He kept a watch on Dan the rest of the time, but the latter made no attempt to trouble him again. He profited to some extent by Dr. Smith’s instructions, and when the cry of “All out!” came he believed that to-morrow he would have the courage to try a dive from the “crow’s-nest,” as the fellows called the little platform above the pier. He walked up the hill with Bob and Tom. “I don’t see why that silly idiot of a Speede wants to be forever trying his fool jokes on me,” he said aggrievedly. “That’s just his way,” answered Tom soothingly. “Well, it’s a mighty tiresome way,” said Nelson, in disgust. “He has an overdeveloped sense of humor,” said Bob Hethington. “It’s a sort of disease with him, I guess.” “Well, I wish he’d forget it,” Nelson grumbled. “I’m afraid to sit down on a chair now for fear there’ll be a pin in it.” “Oh, he gets tired after a while,” said Bob. “He was that way with me for a day after camp began.” “What did you do?” asked Nelson curiously. Bob smiled; so did Tom. “I gave him some of his own medicine. I filled his bunk with pine-needles--they stick nicely to woolen blankets, you know--tied knots in every stitch of clothing he had, and put all his shoes in a pail of water. He’s never bothered me since.” “Did he get mad?” “Mad? No, you can’t get the idiot mad. Carter says he laughed himself to sleep that night--Dan, I mean.” “I wonder if all the St. Eustace fellows are like him,” Nelson mused. “If they are, life there must be mighty interesting. Perhaps they have a course of practical joking there.” Dinner was at twelve-thirty, and it was a very hungry set of fellows that dropped themselves onto their stools and attacked the soup, roast beef, potatoes, spinach, beets, apple pie, and cheese. Nelson marveled at first at the quantity of milk his neighbors got away with, but after a day or so he ceased to wonder, drinking his own three or four glasses without difficulty. After dessert the history of the preceding day was read by one of the councilors, while the historian, a very small youth known as “Babe,” grinned sheepishly and proudly as he listened to his composition. Nelson’s hazing was referred to with gusto and summoned laughter, and “Babe” was loudly applauded when the history was finished and the reader had announced “George Fowler.” At one-thirty the bugle blew for “siesta,” the most trying part of the day’s program. Every boy was required to go to his bunk and lie down for half an hour with closed eyes and relaxed body. By the middle of the summer custom had enabled most of them to accept this enforced idleness with philosophy, and to even sleep through a portion at least of the terrible half hour, but at present it was suffering unmitigated, and many were the pleas offered to escape “siesta.” When Nelson approached his bunk he was confronted by a square of brown wrapping-paper on which in black letters, evidently done with a blacking-brush, was the inscription: