users, coat and
vest that matched--always seemed about to fall off him. Clint's first
glimpse of Penny came one afternoon. The door of Number 13 was open as
Clint returned to his room after football practice and lugubrious
sounds issued forth. It was very near the supper hour and Penny's room
was lighted only by the rays of the sinking sun. Against the window
Clint saw him in silhouette, his hair wildly ruffled, his violin under
his chin, his bow scraping slowly back and forth as he leaned
near-sightedly over the sheet of music spread on the rack before him.
The strains that issued from the instrument were awful, but there was
something fine in the player's absorption and obvious content, and what
had started out as a laugh of amusement changed to a sympathetic smile
as Clint tiptoed on to his own door.

The sorrow of Penny's young life was that, although he had made
innumerable attempts, he could not succeed in the formation of a school
orchestra. There was a Glee Club and a Musical Society, the latter
composed of performers on the mandolin, banjo and guitar, but no one
would take any interest in Penny's project. Or no one save a fellow
named Pillsbury. Pillsbury played the bass viol, and once a week or so
he and Penny got together and spent an entranced hour. Time was when
such meetings took place in Penny's room or in Pillsbury's room, but
popular indignation put an end to that. Nowadays they took their
instruments to the gymnasium and held their chamber concerts in the
trophy room. Amy one day drew Clint's attention to a fortunate
circumstance. This was that, while there was a connecting door between
Number 14 and Number 15, there was none between Number 14 and Number 13.
That fact, Amy declared, rendered their room fairly habitable when Penny
was pouring out his soul. "It's lucky in another way," he added, staring
darkly at the buff-coloured wall that separated them from Number 13. "If
that door was on this side I'd have broken it open long ago and
done murder!"

Clint laughed and inquired: "Who rooms on the other side?"

"Schuman and Dreer." The contemptuous tone of his reply caused Clint to
ask:

"Anything wrong with them?"

"Oh, Schuman's all right, I guess, but Dreer's a pill." There was a
wealth of contempt in the word "pill" as Amy pronounced it, and Clint
asked innocently what a "pill" was.

"A pill," replied Amy, "is--is--well, there are all sorts of pills. A
fellow who toadies to the instructors is