dergraduate. Then as he fanned himself with
his straw hat he caught, on the silk band across the interior, the
words: "Smith's Famous Headwear, Washington, D.C." No, he was really an
astronomer.

He shuddered in spite of the heat as he pulled the bell knob. What
ghosts would its jangle summon? The bell, however, gave no sound; in
fact the knob came off in his hand, followed by a foot or so of copper
wire. He laughed, gazing at it blankly. No one had ever used the bell in
the old days. They had simply kicked open the door and halloed: "O-o-h,
Bennie Hooker!"

Thornton laid the knob on the piazza and inspected the front of the
house. The windows were thick with dust, the "yard" scraggly with weeds.
A piece of string held the latch of the gate together. Then
automatically, and without intending to do so at all, Thornton turned
the handle of the front door, assisting it coincidentally with a gentle
kick from his right toe, and found himself in the narrow cabbage-scented
hallway. The old, familiar, battered black-walnut hatrack of his student
days leaned drunkenly against the wall--Thornton knew one of its back
legs was missing--and on the imitation marble slab was a telegram
addressed to "Professor Benjamin Hooker." And also, instinctively,
Thornton lifted up his adult voice and yelled:

"O-o-h, ye-ay! Bennie Hooker!"

The volume of his own sound startled him. Instantly he saw the
ridiculousness of it--he, the senior astronomer at the Naval
Observatory, yelling like that----

"O-o-h, ye-ay!" came in smothered tones from above.

Thornton bounded up the stairs, two, three steps at a time, and pounded
on the old door over the porch.

"Go away!" came back the voice of Bennie Hooker. "Don't want any lunch!"

Thornton continued to bang on the door while Professor Hooker wrathfully
besought the intruder to depart before he took active measures. There
was the cracking of glass.

"Oh, damn!" came from inside.

Thornton rattled the knob and kicked. Somebody haltingly crossed the
room, the key turned, and Prof. Bennie Hooker opened the door.

"Well?" he demanded, scowling over his thick spectacles.

"Hello, Bennie!" said Thornton, holding out his hand.

"Hello, Buck!" returned Hooker. "Come in. I thought it was that
confounded Ethiopian."

As far as Thornton could see, it was the same old room, only now crammed
with books and pamphlets and crowded with tables of instruments. Hooker,
clad in sneakers, white ducks, and