into my sitting-room to-day," he said to himself
as soon as the clamor of Scarborough's gong died away and he could
collect his thoughts. But at four o'clock the next morning the gong
penetrated the two walls as if they had not been there. "I see my
finish," he groaned, sitting up and tearing at his hair.

He tried to sleep again, but the joint pressure of Olivia's
memory-mirrored gray eyes and of disordered nerves from the racking
gong forced him to make an effort to bestir himself. Groaning and
muttering, he rose and in the starlight looked from his window.
Scarborough was going up the deserted street on his way to the woods
for his morning exercise. His head was thrown back and his chest
extended, and his long legs were covering four feet at a stride. "You
old devil!" said Pierson, his tone suggesting admiration and affection
rather than anger. "But I'll outwit you."

By a subterfuge in which a sympathetic doctor was the main factor, he
had himself permanently excused from chapel. Then he said to
Scarborough: "You get up too late, old man. My grandfather used to
say that only a drone lies abed after two in the morning, wasting the
best part of the day. You ought to turn in, say, at half-past nine and
rise in time to get your hardest work out of the way before the college
day begins."

"That sounds reasonable," replied Scarborough, after a moment's
consideration. "I'll try it."

And so it came to pass that Pierson went to bed at the sound of
Scarborough's two-o'clock rising gong and pieced out his sleep with an
occasional nap in recitations and lectures and for an hour or two late
in the afternoon. He was able once more to play poker as late as he
liked, and often had time for reading before the gong sounded. And
Scarborough was equally delighted with the new plan. "I gain at least
one hour a day, perhaps two," he said. "Your grandfather was a wise
man."

Toward spring, Mills, western manager of the publishing house for which
Scarborough had sold Peaks of Progress through Michigan, came to Battle
Field to see him.

"You were far and away the best man we had out last year," said he.
"You're a born book agent."

"Thank you," said Scarborough, sincerely. He appreciated that a man
can pay no higher compliment than to say that another is master of his
own trade.

"We got about fifty orders from people who thought it over after you'd
tried to land them and failed--that shows the impression you mad