But Parmenter was too heartily sick of the whole business to reopen old scores, and too listless and despondent to start new troubles. Nevertheless, Van Loan was meeting with his reward. It was well understood among the students that his speedy release from the hands of the hazers was due to his promise not to betray Parmenter--a promise which, it was believed, he had deliberately violated. His class would have no more of his leadership. His companions fell away from him. He could no longer find attentive listeners to his boastful tales. He still kept at the head with his studies; but being much alone, he grew downcast and sullen. The humiliations to which he had been subjected on the night of the hazing were too deep for him ever to forgive or forget. His hatred for Parmenter showed little abatement; and when, by chance, it became known to him that Lee was the one who had asked him the insulting questions with their forced answers on that miserable night, his feeling toward Charley was scarcely less bitter. Van Loan exulted in the punishment of the two young men; he gloried in their downfall. But his resentment was not satisfied by their humiliation and disgrace. He waited for some new opportunity to gratify his mean thirst for revenge. So far as Charley was concerned, that opportunity came to Van Loan one day in a most unexpected manner. He went into a beer saloon in the city, a place to which some of the more weak and reckless of the students occasionally resorted. Half a dozen men were in the room; and among them, leaning against the bar, an object of entertainment to them, was some poor fellow in an advanced state of inebriety. It needed but the second glance to tell Van Loan that the drunken man was Charley Lee. Lee discovered Van Loan at once. “Hello, Vanly!” he cried. “Why, m’ dear boy, I haven’t seen you since--since--say, Billy,” turning to the saloon-keeper, who stood behind the bar, “give this man a drink; anything ’e wants; he’s frien’ o’ mine.” He had already staggered forward and embraced Van Loan effusively. Some strange turn of his drunken fancy had presented the man to his disordered mind as his bosom friend. For the moment Van Loan was at a loss what to do or say. Then there shot suddenly into his mind a scheme for revenge as daring as it was dastardly. “I will,” he said to himself, “lead this drunken fellow through the streets of the city and up College Hill to his home, in broad daylight, a spectacle for all men!” Van Loan turned the thought over in his mind as if it were incomparably sweet. He waited but a moment to perfect his plan. Then he turned quietly to Lee. “Come, Charley,” he said, “let’s go home and sober up; they’ll be looking for you, you know.” The saloon-keeper came out from behind the bar and called Van Loan aside. “Is he a friend of yours?” he asked. “Yes,” replied Van Loan. “Well, hadn’t you better let him go up-stairs and sleep this thing off?”