“You didn’t? Then what happened to him?” “He told me afterwards――I saw him in the field house――that someone kicked him in the head. He had rather a bad bruise.” “Oh!” murmured Hugh. “Well, I fancied――you know you said――――” “Yes, I know I did. But I got to thinking it over. You see, I wanted to play the game through, for one thing, and if I’d been caught slugging I wouldn’t have. And then, too, I――well, I sort of wanted to see if I _could_ keep my temper. After all, I guess the rough-stuff doesn’t get you anything.” “Rather looks as though Hanser and I misjudged you, Pop,” laughed Hugh. Then, soberly: “I say, though, I’m rather glad you didn’t. Of course he deserved something, but――somehow――if you know what I mean――――” “I get you, Steve! As you’d probably say, it isn’t cricket. Coming up?” “Thanks, no, not tonight. I’m rather keen on writing a letter to the governor. Good night, Pop.” The letter wasn’t written until the next day, though, for Cathcart dropped in to inquire after Bert and remained to talk awhile, and before he left Nick and Guy arrived on a similar mission. Nick was in extremely high spirits, in spite of the fact that two of his fingers were bound together with surgeon’s tape, and, after Cathcart had removed his restraining presence, became so hilarious and playful that Guy and Hugh were forced to improvise a straight-jacket from a pair of Bert’s discarded football pants. Subsequently, Nick reclined, neatly trussed, on the window-seat and proclaimed: “I am but mad north-northwest: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw!” Then he began on Hood’s “The Bridge of Sighs,” and, reaching the lines, “Mad from life’s history, Glad to death’s mystery, Swift to be hurled―― Anywhere, anywhere, Out of the world!” he rolled himself off the cushion and reached the floor with a most terrific bump. After that they gagged him and sat on him. Sunday turned out frosty and clear, with a blue, blue sky overhead and scarlet and russet leaves rustling along the paths. In the afternoon Hugh and Pop ascended Mount Grafton to the observatory on top and held their caps while they climbed the winding stairway and looked for miles over the world. Then they found a sunny crevice in the great pink granite ledge beneath and sat there for a long time, looking down on the roofs of the school buildings below them, and discussed many weighty matters. It was not until, comfortably tired and very hungry, they returned to school that Hugh got that letter written. When he had finished it, however, and it lay sealed and addressed on the table, instead of taking it downstairs and dropping it in the mail-box he slipped it between the leaves of a book and put the book in the table drawer. In the morning he would hand the letter directly to the postman, a custom that puzzled Bert and moved him to sarcasm.