and smiles and is a
villain still. He was in my dormitory year before last and kept it in a
constant turmoil. And yet if you have any sense of humor at all you
can't help being amused by him--even sympathizing with him--though it's
apt to be at your own expense."

"He's perfectly conscienceless," declared Marcy.

"And yet there's no real harm in him," said Randolph.

"He seems to be something of a puzzle." Irving spoke uneasily. "And he's
to be at my table--I'm to have a table?"

"Oh, yes. In fact, one or two of the Sixth Formers--Scarborough, for
instance--have tables. But we don't let all the Sixth Formers eat
together; we try to scatter them. And Westby and Carroll have fallen to
your lot."

"If you happen to see either of them before supper, I should like to
meet them," Irving said.

He felt that if he could make their acquaintance separately and without
witnesses, he could produce a better impression than if he waited and
confronted them before a whole table of strange faces.

But as it happened, that was just the way that he did meet Westby and
Carroll. When the supper bell sounded, the hallway of the Upper School
was crowded with boys, examining the schedule which had been posted and
which assigned them to their seats in the dining-room. Irving, after
waiting nervously until more than half the number had entered the
dining-room and deriving no help from any of the other masters, went in
and stood at the head of the third table, as he had been instructed to
do. Four or five boys were already standing there at their places; they
looked at him with curiosity and bowed to him politely. The crowd as it
entered thinned; Irving was beginning to hope that Westby and Carroll
had gone elsewhere,--and then, just as Mr. Randolph was mounting to the
head table on the dais, two boys slipped in and stood at the seats at
Irving's right. He recognized them as having been two of the three who
had laughed when he had proclaimed himself a master. One was the slim,
tall fellow who had called him "new kid."

For a moment at Irving's table, after the boys had rattled into their
seats, there was silence. In front of Irving were a platter of cold
tongue and a dish of beans, and he began to put portions of each on the
plates piled before him. Then as he passed the first plate along the
line he looked up and said, "I think we'd better find out who everybody
is. So each fellow, as he gets his plate, will please sing out his
name."