Then he went to his bureau and relegated the photograph of the future
Mrs. Ver Plank to the rear and promoted Miss Dow to the place of
honor.

"That's over," he said; "but she nearly ruined my life!"

In which he was wrong, for if Miss McCarty had not arrived Appleby,
purveyor of Gents' Fancies, would never have sold him a dozen most
becoming neckties.

When the Tennessee Shad came in, he looked in surprise.

"Hello, better news to-day?" he said sympathetically.

"News?" said Dink in a moment of abstraction.

"Why, your mother."

"Oh, yes--yes, she's better," said Dink hastily, and to make it
convincing he added in a reverent voice, "thank God!"

The next day he informed McCarty that he had changed his mind. He was
going to college; they would have four glorious years together.

"What's happened?" said Tough mystified. "Better news from home?"

"Yes," said Dink, "stocks have gone up."

But the tragedy of his life had one result that came near wrecking
his career and the school's hope for victory in the Andover game.
During the early weeks of the term Dink had been too engrossed with
his new responsibilities to study, and during the later weeks too
overwhelmed by the real burden of life to think of such technicalities
as lessons. Having studied the preferences and dislikes of his tyrants
he succeeded, however, in bluffing through most of his recitations
with the loyal support of Beekstein. But The Roman was not thus to be
circumvented, and as Dink, in the Byronic period of grief, had no
heart for florid improvisations of the applause of the multitude he
contented himself, whenever annoyed by his implacable persecutor, The
Roman, by rising and saying with great dignity:

"Not prepared, sir."

The blow fell one week before the Andover game, when such blows always
fall. The Roman called him up after class and informed him that, owing
to the paucity of evidence in his daily appearances, he would have to
put him to a special examination to determine whether he had a passing
knowledge.

The school was in dismay. A failure, of course, meant disbarment from
the Andover game--the loss of Stover, who was the strength of the
whole left side.

To Dink, of course, this extraordinary decree was the crowning
evidence of the determined hatred of The Roman. And all because he
had, years before, mistaken him for a commercial traveler and called
him "Old Cocky-wax!"

He would be flunked--of course he would be flunked