mind. He had just left the laboratory where one
of those little accidents that:all chemists become
acquainted with spoiled about two day's work and
damaged some valuable apparatus. Unfortunate
ly Mr. Johns the trainer was also irritated from
overwork and the tremendous strain and anxiety
that the fast approaching event had put upon him.
It was like rubbing two match heads together and
the consequence was a flare up. Hammer confident
of himself thought he could ease up on hts hard
work from now till the end of the week, but the
trainer had other ideas and ordered •him to do a
mile on time before he left the track for the day.
This Jack refused to do, words followed, and the
result was that he left the track shaking the dust
from his feet and that night celebrated the fact of
his breaking training by a grand treat to ice
cream for a small coterie of friends.
It was Tuesday afternoon just before supper that
the conversation with which the story opens took
place. Sufficient time had elapsed for some of the
anger to cool down and Harry Keene who had been
watching his chance, started to argue with .his
chum and show him the foolishness of his posi
tion: It was a fruitless task, and instead of listen
ing to common sense Jack flared up again and
stalked off to his room as we have seen. At the
supper table he was very uncommunicative
though the boys studiously avoided any talk that
might irritate him • further. Without joining in
the usual post prandial loaf on the veranda which
had become a custom fixed as the laws of the
Medes and Persians at the chapter house, he
trudged upstairs and locking his own door tried
to absorb himself in the next days recitations.-
But it was of no use; the reactions of the Besse•
mer converter become more mixed up and tangled
the more he studied, while PV=RT was a "will
o'the wisp" that danced before him and led him
through such mathematical swamps and bogs that
he tossed the book into the corner. To tell the -
truth, he was beginning to feel that after all his
course might have been the least bit foolish and
for the sake-of the 'Varsity he really felt sorry
THE FREE LANCE.
that he had acted the way he did. It was con
science starting to bring the prodigal back. Yet
he would almost die rather than yield now that
he had resisted so long. Finding study impossi
ble, he began to dress feverishly and in about fif
teen minutes he was off down street to the other
end of town in search of consolation.
Now this consolation was of a peculiar kind.
It was alive and furthermore a human being, or to
be more plain it was pretty Miss Carrie Archibald
the daughter of Dr. Archibald, one of the promi
nent physicians of the town. Ever since the Fall
term of his Freshman year when that sweet face
and those soft dark eyes had been among the few
that did not look down upon his verdancy; there
had been a warm friendship between them which
had developed on the one hand into *a love deep,
strong and inspiring and. on the other, what ?
That was the question Jack asked' himself as he
walked, but even that could not drive away the
unrest under which he'was laboring.
"Yes. Miss Archibald is home this evening.
She is in the library. Won't you just step in
there." Jack push%.d aside the portieres, and the
one that was all the world to him rose radiant and
smiling to greet him.
"It was so good of you to conic this evening,
Jack—Mr. Hammer. I felt lonely and needed
company, and then do you know I heard some
thing to-day about you that I didn't believe at all,
Madge Graham told me that it was all over•town
you were not going to •run on Saturday, but I
said that it wasn't true and was not going ..to
have her say things like that about my friends."
She looked up at him as they were standing 'there
just inside the curtains with such a trusting, Con
fident air that a pang of almost physical pain shot
through him and his brain seemed to swim, waver
and almosi resolve to - apologize to Mr. Johns, but
then his pride rose up•ciild and strong and choked
him back into submission; Olcourse she noticed
the rapid . 'change of countenance and the hard, •
forbidding look that settled on his face.••
"Why what's the matter," she said' laughingly...