Will was irritated that Hawley should take the matter in such a light way and said half-angrily, “Do you suppose he’ll be hauled up before the faculty?”

“Not unless they hear of it,” laughed Hawley, “and I don’t believe they will.”

“Tell us about the game,” interrupted Foster.

“My story is short and not very sweet,” retorted Hawley grimly, glancing at his arm as he spoke.

“How did that happen?”

“Nobody knows.  It’s done and that’s all there is to it.  I’m out of the game for the rest of this season.”

“That’s too bad.  Did Alden really have such a tremendous team?”

“Look at the score.  You know what that was, don’t you?”

“Yes, I heard.  Come on, Will.  We’d better be in bed.  We’ll get Hawley to tell us all about the game some other time.  Come on.”

The two freshmen at once departed, but when they were in their own room it was not the lost game which was uppermost in their minds and conversation, but the fall of Peter John.  And when at last they sought their beds it was with the conviction that Peter John himself would seek them out within a day or two and try to explain how it was that his downfall had occurred.  This, they thought, would give them the opportunity they desired, and if the faculty did not discover the matter and take action of their own then they might be able to say or do something to recall Peter John to himself.

On the following day, however, their classmate did not appear, and in the days that followed he did not once come to their room.  Mott they had seen, but he had only laughed lightly when he met them and made no reference to the ride he had taken in their taxi.

“I don’t believe Peter John knows that we know anything about what happened on his trip,” said Foster thoughtfully one day.

“What makes him keep away from us all the time, then?”

“That’s so.  Probably his conscience isn’t in the best of condition.  You don’t suppose he’s waiting for us to make the first move, do you?”

“I don’t know.”

“I hate to leave the fellow to himself,” said Foster.  “He’ll go to the dogs as sure as you’re born if he is.”

“If he isn’t there already.”

“Well, if he’s there we must help to get him out.”

“You’re the one to do it, Foster.  You aren’t working up your Greek.”

Will had been working with even greater intensity than before and was beginning to see the results of his labors.  With his disposition there was no comparative degree.  Everything was at one extreme or the other and now he was giving himself but little rest and even Peter John’s disgrace was not so keenly felt by him as at the time when it had occurred.

“I think I’ll have to do something,” assented Foster, “or at least try to.”

But on the following day an excitement broke out among the students at Winthrop that speedily and completely banished from the minds of Will and Foster even their well-intended efforts to aid their weak and misguided classmate.