time of Hippo's
progress and needs, agreed to defend him from bodily injury and promised
to accompany him home for the short Thanksgiving recess. The final touch
came when Miss Potterman sought to press upon him a large bill in case
Hippo should be perishing of thirst or hunger.

Skippy put it away. It hurt to do so, it choked him, but he did it.

"Not from you--I couldn't," he said huskily. "I--well, I just couldn't."

That night as he stood at his bureau and looked into the eyes of the
past, at Mimi and Dolly and Jennie and Vivi the hunter of scalps, he
spoke.

"Snorky?"

"What is it, old boy?"

"Ever go fishing?"

"You betcha."

"Do you know the feeling after you've been dabbling with six-inch and
five-inch and four-inch trout all day,--and something about three feet
long weighing ten or twelve pounds grabs your hook? Do you get me?"

"Sure, I get you," said Snorky gazing heavily out at the stars, "but oh
gee, Skippy, why does she have to be Nuisance's sister?"

* * * * *

Snorky's worst forebodings were realized. Nuisance earned his title a
hundredfold within the week. Dennis de Brian de Boru Finnegan had been
fresh, was fresh and would freshen more, but Dennis was amusing and
added to the gayety of nations. Nuisance was what his name implied,
simply intolerable. You stumbled over him and you bumped into him. When
state secrets were being discussed in whispers, Nuisance was always
within earshot. He was the extra, the intruder, the tail to the kite. He
did not actively offend against the traditions which govern freshmen in
the incubator period. He was too clever for that. He had submitted to
the mild hazing with a cheerfulness which robbed it of all its sting. He
had climbed water towers and sung appropriate hymns. He had sat in
washbasins and gravely pulled imaginary miles against the toothpicks
furnished him as oars. He had submitted to the pi's as they came with a
full recognition that the second and third men in the mounting heap
were extremely more uncomfortable than himself with a mattress for a
vis-a-vis. He was not insubordinate--he was just a nuisance.

But if he kept skilfully within the letter of the law so far as the rest
of the house was concerned he was irrepressible once in the company of
Skippy. Nothing that Skippy could do could chill his affection or bring
him to a proper realization of the deference which should mark the
manner of a freshman towards on