. Hands on your bottles! Open--_corks_! And away we go."
The party drank in silence.

"Do you begin to improve, James? There is a trace of a smile in the
left-hand corner of the patient's mouth. Ruffle up his hair and give him
another while we have him going!"

Someone started a song, and they had another drink to punctuate the
pause between verses. A ruddier shade was creeping towards the roots of
Pellams' hair; Lyman, who smiled but seldom, was grinning across the
table at a Sophomore trying to flip cracker crumbs into his mouth.

"This is a tryout," said Pellams. "The first man that balks at his beer
will drink raspberry chasers for a month. Hey! look at 'Nosey' Marion
trying to shirk!"

Sure enough, Marion, who tried to keep up a reputation for capacity with
a naturally slim endowment, was slyly pouring his last potion into an
empty beer-case behind him. They fell upon the offender forthwith,
whipped him into the ranks again, and resumed their seats, laughing and
panting.

"And now that our erring brother is punished and forgiven--that's as
good a phrase as I ever saw--punished and forgiven--stick that in the
Sequoia, Pegasus"--Pellams rambled on, "we've got to have the motif. I
move from the chair that the guest of the evening gives us 'My Old
Kentucky Home!' Punish your glass and tune up, Jimmie!"

The cry went on until Jimmie had to respond. He began with the intention
of singing it quite carelessly, because there was much in his soul that
night that he dared not show before them all; but Jimmie had the gift of
song in his heart as in his voice, and he threw himself into the music
before the first stanza was half done. Only once before had he sung the
song as he did to-night; it was at last Commencement, when he sang it
for the Seniors going out on their adventures, and when he was done they
had all been still and quiet like men who have seen ghosts--as perhaps
they had, that night, the phantoms of men and times haunting certain
low, arched buildings they were to see no more.

"Then my old Kentucky home, good-night!"

Jimmie's tender baritone floated up from the table wistfully sweet, and
shaken a little with feeling, for the trouble of the week just past was
sweeping into it. Lyman, listening, knew of what place the boy was
singing, and mentally noted that he had better be thoughtful of the
youngster during the rest of the term.

The fellows were quiet for a moment after they had droned out the
ch