y a thing of small moment to the Freshman's mind.

Pellams alone showed up. He was not in politics; further, he knew the
value to himself of these evenings with Jimmy; not that the syllabi made
much impression on him, but he carried enough to class next day to
shadow forth an apparent knowledge of the subject. This he supplemented
with two or three original reflections that interested the instructor
and slipped him through. It was these flashes of intelligence that made
him worth the labor to Mason. Sometimes he could set the whole seminary
right on an obscure phrase; this made up for an hour of imperfect
attention.

To-night the two men were hard at it. They sat at opposite sides of the
table, the electric drop-light illuminating the papers between them.

"Say," said Pellams, "Bob Duncan's the luckiest baby in the bunch. He
doesn't know as much about this course as I do, and he's got
appendicitis, the doctor says--no fake."

"Now, Pellams," said Mason seriously, "you have to remember Cromwell. He
did all this in sub-headings four to eleven. You've placed him, haven't
you?"

"The guy that made them keep the powder dry?"

"The _minister_ Cromwell; you remember _him_--the one who was bald."

Jimmy had learned that Pellams needed a concrete peg on which to hang
his memories.

"Oh, sure, I've got him; that throw-away-ambition boy. Hadn't a hair
between him and heaven."

A knock came at the door.

"That's it. Sh--sh!"

"Let me in, Jimmy." The room was still.

"I know you and Pellams are digging. I won't say a word to either of
you, only give me a smoke."

"Haven't any," said Jimmy, rapidly transferring a sack of Durham and a
package of papers from the table.

"Well, let me in, anyway. I want to read by your lamp. Oh, say, open
up!"

"It's Boggs. If we don't let him in he'll stand and plead in outer
darkness all night."

The door rattled. Jimmy howled "Ye-e-es!" in a tone of provoked
affirmative, and Boggs was opened unto.

It would be hard to tell in what way Boggs did not block the seminary.
He found the tobacco by invading Jimmy's sacred drawer during an
absorbing discussion on land tenure; then he rolled and consumed exactly
fourteen cigarettes. Pellams kept count out of the corner of his eye.
Boggs was making smoke in the sunshine of free tobacco. He put his feet
on Mason's laundry packages, freshly stacked in the corner. He broke his
word by talking politics steadily, and finally, when he drew out