ut on the window-seat. Somehow the stupendous
adventures failed to enthrall him. It was still throughout the house. He
caught himself listening for the patter of Hickey's shoes above, dancing
a breakdown, or the rumble of Egghead's laugh down the hall, or a voice
calling, "Who can lend me a pair of suspenders?"

And the window was empty. It seemed so strange to look up from the
printed page and find no one in the Woodhull opposite, shaving painfully
at the window, or lolling like himself over a novel, all the time
keeping an eye on the life below. He could not jeer at Two Inches Brown
and Crazy Opdyke practicing curves, nor assure them that the Dickinson
nine would just fatten on those easy ones. No one halloed from house to
house, no voice below drawled out:

"Oh, you Great _Big Man_! Stick your head out of the window!"

There was no one to call across for the time o' day, or for just a
nickel to buy stamps, or for the loan of a baseball glove, or a sweater,
or a collar button, scissors, button-hook, or fifty and one articles
that are never bought but borrowed.

The Great Big Man let "The Count of Monte Cristo" tumble unheeded on the
floor, seized a tennis ball, and went across the campus to the esplanade
of the Upper House, where for half an hour he bounced the ball against
the rim of the ledge, a privilege that only a fourth former may enjoy.
Tiring of this, he wandered down to the pond, where he skimmed
innumerable flat stones until he had exhausted the attractions of this
limited amusement.

"I--I'm getting homesick," he admitted finally. "I wish I had a
dog--something living--around."

At supper-time he saw the Butcher again, and forgot his own loneliness
in the concern he felt for his big friend. He remembered that the
Butcher had said that if he were expelled he knew what he would do. What
had he meant by that? Something terrible. He glanced up at the Butcher,
and, being very apprehensive, made bold to ask:

"Butcher, I say, what does Cap think?"

"He hasn't seen the Doctor yet," said the Butcher. "He'll see him
to-night. I guess I'll go over myself, just to leave a calling-card
accordin' to _et_-iquette!"

The Big Man kept his own counsel, but when the Butcher, after dinner,
disappeared through the awful portal of Foundation House, he sat down in
the dark under a distant tree to watch. In a short five minutes the
Butcher reappeared, stood a moment undecided on the steps, stooped,
picked up a handful