s
hands under his head and one foot sprawled on the floor, and Joe
Ingersoll was in the other, his slim, white-trousered legs jack-knifed
against the darker square of the open window. Near Joe, his feet tucked
sociably against Joe's ribs, Steve Chapman, the third of the trio,
reclined in a Morris chair. I use the word reclined advisedly, for Steve
had lowered the back of the chair to its last notch, and to say that he
was sitting would require a stretch of the imagination almost as long as
Steve himself! Through the windows Steve could see the dark masses of
the campus elms, an occasional star between the branches, and, by
raising his head the fraction of an inch, the lights in the upper story
of Hawthorne, across the yard. Somewhere under the trees outside a group
of fellows were singing to the accompaniment of a wailing ukelele. They
sang softly, so that the words floated gently up to the open casements
just distinguishable:

"_Years may come and years may go,
Seasons ebb and seasons flow,
Autumn lie 'neath Winters' snow,
Spring bring Summer verdancy.
Life may line our brow with care,
Time to silver turn our hair,
Still, to us betide whate'er,
Dexter, we'll remember thee!_

"_Other memories may fade,
Hopes grow dim in ev'ning's shade,
Golden friendships that we made_--"

"Aw, shut up!" muttered Perry, breaking the silence that had held them
for several minutes. Joe Ingersoll laughed softly.

"You don't seem to like the efforts of the--um--sweet-voiced
choristers," he said in his slow way.

"I don't like the sob-stuff," replied Perry resentfully. "What's the use
of rubbing it in? Why not let a fellow be cheerful after he has got
through by the skin of his teeth and kicked his books under the bed?
Gosh, some folks never want anyone to be happy!" He raised himself by
painful effort and peered out and down into the gloom. "Sophs, I'll
bet," he murmured, falling back again on the cushions. "No one else
would sit out here on the grass and sing school songs two days before
the end. I hope that idiot singing second bass will get a brown-tail
caterpillar down his neck!"

"The end!" observed Steve Chapman. "You say that as if we were all going
to die the day after tomorrow, Perry! Cheer up! Vacation's coming!"

"Vacation be blowed!" responded Perry. "What's that amount to, anyway?
Nothing ever happens to me in vacation. It's all well eno