did. How long he sat there, sprawled disconsolately in the chair,

alternately blaming himself for what had happened and then Arnold, hating Frank with a new and perfectly soul-filling hatred, I don’t know. But I do know that when a sense of the passage of time edged in past the varied and warring emotions and he looked at the tin clock on the bureau it was exactly eight minutes to nine and he had missed chapel!

To miss chapel without a good and sufficient excuse was a bad piece of business for a scholarship student, and the fact drove all thought of Frank and Arnold and the quarrel from his mind. There was a bare chance, one chance in ten, perhaps, that his absence wouldn’t be discovered, but dare he risk it? At Yardley you were put on your honor as regarded attendance at chapel. Should you stay away you were expected to report the fact to the office and tender an explanation. But, thought Toby, what explanation could he offer? Doctor Collins would scarcely accept the true one as sufficient, and, if it came to concocting a lie, why he might just as well say nothing and trust to luck. Failure to report his absence would be no more dishonorable than lying about! Toby studied the quandary troubledly for a good ten minutes. Then he pulled his cap on, thrust his hands determinedly into his pockets and made straight for the Office.

Chapel was over by the time he entered Oxford and the fellows were streaming down the stairs. Toby turned to the right and strode valiantly along the corridor and opened the door with the ground-glass panel and the inscription in formidable black lettering: “Office of the Principal.” The outer office was a big, strongly-lighted room with its walls hidden by shelves and filing cabinets. A heavy carpet covered the floor and at each end of the room a big broad-topped desk stood. One of these was presided over by the school secretary. He glanced up perfunctorily as Toby closed the door behind him and nodded to a chair. Toby sat down and waited. From a further room marked “Private” came the sound of low voices. The secretary’s pen scratched on and on in the silence. The outer door opened again and a small boy with a scared countenance entered, was challenged by the secretary’s glance and settled down into the chair next to Toby, trying his best to assume an appearance of nonchalance. Toby wondered if he too had cut chapel. Presently the secretary plunged his pen into a bowl of shot and looked toward Toby.

“Well, sir?”

“I want to see Doctor Collins, please.”

“Summons?”

“Sir?”

“Are you summoned?”

“No, sir, not yet. I mean――” Toby floundered. The ghost of a smile crossed the secretary’s face.

“What do you wish to see him about, please?”

“I missed chapel this morning, sir, and――”

“Oh! What’s the name?”

“Tucker, Third Class.”

“Excuse?” The secretary had drawn a slip of paper to him and recovered his pen.

“I――I forgot, sir,” answered Toby, lamely.

The secretary’s eye-brows arched. “That’s a novel excuse, Tucker,” he said dryly. He pulled out a drawer at his right, ran his fingers over the card index there and finally paused. “Tobias Tucker?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You hold a Ripley Scholarship, I believe?”

“Yes, sir.”

The secretary’s pen moved leisurely across the slip of paper.

“That’s the best excuse you can offer, is it?” he asked, without looking up.

“I was――was upset by something,” answered Toby, struggling to make a good case for himself of very poor material. “I didn’t know it was so late, sir. When I found out what time it was it was eight minutes to nine. I’m sorry.”

“Hm, being sorry is of so very little use, Tucker. Ever think of that? After this, I’d advise you to do your being sorry beforehand. It saves a lot of trouble sometimes. That’s all. You’ll hear from the Office in due time.”

“I couldn’t see Doctor Collins, sir?” asked Toby wistfully.

“The Principal does not see students without appointments until after two o’clock, Tucker. You can see him then if you like, but frankly I don’t think it would do you any good. If he wants to see you he will let you know.”

“Yes, sir.” Toby went out. After all, he told himself outside, scowling challengingly at one of the plaster statues that loomed ghost-like along the corridor, he had done what was honorable. He found a trifle of consolation in that. Whatever was to be, was to be, and there was nothing more he could do in the matter. His record until to-day had been good and he didn’t believe that faculty would deprive him of that scholarship for just missing one chapel. He was fairly cheerful by the time he entered Whitson again and if luck hadn’t ordained that he should almost collide with Arnold at the top of the first flight he might have kept right on feeling cheerful for awhile longer. But sight of Arnold brought back recollection of that other trouble. Arnold drew aside, in stony silence, and Toby, after one startled glance, stepped aside and passed. Homer Wilkins, behind Arnold, said: “Hello, Toby! What’s the rush?” But Toby made no answer and went on up the next flight, oppressed by a queer, empty sort of feeling. There was nothing to do until nine-thirty, unless he chose to rub up his algebra a little or press the trousers that Will Curran had left during his absence. Toby didn’t feel like studying, though, and, after reading the note that Curran had pinned to the garment, he only crumpled it up and tossed it in the waste basket and laid the trousers down again. At another time Curran’s facetious communication would have won a smile, but to-day it seemed sadly dreary.

Curran had written:

“Tucker’s Cleansing and Pressing Parlors,

Dear Sir:

Please heat your little iron And press these trousers nice. I’ll call for them this evening And bring the stated price. Don’t crease them much above the knees, For that’s against the style, But press the cuffs down very flat, So they will stay awhile.

William Shakespeare Curran.”

Awful rot, Toby thought.