“I’m awfully glad to hear you say so, old chap;” and Dick spoke as though he meant it. “But that will be in the dim and distant future. They gave my wings such a clipping I’ll not undertake to fly again in a hurry; I must learn to walk first. It’s not a novel I am after this time, but something much simpler and shorter. It is a humorous sketch of American life on the rail that I want to write, to the title of ‘The Through Sleeper.’ It will be about forty or fifty thousand words; and if some publisher will take it up and illustrate it in the way I have in mind, I think it will go. I can do it easily in a month.” Through the whole of the month’s vacation Dick worked almost day and night. “No, I don’t want to go and exercise in the park,” he said when his friends tried to get him out of the house; “I don’t want to hear the birds sing or see the lambs gambol on the green. I have no business with such things just now. I live in ‘The Through Sleeper’ at present, and my head is full of air brakes and coal dust and lower berths, and I don’t want anything to drive them out till I put a dash at the end of the story.” When the month expired he went down to the office, looking thinner and paler, but as full of energy as ever. “Now, then, Darling,” he said, “here I am, ready for the old work again. ‘The Through Sleeper’ has started on time. I have gone through the regulation correspondence with Brounlow & Company. They have asked to see my work, and it has gone to them; and I have resolved to think no more about it till I hear from them. Perhaps it will go and perhaps it won’t. If that doesn’t go, I’ll write something that will; they may depend on that; they may even drive me to writing verses yet, if they continue to return my prose.” “You are back just in time to do a little artistic work for us,” Darling replied. “There is some trouble among the students down at Princeton, and I want you to go down there and write us a good story. If it turns out well, you might telegraph about a column of it, for you cannot get through in time to bring or mail it. You will have to see Dr. McCosh, of course, and get both sides of the story from the students.” It was after six o’clock in the evening when Dick reached Princeton, and he walked directly over to the college grounds and called at President McCosh’s house. His conversation with the president convinced him that the story was a capital one, and that he would have at least a column to send. “Now I must look out for my wires,” he said to himself; “these country telegraph offices have an awkward way of closing early in the evening sometimes, and I can’t have my copy ready much before midnight.” He went to the telegraph office and introduced himself to the operator. “I want to send a two thousand word special to the Transport to-night,” he said. “I will have the first copy in about half-past eleven.” “You can’t do it from this office!” the operator replied very gruffly. “We close at eight o’clock.”