“How about me, Hal?” asked Pete. “I’d like to join, if your friend will have me.” Hal hesitated for an instant. “Why--er--I’ll speak to him about it. But I think he’s got his number made up.” “That’s all right,” answered Pete, quietly. “But I’ll do my best,” said Hal, hurriedly and awkwardly. “Maybe----” “Call it off!” said Pete, with a cavernous yawn. “If it was my table--” continued Hal, anxious not to hurt the other’s feelings. “I know. _That’s_ all right. I can stand it.” There was the sound of a gently closing door. “Hello!” Pete exclaimed. “Where’s Tommy?” The three glanced in surprise around the room. Then-- “I think,” said Allan, dryly, “I _think_ I heard him say something about going home.” The next afternoon Pete found Allan at the gymnasium, and walked back to Mrs. Purdy’s with him. He was so quiet that Allan was certain he had something on his mind. What that something was transpired when they had reached Allan’s room. “What sort of a cayuse--meaning gentleman--is this fellow Greb?” asked Pete. “I don’t know him very well,” Allan replied, “but I fancy he thinks himself a bit of a swell. He’s a Dunlap Hall fellow, and of course you know what that means.” “Never heard tell of it,” said Pete. “What is it--a preparatory school?” “Yes, it’s-- Oh, it’s all right, of course, only we used to make a good deal of fun of it at Hillton. You go there when you’re nine or ten, and they give you a sort of a governess to look after you until you get old enough to make her life a burden; then they put you in another house. They’re terribly English, you know; have forms and fagging; and when you want a row with a chap, you have to notify the captain of your form, and it’s all arranged for you like a regular duel, and you go out back of one of the buildings, and somebody holds your coat for you and somebody else mops your face with a sponge, and you try and hit the other fellow in the eye. It’s like a second edition of Tom Brown. Think of getting mad with a chap in the morning and having to wait until afternoon to whack him! There’s no fun in that. You’d like as not want to beg his pardon and buy him a ‘Sunday’! But they think they’re a pretty elegant lot, just the same.” “Think of that!” sighed Pete. “And I might have gone there, if I’d known, and had a nurse and all the scrapping I wanted. So this fellow Greb thinks he’s the whole thing, does he? Guess that’s the reason Hal was hunting a hole when I asked myself to join. I didn’t know you were so mighty choice about who you ate with. Out there we ask whoever comes along. I guess you fellows thought I was loco, didn’t you?” “Thought you were what?” “Why, crazy, inviting myself like that.” “Nonsense, Pete; we all understood. There was no harm done. It’s just that Greb wants to get up a table of fellows he knows.” “Does he know you?” “Why--er--I’ve met him, of course.” “And he could have met me if he’d wanted to, couldn’t he?”