arshal came."

"The sly old beggar!" said Drysdale, "good night, porter; mind
you send my message to the proctor. If he is set on seeing me
to-morrow, you can say that he will find a broiled chicken and a
hand at picquet in my rooms, if he likes to drop in to lunch."

The porter looked after them for a moment, and then retired to
his deep old chair in the lodge, pulled his night cap over his
ears, put up his feet before the fire on a high stool, and folded
his hands on his lap. "The most impidentest thing on the face of
the earth is it gen'l'man-commoner in his first year,"
soliloquized the little man. "'Twould ha' done that one a sight
of good, now, if he'd got a good hiding in the street to-night.
But he's better than most on 'em, too," he went on; "uncommon
free with his tongue, but just as free with his arf-sovereigns.
Well, I'm not going to peach if the proctor don't send again in
the morning. That sort's good for the college; makes things
brisk; has his _wine_ from town, and don't keep no keys. I
wonder, now, if my Peter's been out a fighting? He's pretty nigh
as hard to manage, is that boy, as if he was at college hisself."

And so, muttering over his domestic and professional grievances,
the small janitor composed himself to a nap. I may add,
parenthetically, that his hopeful Peter, a precocious youth of
seventeen, scout's boy on No. 3 staircase of St. Ambrose's
College, was represented in the boot cleaning and errand line by
a substitute for some days; and when he returned to duty was
minus a front tooth.

"What fools we were not to stick to the Captain. I wonder what we
shall get," said Tom, who was troubled in his mind at the
proctor's message, and not gifted naturally with the recklessness
and contempt of authority which in Drysdale's case approached the
sublime.

"Who cares? I'll be bound, now, the old fox came straight home to
earth. Let's go and knock him up."

Tom assented, for he was anxious to consult Jervis as to his
proceedings in the morning; so they soon found themselves
drumming at his oak, which was opened shortly by "the stroke" in
an old boating-jacket. They followed him in. At one end of his
table stood his tea-service and the remains of his commons, which
the scout had not cleared away; at the other, open books,
note-books, and maps showed that the Captain read, as he rowed,
"hard all."

"Well, are you two only just in?"

"Only just, my Captain," answered Drysdale.

"Have you b