k with you is about done. You've more brain than a
dinosaur. It is variously wrinkled where once it was like a babe's.
Except for the French, you should handle your courses without superhuman
effort. Don't ever let me hear of your getting a condition. Your next
schedule will come from Stringham and Green."

He limped to a bookcase and drew out a volume bound in red.

"Without entirely wasting your time, you may amuse yourself with that."

"'Treasure Island.'"

George frowned doubtfully.

"We studied something about this man. If he's good enough to get in the
school books maybe he isn't just what I'm looking for to-night."

"Have you ever perused Nick Carter, or, perhaps Old Sleuth?" Bailly
asked.

George smiled.

"I know I have to forget all that."

"In intellectual circles," Bailly agreed.

He glanced slyly around.

"I've scanned such matter," he whispered, "with a modicum of enjoyment,
so I can assure you the book you have in your hand possesses nearly
equal merit, yet you may discuss it without losing caste in the most
exalted places; which would seem to indicate that human judgment is
based on manner rather than matter."

"You mean," George said, frowning, "that if a man does a rotten thing it
is the way he does it rather than the thing itself that is judged?"

Bailly limped up and down, his hands behind his back. He faced George
with a little show of bewildered temper.

"See here, Freshman Morton, I've taught you to think too fast. You can't
fasten a scheme of ethics on any silly aphorism of mine. Go home and
read your book. Dwell with picturesque pirates, and walk with flawless
and touching virtue. Delve for buried treasure. That, at least, is
always worth while."

George's attitude was a challenge.

"Remembering," he said, softly, "to dig in a nice manner even if your
hands do get dirty."

Bailly sprawled in his chair and waved George away. "You need a
preacher," he said, "not a tutor."

XI

In his room George opened his book and read happily. Never in his life
had he been so relaxed and content. Entangled in the adventures of
colourful characters he didn't hear at first the sliding of stealthy
feet in the hall, whispered consultations, sly knockings at various
doors. Then there came a rap at his own door, and he glanced up,
surprised, sweeping the photograph and the broken crop into the table
drawer.

"Come in," he called, not heartily.

A dozen young men crowded slowly into the ro