a
queer little marmoset, he had watched Wash Simmons throw great armfuls
of assorted clothing into the trays and churn them into place with a
baseball bat, while the Triumphant Egghead carefully built up his
structure with nicety and tenderness. Only he, the Big Man, sworn to
secrecy, knew what Hickey had surreptitiously inserted in the bottom of
Egghead's trunk, and also what, from the depths of Wash's muddled
clothing, would greet the fond mother or sister who did the unpacking;
and every time he thought of it he laughed one of those laughs that
pain. Then gleefully he had watched Macnooder stretching a strap until
it burst with consequences dire, to the complete satisfaction of Hickey,
Turkey, Wash, and the Egghead, who, embracing fondly on the top of
another trunk, were assisting Butcher Stevens to close an impossible
gap.

Yet into all this amusement a little strain of melancholy had stolen.
Here was a sensation of which he was not part, an emotion he did not
know. Still, his imagination did not seize it; he could not think of the
halls quiet, with no familiar figures lolling out of the windows, or a
campus unbrokenly green.

Now from his lonely eerie on Memorial steps, looking down the road to
vacation, the Great Big Man suddenly understood--understood and felt. It
was he who had gone away, not they. The school he loved was not with
him, but roaring down to Trenton. No one had thought to invite him for a
visit; but then, why should any one?

"I'm only a runt, after all," he said, angrily, to himself. He stuck his
fists deep in his pockets, and went down the steps like a soldier and
across the campus chanting valorously the football slogan:

Bill kicked,
Dunham kicked.
They both kicked together,
But Bill kicked mighty hard.
Flash ran,
Charlie ran,
Then Pennington lost her grip;
She also lost the championship--
Siss, boom, ah!

After all, he could sleep late; that was something. Then in four days
the baseball squad would return, and there would be long afternoon
practices to watch, lolling on the turf, with an occasional foul to
retrieve. He would read "The Count of Monte Cristo," and follow "The
Three Musketeers" through a thousand far-off adventures, and "Lorna
Doone,"--there was always the great John Ridd, bigger even than Turkey
or the Waladoo Bird.

He arrived resolutely at the Dickinson, an