ngers grew wet with
something warm. It wasn't just perspiration.... I knew that--and that,
in the struggle, I must have hit my head against one of the hooks. Or
had one of them hit me in the dark with some sharp thing that he held in
his hands?

I stood up again unsteadily, found the door handle--yes, it was locked.
I was in my stocking feet; I could not kick through a panel. I reached
along the wall, found a hook. I flung the clothes from it, gave it both
my hands and all my strength in a sudden pull. It gave way with a
spurting of loosened plaster.

It was a large, heavy hook. It made a good ram. I crashed upon the two
upper panels with it. One of them split at length--and when I rammed the
ugly iron thing against it again, it broke into splinters and my arm
went through it. Light came through dimly--and, three minutes later, I
had knocked out the whole panel, climbed through and staggered out into
the room.

The mirror showed me a bad cut over my right eye. I staunched the flow
of blood as best I could. It was so humorous an incident--like one of
the famous adventures of Frank Merriwell!

I played it out, though. I did not go out of my room the whole day. In
the afternoon I telephoned Fred, the class president, about it. He came
over to see me--and he didn't treat it as lightly as I did. He wanted me
to have a doctor, for one thing. I promised I would see one, as soon as
the meeting was over, that night.

"You'd better," he said. "That cut is mighty close to some of the most
important nerves of the eye."

It was evening when I ventured out. Over in the big assembly hall the
meeting of the senior class had already begun. I stole across the campus
with my coat collar turned up and my hat far down to hide my face. I did
not want to be recognized until I was ready. I hung about outside the
ruddy windows of the hall, watching the crowded groups that sat within.
They were listening intently to someone on the platform that I could not
see--but I knew that it was Fred, presiding. Fred--and he was explaining
it all to them, perhaps, in that deep-voiced way of his.

Then, as I watched, I saw how the heads of all who sat within the scope
of my spying craned suddenly towards the side of the room. I knew what
that meant, too. It meant that either Sayer or Braley had risen from his
seat to make reply to the president's accusation.

Then, amazed, I heard applause and laughter. The muffled clapping of
hands went on for min