And so for the fourth time Hervey Willetts stood at the bar of judgment. He stood before the cage window in Administration Shack, hatless and with a long rip in his trousers. His mad, gray eyes, full of dancing light, looked through the filigree work at Councilor Easton. He would have preferred to see his old friend Councilor Wainwright, though of course it would have made no difference. The councilor had come over to the window at which young Mr. Allbright sat to speak to Hervey. He was not unpleasant, but cruelly brief. “Hervey Willetts, there is no correspondence here affecting the arrangement by which you left last fall. I hope there is no misunderstanding on your part. Who sent you here?” “My--my stepfather.” “Hmph. Your stepfather isn’t in your confidence, I suppose?” “Tom Slade said that anybody who put the brass ball on that flagpole----” The councilor interrupted him, “Have you money enough to go home, Willetts?” “I’ve got a check for three weeks that my stepfather gave me, and I’ve got ten dollars. But doesn’t it make any difference what I did----” “Not a bit, my boy. The camp bus is going down to Catskill to meet the early afternoon train. You’d better go along and get the two-fifty for Albany. You can get a late afternoon train at Albany for Farrelton, I think. You may have your dinner here.” Hervey stood motionless at the window. He felt much as he had felt on the night Mr. Walton had talked both severely and feelingly to him, and he found it easier to stand right where he was than to make a move. He knew now that half a dozen or so obtrusive boys were lingering in the background and he, the hero of the flagpole, could not turn and face them. The attitude of the management toward him was not such as to arouse consideration for his feelings and these boys were allowed to remain. Well, he must go back to Farrelton and throw his bombshell into the household just as his good step-parents were in the throes of preparation for their holiday. I am glad to say that his heedlessness and buoyancy were not so great that he could contemplate this with equanimity. He would have been emboldened to refer again to his daredevil exploit, but the inexorable attitude of Councilor Easton chilled his forlorn hope. “Is there anything we can do for you now before you go,” the councilor asked with a kind of cold finality. “Is--can I--could I----” It was just at that moment that the tall boy who had caught Hervey’s grotesque hat as it fell from the roof stepped up beside the window and handed it to him. And Hervey, to his dismay, saw that it was Wyne Corson. I think it quite characteristic of Hervey that it never occurred to him that this scout from his own home town was supposed to be sightseeing in California at that time. He had forgotten all about that. “There is something you can do for _me_,” said Wyne. “Might I speak to you a minute, Mr. Easton?”