three days for the
composition, and the most important thing now was to make a showing in
Latin. French could wait. If he didn't find time for the
composition--well, Mr. Daley was easy! He'd get by somehow!

So Steve pegged away hard at his Latin for several days and made a very
good showing, and Mr. Simkins, who had been contemplating harsh
measures, took heart and hoped that further reports to the principal
would be unnecessary. But what with Latin and Greek and mathematics and
history and English, that French composition was still unwritten when
Thursday evening arrived. It had been a hard day on the gridiron and
Steve was pretty well fagged out when study hour came. He had told
himself for several days that at the last moment he would buckle down
and do that composition, but to-night, with a hard lesson in geometry
staring him in the face, the thing looked impossible. Across the study
table, Tom was diligently digging into Greek, his French composition
already finished and ready to be handed in on the morrow. Steve looked
over at him enviously and sighed. He hadn't an idea in his head for that
composition! After a while, when he had spoiled two good sheets of paper
with meaningless scrawls, he pushed back his chair. There was just one
course open. He would go down and tell Mr. Daley that he couldn't do it!
After all, "Horace" was a pretty reasonable sort of chap and would
probably give him another day or two. In any case, it was impossible to
do the thing to-night. He glanced at his watch and found that the time
was ten minutes to eight. Tom looked up inquiringly as Steve's chair
went back.

"I'm going down to see 'Horace,'" said Steve. "I can't do that French
composition, and I'm going to tell him so. If he doesn't like it, he may
do the other thing."

Tom made no reply, but he watched his chum thoughtfully until the door
had closed behind him. Then he dug frowningly for a moment with the nib
of a pen in the blotter and finally shook his head and went back to his
book.

When Steve was half-way between the stairwell and Mr. Daley's door, the
latter opened and Eric Sawyer came out. Steve was in no mood to-night to
pick a quarrel and he passed the older fellow with averted eyes, dimly
aware of the scowl that greeted him. When he knocked at the instructor's
door there was no reply and, after a moment, Steve turned the knob and
entered. At the outer door Eric had paused and looked back.

Mr. Daley's study was lig