He had been such a nice little boy at S. Timothy’s,--piping liquidly in an angelic “nighty” at Chapel,--that when the inevitable rumours reached there, the rector and the masters were deeply pained to learn that still another butterfly had burst from the godly chrysalis. They assumed lank, pre-Raphaelite expressions, and murmured, “Oh, Harvard--Harvard!” Billy himself was not left in ignorance of their distress; there was always John, of course; and from time to time biblical excerpts, skilfully tortured into the form of letters, came to him through the mails. Somebody-or-other’s pamphlet on “The Life Beautiful,” and a horrid looking little thing in white celluloid covers, entitled “Daily Seeds for Daily Needs,” were also slipped through his letter-slide one morning--all of which, in turn, caused Billy to murmur, “Oh, S. Timothy’s--S. Timothy’s!” His attitude toward S. Timothy’s rapidly became that of one who places his thumb upon his nose and extends the fingers of his hand. “‘_Descensus averni facilis est_,’” John, in one of his more playful moods, had remarked to him one evening. To which Billy had replied, “Ah, yes--_E pluribus unum nux vomica facile princeps_, as dear old Virgil used to say.” He was standing before the mirror in his bedroom adjusting an evening tie. Four crumpled failures already lay on the floor; from time to time Billy kicked at them as he moved about, or arrested the progress of his toilet to inhale deeply from the cigarette that had already burned several holes in the cover of his dressing-table. John was sitting on the bed, gravely watching the boy dress for the “Friday Evening.” “Do you think you’ll come back to-night?” he asked. “That’s the delightful part of it all--I don’t know,” answered Billy, with a shrug. He hadn’t told John where he was going after the dancing-class, because John, by various pathetic little indirect remarks, had displayed unmistakable interest in his movements. Billy withheld the satisfaction it would have given his room-mate to know all about him, partly because he wished to discourage a growing tendency, and for the reason that John’s--or any one’s--serious concern always aroused in him pleasant sensations of silliness, accompanied by a desire to giggle. “After all--Boston is a busy little place, isn’t it Johnny?” his smile was radiant with mystery. “Don’t sit up for me, old man--unless you care for winter sunrises,” he added, imitating the tones he so often heard in Sanborn’s billiard place, and laughing at the way they sounded. “By the way, what are _you_ going to do to-night,--something devilish of course,--but what?” He wasn’t asking for information; he knew that John usually spent his evenings quietly at home, or went to see one of the S. Timothy’s boys, and talk foot-ball or the intricacies of English A.