“When are you going to get out that book of poetry?”

“What book is that, Tom?”

“Why, as if you didn’t know!  Didn’t you tell me that you were going to get up a volume of ’Original International Poems for the Grave and Gay;’ five hundred pages, fully illustrated; and bound in full leather, with title in gold, and “Tom, Tom, now please stop your fooling!” pleaded Songbird, his face flushing.  “Just because I write a poem now and then doesn’t say that I am going to publish a book.”

“No, but I’m sure you will some day, and you’ll make a fortune out of it—­ or fifteen dollars, anyway.”

“The same old Tom!” cried a merry voice, and another student clapped the fun-loving Rover on the shoulder.  “I do believe you would rather joke than eat!”

“Not on your life, Spud! and I’ll prove it to you right now!” and linking his arm through that of Will Jackson, otherwise “Spud,” Tom led the way to one of the tables, with Sam and several of the other students following.

“What is on the docket for to-night?” asked Songbird, as he fell to eating.

“Tom and I are going to take a little run in the auto to Hope,” answered Sam.

“Oh, I see!” Songbird Powell shut one eye knowingly.  “Going up there to see the teachers, I suppose!”

“Sure, that is what they always do!” came from Spud, with a wink.

“Sour grapes, Spud!” laughed Sam.  “You would go there yourself if you had half a chance.”

“Yes, and Songbird would want to go along, too, if we were bound for the Sanderson cottage,” put in Tom.  “You see, in Songbird’s eyes, Minnie Sanderson is just the nicest girl——­”

“Now stop it, Tom, can’t you!” pleaded poor Songbird, growing decidedly red in the face.  “Miss Sanderson is only a friend of mine, and you know it.”

Just at that moment the students at the table were interrupted by the approach of a tall, dudish-looking individual, who wore a reddish-brown suit, cut in the most up-to-date fashion, and who sported patent-leather shoes, and a white carnation in his buttonhole.  The newcomer took a vacant chair, sitting down with a flourish.

“I’ve had a most delightful ramble, don’t you know,” he lisped, looking around at the others.  “I have been through the sylvan woods and by the babbling brook, and have——­”

“Great Caesar’s tombstone!” exclaimed Tom, looking at the newcomer critically.  “Why, my dearly beloved William Philander, you don’t mean to say that you have been delving through the shadowy nooks, and playing with the babbling brook, in that outfit?”

“Oh, dear, no, Tom!” responded William Philander Tubbs.  “I had another suit on, the one with the green stripe, don’t you know,—­ the one I had made last September—­ or maybe it was in October, I can’t really remember.  But you must know the suit, don’t you?”

“Sure!  I remember the suit.  The green-striped one with the faded-out blue dots and the red diamond check in the corner.  Isn’t that the same suit you took down to the pawnbroker’s last Wednesday night at fifteen minutes past seven and asked him to loan you two dollars and a half on it, and the pawnbroker wanted to know if the suit was your own?”