Walter came back, looking annoyingly virtuous for having washed up, and Clif said he guessed he’d walk around a bit. He would have been glad if Walter had offered to accompany him, as little as that youth’s society would have appealed to him under other circumstances, but Walter didn’t offer. He just said “Yes,” in that irritatingly noncommittal way of his. Clif took up his cap and went out and down the stairs and so, presently, into the late sunshine. Well, it was a heap better than that gloomy room, he told himself, and the threatened attack of homesickness disappeared. He walked down the drive and out at the wide gate at the corner of the grounds and on to Oak Street. He knew it was Oak Street because a neat sign told him so. The village proper began a block south with comfortable if unpretentious residences that presently merged into the business district. The hotel, the Freeburg Inn, at which they had eaten a very satisfactory luncheon, was across the wide, elm-shaded street. Beyond it was a short block of two-story brick store buildings; a busy, modern looking drug store, a hardware emporium with one window devoted to football and other sporting goods, a dry goods store, a grocery displaying a colorful array of canned fruit, a real-estate and insurance office. There were more stores on the other side, and then, at the corner, the Town Hall; and the library beyond that, where the street branched and a tiny patch of park surrounded a memorial fountain. At the apex of the junction a small fire house offered, through a wide doorway, an arresting glimpse of red paint and shining brass. Clif paused to look in at the apparatus, wondering why an alarm of fire never came in while a fellow was on hand to get the benefit of it! Beyond the fire house more residences bordered the quiet stretch of recently sprinkled asphalt, but they offered small interest to the boy and he crossed to the other side of Oak Street and loitered back, stopping before each window until he had exhausted its possibilities for entertainment. He managed to kill more than a half hour in this wise, and got back to West Hall about half after five to find Number 17 empty and dark. The room, however, looked quite cheerful after he had switched on the lights, and he got a magazine he had brought with him and read until a few minutes to six. He was still slicking down his wet hair when a gong clanged thrice somewhere below. He put out the lights and, suddenly aware of a very healthy appetite, set out for the dining hall. CHAPTER III “LOVEY” McKNIGHT