Left Tackle Thayer | Page 5

certainly do congratulate
you!"
Amy made another grab at Clint's hand, but the latter foiled him.
"You mean the fellow I'm going to room with?" he asked.
"Exactly! Faculty has indeed been good to you, Clint. You will take up
your abode with a youth in whom all the virtues and--and
excellencies--"
"Who is he?" demanded Clint suspiciously.
"His name"--Amy drew close and dropped his voice to an awed and
thrilling whisper--"his name is--Are you prepared?"
"Go on. Ill try to stand it."
"His name, then, is Amory Munson Byrd!"
"Amory Mun--"
"--son Byrd!"
"You mean--I'm in with you?"

"I mean just that, O fortunate youth! Forward, sir! Allow me to conduct
you to your apartment!" And, putting his arm through Clint's, he
dragged that astonished youth into dormitory.

CHAPTER II
CAPTAIN INNES RECEIVES
"What's that awful noise?" asked Clint startledly, looking up from his
book.
It was the evening of the second day of school and Clint and Amy Byrd
were preparing lessons at opposite sides of the green-topped table in
Number 14 Torrence.
"That," replied Amy, leaning back until his chair protested and viewing
his room-mate under the shade of the drop-light, "is music."
"Music!" Clint listened incredulously. From the next room, by way of
opened windows and transoms, came the most lugubrious wails he
thought he had ever listened to. "It--it's a fiddle, isn't it?" he demanded.
Amy nodded. "More respectfully, a violin. More correctly a viol-_din._
(The joke is not new.) What you are listening to with such evident
delight are the sweet strains of Penny Durkin's violin." Amy looked at
the alarm clock which decorated a corner of his chiffonier. "Penny is
twelve minutes ahead of time. He's not supposed to play during
study-hour, you see, and unless I'm much mistaken he will be so
informed before the night is much--"
"_Hey, Penny! Cut it out, old top_!"
From somewhere down the corridor the anguished wail floated,
followed an instant later by sounds counterfeiting the howling of an
unhappy dog. Threats and pleas mingled.
"Penny! For the love of Mike!"

"Set your watch back, Penny!"
"Shut up, you idiot! Study's not over!"
"Call an officer, please!"
But Pennington Durkin was making too much noise on his instrument
to hear the remonstrances at first, and it was not until some impatient
neighbour sallied forth and pounded frantically at the portal of Number
13 that the wailing ceased. Then,
"What is it?" asked Durkin mildly.
"It's only ten minutes to nine, Penny. Your clock's fast again. Shut up
or we'll kill you!"
"Oh!" said Penny surprisedly. "Are you sure? I set my watch--"
"Oh, forget it! You say that every night," was the wearied response.
"How the dickens do you think anyone's going to study with that noise
going on?"
"I'm very sorry, really," responded Penny, "If I'd known--"
"You never do know, Penny!" The youth outside strode back to his
room and slammed the door and quiet prevailed once more. Amy
smiled.
"Poor Penny," he said. "He suffers much in the cause of Art. I refuse to
study any more. Close up shop, Clint, and let's talk. Now that you've
been with us a whole day, what do you think of us? Do you approve of
this institution of learning, old man?"
"I think I'm going to like it," replied Clint soberly.
"I do hope so," murmured Amy anxiously. "Still, any little changes
you'd like made--"
"Well, you asked me, didn't you?" laughed Clint. "Besides, how can I

help but like it when I am honoured by being roomed with you?"
"Sarcasm!" hissed Amy. "Time's up!" He slammed his book shut,
tossed it on a pile at his elbow, yawned and jumped from his chair.
"Let's go visiting. What do you say? Come along and I'll interdoodle
you to some of our prominent criminals. Find your cap and follow me."
"I wish," said Amy, as they clattered down the stairs in the wake of
several other boys who had lingered no longer than they after nine
o'clock had struck, "I wish you had made the Fifth Form, Clint."
"So do I," was the reply. "I could have if they'd stretched a point."
"Um; yes," mused the other. "Stretched a point. Now that's something I
never could make out, Clint."
"What!"
"Why, how you can stretch a point. The dictionary describes a point as
'that which has position but no magnitude.' Seems to me it must be very
difficult to get hold of a thing with no magnitude, and, of course, you'd
have to get hold of it to stretch it, wouldn't you? Now, if you said
stretch a line or stretch a circle--"
"That's what you'll need if you don't shut up," laughed Clint.
"A circle?"
"No, a stretcher!"
"What a horrible pun," mourned Amy. "Say, suppose we