He was observed occasionally to yawn. During a lull he got upon his feet and straightway, without clearing his throat--said: "Gentlemen, it seems to me we are as far from a solution of this affair as we were when we assembled. For one I am getting tired and am going home,"--he was quite independent for there was a standing "call" for him from an eastern institution.--"Now I have a suggestion to make. It is this: Suppose we all go home, and await the return of the president. Meanwhile let us keep our eyes and ears open, and our mouths shut; perhaps we may see and hear things that will indicate the proper course for us to take. In any event, it would seem wisest for us to await the return of the president. Good-night, gentlemen." And buttoning his overcoat about him, the professor of French left the room. It was not until then that the futility of their discussion dawned upon his colleagues. Some one moved that the meeting adjourn. The motion was carried. The old gentleman voted the single nay. The dean walked home with assistant professor Lowe. Their conversation was wholly upon the case in hand. And when the dean left the younger man at the latter's door, he said: "I--oh--ah--I confess to being more puzzled than ever. A very mysterious affair--oh--ah--a _most_ mysterious affair." And so it was that the puzzlement of the worthy dean deepened next morning as he read little Green's sprightly, suggestive story. But the frown vanished from his brow and the wonder from his eyes, when, as he left the house, a messenger handed him the president's telegram. And he hastened to the campus to make known to his colleagues the glad tidings that had come to him in the depths of his perplexity. IV The various and varying newspaper accounts of the affair awoke Ann Arbor from its peaceful slumber and for a space the town lived. For two days interest developed with the passage of the hours. Speculation became general. Opinions were as many as those who offered them; until there was not a man or woman from the Cat Hole to Ashley Street who did not advance a theory, new or old. A like puzzlement, but one tempered by more original conjecture, characterized the attitude of the undergraduate body as a whole. For two days Catherwood had not appeared upon the campus, but at all hours friends and mere nodding acquaintances called at his rooms only to be refused admittance by Mrs. Turner, whom he had bade inform all callers that he was ill, very ill, quite too ill to be seen.