he entered the room.

The Captain was stern and cutting. He wasted few words in inquiry,
still fewer in expostulation.

"You're one of the boys it's no use talking to," he said, almost
scornfully. "You'll be glad to hear I'm not going to talk to you. I'm
going to thrash you."

And that beautiful holiday morning George Heathcote was thrashed in a
manner which hurt and startled him.

He fled from the Captain's presence, sore both in body and mind. But,
strange to say, his chief wrath was reserved not for the Captain, but
for Dick. His mind, once poisoned, contrived to connect Dick with every
calamity that came upon him. And it enraged him to think that at this
moment, while he was smarting under the penalty of a straightforward
honest breach of rules, inflicted by a senior whose chief quarrel with
him was that he had had the pluck to stay away from levee, Dick was
reaping the benefit of his toadyism and basking in the sunshine of the
powers that were.

Pledge, as might be expected, did nothing to discourage this feeling.
He was not a bit surprised. He had expected it, and he knew equally
well it was but the beginning of a settled programme. Heathcote had
better not keep up the contest. He had better knuckle under at once, as
Dick had done, and enjoy a quiet time. Or, if he must break rules, let
him remember that fellows could lie, and cheat, and sneak in Templeton,
and never once be interfered with by the holy monitors; but when once
they took to walking on the roofs--why, where could they expect to go to
when they descended to such a depth of wickedness as that?

Heathcote spend a miserable afternoon, letting his misfortune and
Pledge's words rankle in his breast till he hated the very name of Dick
and goodness.

In due time the three fishers returned that evening tired with their
hard day's work, and bronzed with the sun and breeze.

Dick looked serious and anxious as he followed his seniors into the
Quadrangle, carrying the ulsters and the empty luncheon basket.

"Ah," thought Heathcote, as he watched him from a retired nook, "he's
ashamed of himself. He well may be."

The two seniors turned in at Westover's door, leaving Dick to continue
his walk alone.

Now was Heathcote's time. Emerging from his corner he put his hands
carelessly in his pockets and advanced to meet his former friend,
whistling a jaunty tune.

He was half afraid Dick might not see him, but Dick had a quick eye for
a friend