“I’m sorry.” Mr. Collins frowned slightly and picked up the card. For a moment or two there was silence while he glanced over the record it held. Then, “Upon my word, Burtis, this is too bad,” he exclaimed annoyedly. “You have good reports for the week from every instructor. Mr. Bendix says you show first-class physical conditions and that you are trying football. Here’s a fine, clean card and now you go and spoil it by such tomfoolery as last night’s! Too bad, really! Well――” He laid the card down again, drummed on the desk with his fingers once or twice, swung his chair around so that he could look out the window across the Yard and was silent. A minute passed. Kendall followed the Assistant Principal’s gaze with his own and wondered how many pillows were piled in the window seat of a room in Dudley, how you told time by a sun-dial and what the little red discs on the golf course meant. Then Mr. Collins swung around briskly and Kendall came back from his dreaming. “Well, Burtis,” said Mr. Collins in a very matter-of-fact tone of voice, “I guess it will have to be probation.” Kendall made no answer. He was very uncertain as to what probation meant. He didn’t like the sound of it, however. It sounded, he thought, almost as bad as Circumstantial Evidence. Mr. Collins didn’t leave him long in ignorance, though: “That means that you must keep within school bounds, my boy, remain in your room from supper time until chapel in the morning, have your lessons perfect and abstain from athletics.” “Does it mean,” asked Kendall blankly, “that I mustn’t play football, sir?” “Just that; neither football nor anything else. And the rules oblige me to notify your”――he glanced at the card――“your father, Burtis. I shall write to him this evening. It would be well for you to do the same, I think.” “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” Kendall was silent a moment, revolving his cap in his hands, and looking very miserable. “I――I’m glad I didn’t buy any football clothes,” he murmured abstractedly. Mr. Collins smiled a little: “Well, that’s all, Burtis, for this time, I think. Try and let this teach you a lesson. Will you?” “Yes, sir.” Kendall got up slowly. Mr. Collins put out his hand and Kendall placed his in it: “Being on probation doesn’t prohibit you from paying me a call sometimes, Burtis. You know my room. Come in and see me. I’ve got some books you might like to see, and I’m always glad to loan them to boys who I believe will treat them well.” “Thank you, sir.” Kendall walked to the door. There, with his hand on the door, he turned. “There’s――there’s just one thing, Mr. Collins,” he said earnestly. “I know you had to――to do this. I guess my story ain’t――I mean isn’t――very likely. But I wish you’d just try your very hardest, sir, to believe that I was telling the truth.” “I will try, Burtis. If it is the truth, my boy, it will prove itself some day. If it does you won’t be more pleased than I shall. Good morning.” “Good morning, sir.”