In the year 1901, which is the period of this story, the enrolment in all departments at Erskine was close to six hundred students.  The freshman class, as had been the case for many years past, was the largest in the history of the college.  It numbered 180; but of this number we are at present chiefly interested in only two; and these two, at the moment when this chapter begins—­which, to be exact, is eight o’clock of the evening of the twenty-fourth day of September in the year above mentioned—­were busily at work in a first-floor study in the boarding-house of Mrs. Curtis on Elm Street.

It were perhaps more truthful to say that one was busily at work and the other was busily advising and directing.  Neil Fletcher stood on a small table, which swayed perilously from side to side at his every movement, and drove nails into an already much mutilated wall.  Paul Gale sat in a hospitable armchair upholstered in a good imitation of green leather and nodded approval.

“That’ll do for ‘Old Abe’; now hang The First Snow a bit to the left and underneath.”

“The First Snow hasn’t any wire on it,” complained Neil.  “See if you can’t find some.”

“Wire’s all gone,” answered Paul.  “We’ll have to get some more.  Where’s that list?  Oh, here it is.  ‘Item, picture wire.’  I say, what in thunder’s this you’ve got down—­’Ring for waistband’?”

“Rug for wash-stand, you idiot!  I guess we’ll have to quit until we get some more wire, eh?  Or we might hang a few of them with boot-laces and neckties?”

“Oh, let’s call it off.  I’m tired,” answered Paul with a grin.  “The room begins to look rather decent, doesn’t it?  We must change that couch, though; put it the other way so the ravelings won’t show.  And that picture of—­”

But just here Neil attempted to step from the table and landed in a heap on the floor, and Paul forgot criticism in joyful applause.

“Oh, noble work!  Do it again, old man; I didn’t see the take-off!”

But Neil refused, and plumping himself into a wicker rocking-chair that creaked complainingly, rubbed the dust from his hands to his trousers and looked about the study approvingly.

“We’re going to be jolly comfy here, Paul,” he said.  “Mrs. Curtis is going to get a new globe for that fixture over there.”

[Illustration]

“Then we will be,” said Paul.  “And if she would only find us a towel-rack that didn’t fall into twelve separate pieces like a Chinese puzzle every time a chap put a towel on it we’d be simply reveling in luxury.”

“I think I can fix that thing with string,” answered Neil.  “Or we might buy one of those nickel-plated affairs that you screw into the wall.”

“The sort that always dump the towels on to the floor, you mean?  Yes, we might.  Of course, they’re of no practical value judged as towel-racks, but they’re terribly ornamental.  You know we had one in the bath-room at the beach.  Remember?  When you got through your bath and groped round for the towel it was always lying on the floor just out of reach.”