There was only a week more and then it would be over. He would never come back. What was the use? And yet, as he sat there outside the life and lights of it all, he regretted, bitterly regretted, that it must be so. He felt the tug at his heartstrings. It was something to win a place in such a school, to have the others look up to you, to have the youngsters turn and follow you as you passed, as they did with Charlie DeSoto or Flash Condit or Turkey Reiter or a dozen of others. Instead, he would drop out of the ranks, and who would notice it? A few who would make a good story out of that miserable game of baseball. A few who would speak of him as the freshest of the fresh, the fellow who had to be put in Coventry--if, indeed, any one would remember Dink Stover, the fellow who hadn't made good. The bell clanged out the summons to bed for the Houses. One by one the windows dropped back into the night; only the Upper remained ablaze. At this moment he heard somewhere in the dark near him the sound of scampering feet. The next moment a small body tripped over his legs and went sprawling. "What in the name of Willie Keeler!" said a shrill voice. "Is that a master or a human being?" "Hello!" said Stover gruffly, to put down the lump that had risen in his throat. "Who are you." "Me? Shall we tell our real names?" said the voice approaching and at once bursting out into an elfish chant: _Wow, wow! Wow, wow, wow! Oh, me father's name was Finnegan, Me mother's name was Kate, Me ninety-nine relations To you I'll now relate._ "Oh, you're Dennis de Brian de Boru Finnegan, are you?" said Dink, laughing as he dashed his cuff across his eyes. "The kid that wrote the baseball story." "Sir, you do me honor," said Finnegan. "Who are you?" "I'm Stover." "The Dink?" "Yes, the Dink." "The cuss that translates at sight?" "You've heard of it?" "Cracky, yes! They say The Roman was knocked clean off his pins, first time in his life. I say----" "What?" "Then you're the fellow down in the Green, aren't you?" "Yes," said Dink, thinking only of the ban of excommunication. "Why, you're a regular cross-sawed, triple-hammered, mule-kick, beef-fed, rarin'-tearin' John L. Sullivan, ain't you?" said the exponent of the double adjective in rapid admiration. "What do you mean?" "Why, you're the cuss that smeared the Angel, swallowed the Canary, and bumped Tough McCarty, all at once." "Oh, yes." "My dear boy, permit me--you're it, you're the real thing." Dink, with a feeling of wonder, shook hands, saying: "Well, they don't think so much of it at the Green." "Anything wrong?" "Nothing much." Finnegan, perceiving the ground was shaky, switched.