first.  It might have been an hour later that he got up and went to his desk and sat down in the fading light, his hands deep in his trousers pockets; his athletic young figure dropped together listlessly; his eyes staring at the desk where had worked away so many cheerful hours.  Pictures hung around it; there was a group taken last summer of girls and boys at his home in the country, the girl was in it—­he did not look at her.  His father’s portrait stood on the desk, and a painting of his long-dead mother.  He thought to himself hotly that it was good she was dead rather than see him shamed.  For the wound was throbbing with a fever, and the boy had not got to a sense of proportion; his future seemed blackened.  His father’s picture stabbed him; he was a “Bones” man—­all of his family—­his grandfather, and the older brothers who had graduated four and six years ago—­all of them.  Except himself.  The girl had thought it such a disgrace that she would not look at him!  Then he grew angry.  It wasn’t decent, to hit a man when he was down.  A woman ought to be gentle—­if his mother had been alive—­but then he was glad she wasn’t.  With that a sob shook him—­startled him.  Angrily he stood up and glared about the place.  This wouldn’t do; he must pull himself together.  He walked up and down the little living room, bright with boys’ belongings, with fraternity shields and flags and fencing foils and paddles and pictures; he walked up and down and he whistled “Dunderbeck,” which somehow was in his head.  Then he was singing it: 

“Oh Dunderbeck, Oh Dunderbeck, how could you be so mean As even to have thought of such a terrible machine!  For bob-tailed rats and pussy-cats shall never more be seen; They’ll all be ground to sausage-meat in Dunderbeck’s machine.”

There are times when Camembert cheese is a steadying thing to think of—­or golf balls.  “Dunderbeck” answered for John McLean.  It appeared difficult to sing, however—­he harked back to whistling.  Then the clear piping broke suddenly.  He bit his lower lip and went and sat down before the desk again and turned on the electric reading-lamp.  Now he had given in long enough; now he must face the situation; now was the time to find if there was any backbone in him to “buck up.”  To fool those chaps by amounting to something.  There was good stuff in this boy that he applied this caustic and not a salve.  His buoyant lightheartedness whispered that the fellows made mistakes; that he was only one of many good chaps left; that Dick Harding had a pull and Jim Stanton had an older brother—­excuses came.  But the boy checked them.

“That’s not the point; I didn’t make it; I didn’t deserve it; I’ve been easy on myself; I’ve got to change; so some day my people won’t be ashamed of me—­maybe.”  Slowly, painfully, he fought his way to a tentative self-respect.  He might not ever be anything big, a power as his father was, but he could be a hard worker, he could make a place.  A few days