er listlessly.

Tim peered across at him under the droplight. "Say, you look as if you'd
lost a dozen dear friends. Anything wrong? Look here, has Walton been
acting nasty?"

"Don't be a chump, Tim. I'm all right. Or, anyway, I'm only sort
of--sort of tired. Dry up and let me stuff."

"Oh, very well, but you needn't be so haughty about it. I don't want to
share your secrets with dear Harry. Everyone to his taste, as the old
lady said when she kissed the cow."

Tim's sarcasm, however, brought no response, and presently, after
growling a little while he pawed his books over and dropped the subject,
to Don's relief, and silence fell. Don made a fine pretence of studying,
but most of the time he couldn't have told what book lay before him.
When the hour was up Tim, who had by then returned to his usual
condition of cheerful good nature, tried to induce Don to go over to
Hensey to call on Larry Jones, who, it seemed, had perfected a most
novel and marvellous trick with a ruler and two glasses of water. But
Don refused to be enticed and Tim went off alone, gravely cautioning his
room-mate against melancholia.

"Try to keep your mind off your troubles, Donald. Think of bright and
happy things, like me or the pretty birds. Remember that nothing is ever
quite as bad as we think it is, that every line has a silver clouding
and that--that it's always dawnest before the dark. Farewell, you old
grouch!"

Don didn't have to pretend very hard the next day that he was feeling
ill, for an almost sleepless night, spent in trying to find some way out
of his difficulties, had left him hollow-eyed and pale. Breakfast had
been a farce and dinner a mere empty pretence, and between the two meals
he had fared illy in classes. It was scarcely more than an exaggeration
to tell Coach Robey that he didn't feel well enough to play, and the
coach readily believed him and gave him over to the mercies of Danny
Moore.

The trainer tried hard to get Don to enumerate some tangible symptoms,
but Don could only repeat that he was dreadfully tired and out of sorts.
"Eat anything that didn't agree with you?" asked Danny.

"No, I didn't eat much of anything. I didn't have any appetite."

"Sure, that was sensible, anyway. I'll be after giving you a tonic, me
boy. Take it like I tell you, do ye mind, keep off your feet and get a
good sleep. After breakfast come to me in the gym and I'll have a look
at you."

Don took the tonic--when he thought of it