hrown against it.

"Back!" cried a careless and jovial voice, "back! base proctor--this
is my castle."

"Open! open!" cried the visitor.

"Never!" replied the voice.

The visitor kicked the door, to the great damage of his Spanish shoes.

"Beware!" cried the hidden voice; "I am armed to the teeth, and rather
than be captured I will die in defence of my rights--namely, liberty,
property, and the pursuit of happiness under difficulties."

"Tom! you are mad."

"What! that voice? not the proctor's!"

"No, no," cried the visitor, kicking again; "Jacquelin's."

"Ah, ah!"

And with these ejaculations the inmate of the chamber was heard
drawing back a table, then the butt of a gun sounded upon the floor,
and the door opened.

The young man who had asserted his inalienable natural rights with so
much fervor was scarcely twenty--at least he had not reached his
majority. He was richly clad, with the exception of an old faded
dressing gown, which fell gracefully like a Roman toga around his
legs; and his face was full of intelligence and careless, somewhat
cynical humor. The features were hard and pointed, the mouth large,
the hair sandy with a tinge of red.

"Ah, my dear forlorn lover!" he cried, grasping his visitor's hand, "I
thought you were that rascally proctor, and was really preparing for a
hand-to-hand conflict, to the death."

"Indeed!"

"Yes, sir! could I expect anything else, from the way you turned my
knob? You puzzled me."

"So I see," said his visitor; "you had your gun, and were evidently
afraid."

"Afraid? Never!"

"Afraid of your shadow!"

"At least I never would have betrayed fear had I seen you!" retorted
the occupant of the chamber. "You are so much in love that a fly need
not be afraid of you. Poor Jacquelin! poor melancholy Jacques! a
feather would knock you down."

The melancholy Jacques sat down sighing.

"The fact is, my dear fellow," he said, "I am the victim of
misfortune: but who complains? I don't, especially to you, you great
lubber, shut up here in your den, and with no hope or fear on earth,
beyond pardon of your sins of commission at the college, and dread of
the proctor's grasp! You are living a dead life, while I--ah! don't
speak of it. What were you reading?"

"That deplorable Latin song. Salve your ill-humor with it!"

And he handed his visitor, by this time stretched carelessly upon a
lounge, the open volume. He read:

"Orientis partibus
Adventavit a