orless, joke-popping, genuinely conscientious
thumb of a man. His prayers were long and intimate.

After the second hymn he would announce the coming social
events--class prayer-meetings and lantern-slide lectures by
missionaries. During the prayer and hymns most of the students hastily
prepared for first-hour classes, with lists of dates inside their
hymn-books; or they read tight-folded copies of the Minneapolis
_Journal_ or _Tribune_. But when the announcements began all Plato
College sat up to attention, for Prexy Wood was very likely to comment
with pedantic sarcasm on student peccadillos, on cards and V-neck
gowns and the unforgivable crime of smoking.

* * * * *

As he crawled to the bare, unsympathetic chapel, the morning after
spying on the faculty-room, Carl looked restlessly to the open fields,
sniffed at the scent of burning leaves, watched a thin stream of
blackbirds in the windy sky. He sat on the edge of a pew, nervously
jiggling his crossed legs.

During the prayer and hymns a spontaneously born rumor that there
would be something sensational in President Wood's announcements went
through the student body. The president, as he gave out the hymns, did
not look at the students, but sadly smoothed the neat green cloth on
the reading-stand. His prayer, timid, sincere, was for guidance to
comprehend the will of the Lord.

Carl felt sorry for him. "Poor man 's fussed. Ought to be! I'd be,
too, if I tried to stop a ten-inch gun like Frazer.... He's singing
hard.... Announcements, now.... What's he waiting for? Jiminy! I wish
he'd spring it and get it over.... Suppose he said something about
last night--me----"

President Wood stood silent. His glance drifted from row to row of
students. They moved uneasily. Then his dry, precise voice declaimed:

"My friends, I have an unpleasant duty to perform this morning, but I
have sought guidance in prayer, and I hope----"

Carl was agonizing: "He does know it's me! He'll ball me out and fire
me publicly!... Sit tight, Ericson; hold y' nerve; think of good old
Turk." Carl was not a hero. He was frightened. In a moment now all the
eyes in the room would be unwinkingly focused on him. He hated this
place of crowding, curious young people and drab text-hung walls. In
the last row he noted the pew in which Professor Frazer sat
(infrequently). He could fancy Frazer there, pale and stern. "I'm glad
I spied on 'em. Might have been able to