“No, John. John has. Came home last night and waked me up and told me.” “Good for John,” remarked Bertie, pensively. Now, to the undergraduate mind of that day the Bird-in-Hand tavern was what the golden fleece used to be to the Greeks,--a sort of shining, remote, miraculous thing, difficult though not impossible to find, for which expeditions were fitted out. It was reported to be somewhere in the direction of Quincy, and in one respect it resembled a ghost: you never saw a man who had seen it himself; it was always his cousin, or his elder brother in ‘79. But for the successful explorer a dinner and wines were waiting at the Bird-in-Hand more delicious than anything outside of Paradise. You will realize, therefore, what a thing it was to have a room-mate who had attained. If Billy had not been so dog-tired last night, he would have sat up and made John tell him everything from beginning to end. “Soft-shell crabs, broiled live lobster, salmon, grass-plover, dough-birds, and rum omelette,” he was now reciting to Bertie. “They say the rum there is old Jamaica brought in slave-ships,” said Bertie, reverently. “I’ve heard he has white port of 1820,” said Billy; “and claret and champagne.” Bertie looked out of the window. “This is the finest day there’s been,” said he. Then he looked at his watch. It was twenty-five minutes before Oscar. Then he looked Billy hard in the eye. “Have you any sand?” he inquired. It was a challenge to Billy’s manhood. “Sand!” he yelled, sitting up. Both of them in an instant had left the table and bounded out of the house. “I’ll meet you at Pike’s,” said Billy to Bertie. “Make him give us the black gelding.” “Might as well bring our notes along,” Bertie called after his rushing friend; “and get John to tell you the road.” To see their haste, as the two fled in opposite directions upon their errands, you would have supposed them under some crying call of obligation, or else to be escaping from justice. Twenty minutes later they were seated behind the black gelding and bound on their journey in search of the bird-in-Hand. Their notes in Philosophy 4 were stowed under the buggy-seat. “Did Oscar see you?” Bertie inquired. “Not he,” cried Billy, joyously. “Oscar will wonder,” said Bertie; and he gave the black gelding a triumphant touch with the whip. You see, it was Oscar that had made them run go; or, rather, it was Duty and Fate walking in Oscar’s displeasing likeness. Nothing easier, nothing more reasonable, than to see the tutor and tell him they should not need him to-day. But that would have spoiled everything. They did not know it, but deep in their childlike hearts was a delicious sense that in thus unaccountably disappearing they had won a great game, had got away ahead of Duty and Fate. After all it did bear some resemblance to an escape from justice. .