varied. When Frankling broke closing-time rules at Browning Hall by a
good thirty minutes some two-to-one money was placed on him. When Ole
and Miss Spencer cut chapel the next day the odds promptly switched. You
could get takers on either side at any time, but I think the odds
favored Ole a little. You can't help boosting your preferences with
your good money. It's like betting on your college team.

Commencement Week came and, although we were Seniors, we went through it
without hardly noticing the scenery. We watched Ole and Frankling all
through Baccalaureate, and when Ole won a twenty-yard dash across the
church and over several of us, and marched down the street with Miss
Spencer, it looked as if all was over but the Mendelssohn business. But
Frankling had her in a box at the class play the next night. How could
you pay any attention to the glorious threshold of life and the expiring
gasps of dear college days with a race like that on!

Commencement was on Wednesday and Senior Day was Thursday. Up to
Wednesday night it was an even break--steen points all. One of the two
had won. We hadn't a doubt of it. But, if both men had been born poker
players, drawing to fill, in a jack-pot that had been sweetened nine
times, you couldn't have told less to look at them. Frankling was as
glum as ever and Ole had the same reenforced concrete expression of
innocence that he used to wear while he was getting off the ball behind
somebody's goal line, after having carried it the length of the field.
We were discussing the thing that night on the porch of the Eta Bita Pie
house and were putting up a few final bets when Ole came up, carpet-bag
in hand and his diploma under his arm, and bade us good-by. He was going
out on the midnight train--going away for good.

For a minute you could have heard the grass growing. If Ole was going
away that night it meant just one thing: the cruel Miss Spencer had
tossed him over and he was bumping the bumps downward into a cold and
cheerless future. We were so sorry we could hardly speak for a minute.
Then Allie Bangs got up and put his arm as far across Ole's shoulder as
it would go.

"By thunder, I'm sorry, old chap!" he said huskily.

For a man who had just had an air-castle fall on his neck, Ole didn't
talk very dejectedly. "Vy yu ban sorry?" he demanded. "Aye got gude yob
St. Paul vay. De boss write me Aye skoll come Friday. Aye ent care to be
late first t'ing."

"But, Ole--" Bangs beg