“Guess so,” Billy chuckled. “He’s gone to wash. All I know is that he was in bed when I woke up, and I had the dickens of a time getting him out. He’s still half asleep.” Tom staggered in a moment later, looking rather haggard, and very, very sleepy. His greeting to Clif was a wan smile, but while he struggled into his clothes and Clif kept an anxious eye on his watch, he narrated his adventures briefly, yawning cavernously the while. “We got here about five minutes to twelve and stopped the car over on Stoddard Street,” he concluded. “Then Wattles and I went up the lane a ways, and headed for East. Wattles had my bag. I’d forgotten about the brook, and it was pretty dark, and so Wattles stepped right into it. Luckily the bag got away from him and landed on the bank. I helped him out, and we got in Loring’s window, and I stuck the bag in his closet and came on up here.” “And no one saw you?” asked Clif anxiously. “I don’t――” Tom yawned widely――“think so.” “Fool’s luck,” commented Billy, slipping into his coat, and heading for the door. “That’s all I’ve got to say!” “Go roll your hoop,” said Tom without rancor. “Just the same, Tom, you know you were an absolute dumbbell, now don’t you?” demanded Clif, as he held the other’s jacket and tried to hurry him into it. “I guess so. I don’t know. How much time we got?” “Minute and a quarter.” “Fine. I’ve made it in fifty seconds flat. Come on!” That afternoon Loring did not attend practice. Instead, he and Tom sat at opposite sides of the table in Loring’s room and Tom, alternately despairing and hopeful, worked on that theme. Loring gave no aid in the actual writing, nor even in the composition, but he did make helpful suggestions when Tom faltered, and he did suggest numerous changes in spelling. It was close to five o’clock when the minimum of five hundred words was finally attained――with one word to spare, according to Tom’s sixth count――and Tom hurried across to West and delivered the result to Mr. Wyatt. “Alick” glanced briefly at the three pages. Then: “Did you have any help on this?” he asked. “Yes, sir. If I hadn’t I’d never have got it written!” “How much help, Kemble, and from whom?” “Loring Deane, sir. I wrote it all myself. He didn’t tell me what to say, but he kept after me until I’d done it, and he sort of suggested things to――to write about.” “In your opinion then, it represents your efforts, and not Deane’s?” “Yes, sir! And, Mr. Wyatt, it was some effort!” “Alick’s” customary gravity cracked just a little. “Well, all right, my boy. I’ll let you be the judge. Now see if you can’t come to class a lot better prepared than you have been. And about that paragraph structure business, Kemble. When do you want to make up on that? This evening all right for you?” “Oh, gosh, Mr. Wyatt! Give me another day, won’t you? I haven’t had time to study that at all, sir!” “If you’d kept up with the course, Kemble, you wouldn’t have to study it now. Isn’t that so?”