each other.”

“Was the carriage ordered, mother?” broke in Sam, most abruptly.

“Yes, for two o’clock,” Mrs. Archer rejoined, and turned again to her guest. “I was disappointed when Sam proposed to bring down Mulcahy, whom I did not know at all, and not you whom I had met and wanted to see more of. Is Mulcahy one of your friends, too?”

“Not a very intimate one,” replied Duncan.

“He must be a very remarkable young man.” She addressed herself again to the uneasy Sam. “But you haven’t said much about him lately, Sam. What has become of him?”

“Oh, he’s around,” answered the son of the house, unpleasantly reminded of the superlatives which he had used in his early letters in describing Mulcahy. “Didn’t you say you were going to hand over some of that cake to take back with us, mother?”

“Katy’s doing it up now. Shall I tell her to put in some strawberry jam?”

Mrs. Archer rustled out on her errand, leaving the boys alone. Sam picked up a magazine which lay on the table, and turned the pages of advertisements.

“I did treat you pretty rocky that fall term,” remarked Duncan, as if their differences during Sam’s first months in school had been the topic of conversation. “I acted like a mick.”

“Don’t think of it,” returned Sam, without looking up. “I was a fool.”

And this was all the reference ever made to their early disagreement.

Birdie Fowle’s melancholy fatalism lasted about a fortnight. By the end of that time, having been successful in keeping his door locked and having received two C’s on half-hour exams, he began to feel better. His old cheerfulness returned, and with it a measure of carelessness. Sam, who was trying to help him, had urged him to avoid John Fish and give the dormitory scourge no excuse for enmity. It was clear, even to our inexperienced young man, that Fish’s cunning was not keeping pace with his effrontery. Success in deceiving his dormitory master had stimulated the fellow’s audacity to the point of recklessness; sooner or later he would expose himself.

Birdie, though accepting readily this rule of conduct, was hardly capable of carrying it out. On April first, the day of fools, he was tempted and fell. It happened in this wise. As he started down toward the post-office after his morning recitation, he saw John Fish sauntering in the same direction a dozen yards ahead of him. Obedient to the advice of his counsellor to keep out of Fish’s way, Birdie checked his own pace and trailed along behind. In front of the post-office stood a dozen fellows gossiping and looking out upon the street. When Fish was two-thirds across, Birdie’s good resolution yielded in an instant to the inspiration of the opportunity. He opened his mouth, hardened his throat muscles, and forced out two harshly resonant syllables.

Birdie’s “honk! honk!” was a masterpiece of mimicry for which he was justly famous. No one in school could perpetrate anything approaching it in effectiveness. Barney and Litchell had developed a fair imitation that would deceive the inexperienced; Fowle could frighten the elect. Fish, whose mind was intent on the question of how best to spend a certain expected check—if he repaid the money he had borrowed from various boys, he would have nothing left—gave a great clumsy plunge forward, like a startled dray-horse. His cap flew from his head; his books dropped from his hand. Safe at the curbstone, he turned to throw a malediction on the reckless motorist, and looked into Fowle’s gleeful face.

“April fool!” sang Birdie, cheerfully.

The fellows on the sidewalk hooted. Fish went back to gather up his property. “You’re a clever child,” he said, smiling contemptuously. His look was more significant than his words.

In five minutes Birdie was aware that he had committed a sad error. Fish in good-nature was always a menace to peace; Fish offended would be an unscrupulous enemy. Disheartened, Fowle took his troubles again to Sam.

“You were a fool to do that,” expostulated Sam. “I told you to let him alone.”

“I tried to,” mourned Birdie, “but it was such a slick chance!”

“Well, as long as you can keep him out of the room, it’ll be all right. You aren’t afraid to tackle him in the open.”

“I guess not,” returned Fowle, emphatically. “If I could get him outside, I wouldn’t put up with anything from him!”

“Then if he gets in, order him out; if he won’t go, tell him you’ll hold him responsible for everything he does in the room, and get out yourself.”

“A lot of good that will do! He’d plug the gas jets, pour water in the bed, write things on my collars, and spoil things generally. And if I stayed, he’d be likely to do something to make me mad, and I’d wade into him. Then rough-house, noise, and home I’d go.”

It was indeed a hard problem that poor Birdie faced: if he defended himself against aggression, he committed lÈse-majestÉ against Mr. Alsop by having a rough-house, and the sentence hanging over him would be executed; if he endured in patience, his possessions would be wrecked before his eyes; if he reported the facts, he transgressed the one law of which all schoolboys, good and bad, despise the breaker.

“Come down here the next time he gets in,” proposed Sam, at length, “and let me go up and settle him. You can prove an alibi if anything happens, and I’m not on probation.”

A fortnight passed. Sam, busy with studies and track practice, had ceased to think of Birdie as in immediate danger. Moorhead, Fish’s unfortunate room-mate, had proposed to room with Sam the next year, and Sam, feeling that it would be better for him to live with the quiet, studious scholar than with some more lively but less helpful chum, had consented. The interests of the present and plans for the future absorbed his attention. He was gaining in French and in Mr. Alsop’s esteem; he was really beginning to hope for a recommendation in the subject for the college preliminaries. Collins kept him encouraged in the hurdles. Unless some better man appeared, he seemed sure of a place on the track team as Fairmount’s understudy. Altogether he felt satisfied with himself and at peace with the world.

But it is hard to keep at peace with the world, if the world makes unjust war upon one’s friends. Fowle, returning to his room from Greek one morning, neglected to secure his door. He hadn’t been in his desk chair ten minutes when some one pushed the door open, looked in, and cried, “Honk, honk!” It was Fish!

“Keep out!” called Fowle. “I’m on pro.”

“That don’t scare me,” said Fish, as he shut the door behind him and sauntered across the room.

On the table lay the first sheet of a theme, neatly copied. Fish dipped a pen in the ink, and shook a blot on the outspread page.

“Oh, excuse me,” he said. “I was going to correct it;” and he dropped another blot beside the first.

“Look here, Fish!” spoke Fowle, sharply, “I don’t want you here. Clear out!”

“You’re not very polite,” returned the visitor, unabashed, as he threw the pen, point downward, at the table, and picking up a couple of magazines and a book, began rearing a triangular steeple on the lamp chimney.

Birdie’s ire was waxing. He felt that he could not control himself much longer. “Will you go or not?” he demanded hotly.

“I’ll go when I get ready,” answered Fish, watching closely to see how high Birdie’s temperature was rising, taking care meanwhile to keep the table between them. He did not want to get Fowle into a dangerously pugnacious state; he merely wished to incite a good lively rough-house, in which the smashing of a few trifles would be unavoidable.

Instead, however, of reaching over the table for his tormentor or chasing him round it, Fowle took an unexpected course. He turned and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.