When Stover awoke the next morning it was to the light of the blushing day. He thought of the events of the night before and sprang up in horror. What had he been thinking of? He had made an ass of himself, a complete, egregious ass. What had possessed him? He looked at himself in the glass and his heart sunk at the thought of what she must be thinking. He was glad she was going. He did not want to see her again. He would never visit Tough McCarty. Thank Heaven it was daylight again and he had recovered his senses.

Indignant at every one, himself most of all, he went to chapel and to recitations, profoundly thankful that he would not have to face her in the mocking light of the day. That he never could have done, never, never!

As he left second recitation Tough McCarty joined him.

"I say, Dink, they both wanted to be remembered to you, and here's a note from Sis."

"A note?"

"Here it is."

Stover stood staring at a violet envelope, inscribed in large, flowing letters: "Mr. John H. Stover."

Then he put it in his pocket hastily and went to his room. Luckily the Tennessee Shad was poaching in the village. He locked the door, secured the transom and drew out the note. It was sealed with a crest and perfumed with a heavenly scent. He held it in his hand a long while, convulsively, and then broke the seal with an awkward finger and read:

When Dink had read this through once he immediately began it again. The second reading left him more bewildered than ever. It was the first time he had come in contact with a manifestation of the workings of the feminine mind. What did she intend him to understand?

"I'll read it again," he said, perching on the back of a chair. "Dear Mr. Stover!" He stopped and considered. "My dear Mr. Stover—Dear Mr. Stover—well, that's all right. But what the deuce does she mean by 'faithful cavalier'—I wonder now, I wonder. She wants me to visit her—she can't be offended then. 'Your very good friend,' underlined twice, that sounds as though she wanted to warn me. Undoubtedly I made a fool of myself and this is her angelic way of letting me down. 'Friend'—underlined twice—of course that's it. What a blooming, sentimental, moon-struck jay I was. Gee, I could kick myself to Jericho and back!" But here his eye fell on the postscript and his jaw dropped. "Now how did she guess that? That sounds different from the rest, as though—as though she understood."

He went to the window frowning, and then to the mirror, with a new interest in this new Mr. John H. Stover who received perplexing notes on scented paper.

"I must get some decent collars," he said pensively. "How the deuce does Lovely Mead keep his tie tight—mine's always slipping down, showing the stud." He changed his collar, having detected a smirch, and tried the effect of parting his hair on the side, like Garry Cockrell.

"She's a wonderful woman—wonderful," he said softly, taking up the letter again. "What eyes! Reminds me of Lorna Doone. Josephine—so that's her name, Josephine—it's a beautiful name. I wish the deuce I knew just what she did mean by this!"

By nightfall he had written a dozen answers which had been torn up in a panic as soon as written. Finally, he determined that the craftiest way would be to send her his remembrances by Tough—that would express everything as well as show her that he could be both discreet and dignified.

In the afternoon he added a dozen extra high collars to his wardrobe and examined hesitatingly the counter of Gent's Bon-Ton socks, spring styles, displayed at Bill Appleby's.

The collars, the latest cut, he tried on surreptitiously. They were uncomfortable and projected into his chin, but there was no question of the superior effect. Suddenly a new element in the school came to his notice—fellows like Lovely Mead, Jock Hasbrouk and Dudy Rankin, who wore tailor-made clothes, rainbow cravats, who always looked immaculate and whose trousers never bagged at the knees.

No sooner was this borne in upon him than he was appalled at the state of his wardrobe. He had outgrown everything. Everything he had bagged at the elbows as well as the knees. His neckties were frazzeled and his socks were all earthy-browns and oat-meal grays.

His first step was to buy a blacking brush and his next to press his trousers under his mattress, with the result that, being detected and diverted by Dennis, they appeared next morning with a cross-gartered effect.

At nights, especially moonlight nights, under pretense of insomnia, he drew his bed to the open window and gazed sentimentally into the suddenly discovered starry system.

"What the deuce are you mooning about?" said the Tennessee Shad on the first occasion.

"I'm studying astronomy," said Dink with dignity.

The Tennessee Shad gave a snort and soon went loudly off to sleep.

Dink, unmolested, soared away into his own domain. It is true that, having read Peter Ibbetson, he tried for a week to emulate that favored dreamer, throwing his arms up, clasping his hands behind his head and being most particular in the crossing of the feet. He dreamed, but only discouraging, tantalizing dreams, and the figure his magic summoned up was not the angelic one, but invariably the elfish eyes and star-pointing nose of Dennis de Brian de Boru Finnegan.

But the dreams that lay like shadows between the faltering eyelids and the shut were real and magic. Then all the difficulties were swept away, no cold chill ran up his back to stay the words that rushed to his lips. Conversations to defy the novelist were spun out and, having periodically saved her from a hundred malignant deaths, he continued each night anew the heroic work of rescue with unsatiated delight. At times, in the throbs of the sacred passion, he thought with a start of his blackened past and the tendencies to crime within him.

"Lord!" he said with a gasp, thinking of the orgy in beer, "what would have become of me—it's like an act of Providence. I wish I could let her know what a—what a good influence she's been. I don't know what I'd 'a' done—if I hadn't met her! I was in a dreadful way!"

By this time, having had the advantage of countless midnight walks, not to mention the familiarizing effect of several scores of desperate adventures, the character of Miss Lorna Doone McCarty had been completely unfolded to the reverential Dink. He saw her, he conversed with her, he knew her. She was a sort of heavenly being, misunderstood by her family—especially her brother, who had not the slightest comprehension. She was like Dante's Beatrice, as the pictures, not the dreadful text, represent that lady—and only seven years older than Mr. John H. Stover. There was Napoleon, who had married a woman older than he was—Napoleon and hosts of others.

With the sudden fear of being dropped a year he began to study with such assiduity that, as is the way with newly-sprouted virtue in a cynical world, his motives were suspected by the masters, who, of course, could know nothing of the divine transformation, and by his classmates, who secretly credited him with some new method of cribbing.

Meanwhile, as the year neared its close, the inventive minds of Dennis de Brian de Boru Finnegan and the Tennessee Shad conceived the idea of a monster mass meeting and illustrative parade, which should down the hereditary foe—the steam laundry.

Up to this time the columns of The Lawrence had been flooded with communications couched in the style of the oration against Catiline, demanding to know how long the supine Lawrenceville boy would bear in silence the return of his shirt with added entrances and exits, and collars that enclosed the neck with a cheval-de-frise.

This verbal, annual outbreak was succeeded, as usual, by House to House mutinies on the occasion of the arrival of the weekly boxes, without the protest taking further head or front. But at the opening of the last week of the school year, whether a machine had suddenly jumped its fences or whether the ladies of the washtubs desired to open the way for the new summer styles; however it may have been, the laundry returned like the battle flags of the republic to the outraged school. Windows were flung open and indignant boys appeared, with white shreds in hand, and vociferously appealed to the heavens above and the green lands below for justice and indemnification.

A meeting of determined spirits was speedily held under the leadership of the Tennessee Shad and Doc Macnooder, and it was decided that a demonstration should take place instanter, the Houses to form and march with complete exhibits to the Upper House, where the fifth-formers should likewise display their grievances and join them in a mammoth protest.

Dink, at the first sounds of martial organization, pricked up his ears and summoned the Tennessee Shad and Dennis de Brian de Boru Finnegan to explain why he had been left out of such an important enterprise.

"Why have we left you out?" said the Tennessee Shad indignantly. "What's happened to you these last three weeks? You've had a fighting grouch—no one dared to speak to you for fear of being bitten!"

"In fact," said Dennis, with his sharp, little glance, "you are under the gravest suspicion."

Seeing his secret in peril, Stover assumed a melancholy, injured air.

"You don't know what I've had to worry me," he said, looking out the window, "family matters—financial reverses."

"Oh, I say, Dink, old boy," said the Tennessee Shad, in instant contrition.

"You don't mean it's anything that might keep you from coming back next year?" said Dennis, aghast. "Oh, Dink!"

"I had rather not talk about it," said Stover solemnly.

Dennis and the Shad were overwhelmed with remorse—they offered him at once the Grand Marshalship, which he refused with still offended dignity, but promised his fertile brain to the common cause.

Now Dink's sentimental education, which had progressed with a rush, had just begun to languish on insufficiency of food and a little feeling of staleness on having exhausted the one thousand and one possible methods of saving a heroine's life and wringing the consent of her parents.

He felt a species of guilt in the accusation of his roommate and a sudden longing to be back among mannish pursuits. In an hour, with delighted energy, he had organized the banner and effigy committees of the demonstration and had helped concoct the fiery speech of protest that Doc Macnooder, as spokesman, was solemnly pledged to deliver for the embattled school.

Four hours later the Kennedy House, led by Toots Cortell and his famous Confederate bugle, defiled and formed the head of the procession. Each member carried a pole attached to which was some article that had been wholly or partly shot to pieces. The Dickinson contingent, led by Doc Macnooder, marched in a square, supporting four posts around which ran a clothesline decked out with the dreadful debris of the house laundry.

The Woodhull proudly bore as its battle flag a few strings of linen floating from a rake, with this inscription underneath:

Several poles, adorned with single hosing in the fashion of liberty caps, were labeled:

Where is My Wandering Sock To-night?

The Davis House was headed by Moses Moseby in a tattered nightshirt, backed up by an irreverent placard:

Holy Moses!

But the premier exhibit of the parade was admitted by all to be the Kennedy float, conceived and executed by the Honorable Dink Stover.

On a platform carried by eight hilarious members, was displayed Dennis de Brian de Boru Finnegan, clothed in a suit of dark gymnasium tights, over which were superimposed a mangled set of upper and lower unmentionables, whose rents and cavities stood admirably out against the dark background, while the Irishman sat on a chair and alternately stuck a white foot through the bottomless socks that were fed him.

Above the platform was the flaring ensign:

Rather Frank Nudity Than This!

Now it happened that at the auspicious moment when Dink Stover led the apparently scantily-clothed Finnegan and the procession of immodest banners around to the Esplanade of the Upper, the Doctor suddenly appeared through the shrubbery that screens Foundation House from the rest of the campus, with a party of ladies, relatives, as it unfortunately happened, of one of the trustees of the school.

One glance of horror and indignation was sufficient for him to wave back the more modest sex and to advance on the astounding procession with fury and determination.

Before Jove's awful look the spirit of '76 vanished. There was a cry of warning and the hosts hesitated, shivered and scampered for shelter.

Now, at any other time the Doctor—who suffered, too, from the common blight—would have secretly if not openly enjoyed the joke; but at that moment the circumstances were admittedly trying. Besides, there was the delicate explanation to be offered to the ladies, who were relatives of one of the influential members of the board of trustees of the Lawrenceville School, John C. Green Foundation. As a consequence, in a towering rage, he summoned the ringleaders, chief among whom he had recognized Dink Stover and, corraling them in his study that night, exposed to them the enormity of their offense against the sex of their mothers and sisters, common decency, morals and morality, the ideals of the school, and the hope that the Nation had a right to place in a body of young men nurtured in such homes and educated at such an institution.

The ringleaders, being veterans, viewed the speech from the point of view of artists, and were unanimous in their appreciation. The episode had for Stover, however, unfortunate complications. With the closing of the scholastic season came the elections in the Houses. The Kennedy House, unanimously and with much enthusiasm, chose the Honorable Honest John Stover to succeed the Honorable King Lentz as administrator and benevolent despot for the ensuing year.

This election, coming as it did as a complete surprise to Stover, was naturally a source of deep gratification. His enjoyment, however, was rudely shocked when, the next morning after chapel, the Doctor stopped him and said:

"Stover, I am considerably surprised at the choice of the Kennedy House and I am not at all sure that I shall ratify it. Nothing in your career has indicated to me your fitness for such a place of responsibility. I shall have a further talk with Mr. Hopkins and let him know my decision."

The Roman! Of course it was The Roman! Of course he had been raging at the thought of his elevation to the presidency! Dink, forgetting the hundred and one times he had met the Faculty in the Monday afternoon deliberations, rushed out to spread the news of The Roman's vindictive persecution. Every one was indignant, outraged at this crowning insult to a free electorate. The whole House would protest en masse if the despot's veto was exercised.

At the hour of these angry threats The Roman, persecutor of Dink, was actually saying to the tyrant:

"Doctor, I think it would be the best thing—the very best. It will bring out the manliness, the serious earnestness that is in the boy."

"What, you say that!" said the Doctor, a little impatiently, for it was only the morrow of the parade. "I should think your patience would be exhausted. The scamp has been in more mischief than any other boy in the school. He's incorrigibly wild!"

"No—no. I shouldn't say that. Very high spirited—excess of energy—too much imagination—that's all. There's nothing vicious about the boy."

"But as president, Hopkins, not as president!"

"No one better," said The Roman firmly. "The boy is bound to lead. I know what's in him—he will rise to his responsibility. Doctor, you will see. I have never lost confidence in him."

The Doctor, unconvinced, debated at length before acceding. When he finally gave his ratification he added with a smile:

"Well, Hopkins, I do this on your judgment. You may be right, we shall see. By the way, Stover must have led you quite a dance over in the Kennedy. What is it you like in him?"

The Roman reflected and then, his eye twitching reminiscently:

"Fearlessness," he said, "and—and a diabolical imagination."

When The Roman returned to the Kennedy he summoned Stover to his study. He knew that Dink misunderstood his attitude and he would have liked to enlighten him. Unfortunately, complete confidence in such cases is sometimes as embarrassing as the relations between father and son. The Roman, pondering, twisted a paper-cutter and frowned in front of him.

"Stover," he said at last. "I have talked with the Doctor. He has seen best to approve of your election."

Dink, of course, perceiving the hesitation, went out gleefully, persuaded that the decision was gall and wormwood to his inveterate foe.

The last day of school ended. He drove to Trenton in a buggy with Tough McCarty as befitted his new dignity. He passed the Green House with a strange thrill. The humiliation of a year before had well been atoned, and yet the associations somehow still had power to rise up and wound him.

"Lord, you've changed!" said Tough, following his thoughts.

"Improved!" said Dink grimly.

"I was an infernal nuisance myself when I landed," said Tough, President of the Woodhull, evasively. "I say, Dink, next year we'll be licking the cubs into shape ourselves."

"That's so," said Stover. "Well, by this time next year I probably won't be so popular."

"Why not?"

"I'm going to put an end to a lot of nonsense," said Dink solemnly. "I'm going to see that my kids walk a chalk-line."

"So am I," said McCarty, with equal paternity. "What a shame we can't room together, old boy!"

"That'll come in the Upper, and afterward!"

They drove sedately, amid the whirling masses of the school that went hilariously past them. They were no longer of the irresponsible; the cares of the state were descending on their shoulders and a certain respect was necessary:

"Good-by, old Sockbuts," said Tough, departing toward New York. "Good-by, old geezer!"

"Au revoir."

"Mind now—fifteenth of July and you come for one month."

"You bet I will!"

"Take care of yourself!"

"I say, Tough," said Dink, with his heart in his mouth. McCarty, laden with valises, stopped:

"What is it?"

"Remember me to your mother, will you?"

"Oh, sure."

"And—and to all the rest of the family!" said Dink, who thereupon bolted, panic-stricken.