It was nearly two o'clock when they carried the ladder into the alley-way. They laid it down in silence. For several reasons this was to be a right nervy go. A young professor and his young wife had a suite of rooms in the house. But it wasn't that which troubled them. This was. The moon shone full and strong upon the clear, blank wall of the house, and it was in plain view from a certain spot a distance of about two blocks away. Across this spot a certain owl-eyed proctor was pretty sure to pass and repass off and on all night. That was the reason they were sitting on the ladder waiting for a signal from Colston, who was over by the certain spot watching for the certain proctor. "Buck, which is the freshman's room?" "It was the one next to the light and the light was in the room over the side-door." "Second or third story?" "Sist! not so loud. Why, let's see, the third." "Yes," said Haines, "don't you see the window's open up there. None of the family would do that. Town people would never air----" "Listen!" A whistle came from the silent distance, the first bar from "Rumski Ho," then a silence, then the same bar repeated. And by this they knew that the proctor had walked into the open space and out of it again, and that if they hurried they could put the ladder against the house, send a man up it and take it away again before the proctor crossed the open space once more. Buckley started up. The others leaned against the bottom round to steady it. Then he came back for a moment. "Don't take it away until I get all the way in--until I wave my hand. There's plenty of time. Keep cool," he whispered, as he nimbly began his ascent. For his descent he was to rely upon the stairs, the freshman, and his own persuasive powers, for what are freshmen and stairs made for? Buckley was a right devilish young man, and typically a sophomore. The year before he had climbed the belfry of old North and stolen the bell-clapper and gained class-wide renown. Already this term he had mounted the water-tower and painted the freshman numerals green. The very night before this he had run around the eaves of Reunion, which is no easy trick, with "Bill," the night proctor, behind him, and when he dropped off the bottom round of the fire-escape into the arms of another proctor, he had wriggled out again. Still there are sensations peculiar to scaling a ladder stretching toward the black of an open window, with a moon throwing shadows of yourself and the rounds of the ladder against the dull bricks of an old-fashioned house, while old North strikes two in the distance. Buckley felt them.