"Gentlemen, remember the motif!" cried Pellams, when they had made their way through the barroom loafers, playing with dingy cards at the dingier tables. The expedition was safely stowed in the back room around the rough table with its carved patch-work of initials, Greek letters, and nicknames, significant or obsolete, according to a man's perspective. Pellams assumed instant control. "We will now turn our attention to the serious business of the evening. Get your places. Hands on your bottles! Open--_corks_! And away we go." The party drank in silence. "Do you begin to improve, James? There is a trace of a smile in the left-hand corner of the patient's mouth. Ruffle up his hair and give him another while we have him going!" Someone started a song, and they had another drink to punctuate the pause between verses. A ruddier shade was creeping towards the roots of Pellams' hair; Lyman, who smiled but seldom, was grinning across the table at a Sophomore trying to flip cracker crumbs into his mouth. "This is a tryout," said Pellams. "The first man that balks at his beer will drink raspberry chasers for a month. Hey! look at 'Nosey' Marion trying to shirk!" Sure enough, Marion, who tried to keep up a reputation for capacity with a naturally slim endowment, was slyly pouring his last potion into an empty beer-case behind him. They fell upon the offender forthwith, whipped him into the ranks again, and resumed their seats, laughing and panting. "And now that our erring brother is punished and forgiven--that's as good a phrase as I ever saw--punished and forgiven--stick that in the Sequoia, Pegasus"--Pellams rambled on, "we've got to have the motif. I move from the chair that the guest of the evening gives us 'My Old Kentucky Home!' Punish your glass and tune up, Jimmie!" The cry went on until Jimmie had to respond. He began with the intention of singing it quite carelessly, because there was much in his soul that night that he dared not show before them all; but Jimmie had the gift of song in his heart as in his voice, and he threw himself into the music before the first stanza was half done. Only once before had he sung the song as he did to-night; it was at last Commencement, when he sang it for the Seniors going out on their adventures, and when he was done they had all been still and quiet like men who have seen ghosts--as perhaps they had, that night, the phantoms of men and times haunting certain low, arched buildings they were to see no more. "Then my old Kentucky home, good-night!" Jimmie's tender baritone floated up from the table wistfully sweet, and shaken a little with feeling, for the trouble of the week just past was sweeping into it. Lyman, listening, knew of what place the boy was singing, and mentally noted that he had better be thoughtful of the youngster during the rest of the term.