caught up like that I'm
wondering all the time why everybody doesn't get up and run out of the
room."

"But I assure you," Mark persisted, "that little things like that--"

"Little things like that!" Emmett interrupted furiously. "It's all very
well for you, Lidderdale, to talk about little things like that. If you
had a tongue like mine which seems to get bigger instead of smaller
every year, you'd feel very differently."

"But people always grow out of stammering," Mark pointed out.

"Thanks very much," said Emmett bitterly, "but where shall I be by the
time I've grown out of it? You don't suppose I shall win this
scholarship, do you, after they've seen me gibbering and mouthing at
them like that? But if only I could manage somehow to get to Oxford I
should have a chance of being ordained, and--" he broke off, perhaps
unwilling to embarrass his rival by any more lamentations.

"Do forget about this evening," Mark begged, "and come up to my room and
have a talk before you turn in."

"No, thanks very much," said Emmett. "I must sit up and do some work.
We've got that general knowledge paper to-morrow morning."

"But you won't be able to acquire much more general knowledge in one
evening," Mark protested.

"I might," said Emmett darkly. "I noticed a Whitaker's almanack in the
rooms I have. My only chance to get this scholarship is to do really
well in my papers; and though I know it's no good and that this is my
last chance, I'm not going to neglect anything that could possibly help.
I've got a splendid memory for statistics, and if they'll only ask a few
statistics in the general knowledge paper I may have some luck
to-morrow. Good-night, Lidderdale, I'm sorry to have inflicted myself on
you like this."

Emmett hurried away up the staircase leading to his room and left his
rival standing on the moonlit grass of the quadrangle. Mark was turning
toward his own staircase when he heard a window open above and Emmett's
voice:

"I've found another Whitaker of the year before," it proclaimed. "I'll
read that, and you'd better read this year's. If by any chance I did win
this scholarship, I shouldn't like to think I'd taken an unfair
advantage of you, Lidderdale."

"Thanks very much, Emmett," said Mark. "But I think I'll have a shot at
getting to bed early."

"Ah, you're not worrying," said Emmett gloomily, retiring from the
window.

When Mark was sitting by the fire in his room and thinking over the
dinner w