"I got in after hours last night, sir," reported Tom quietly, though he resented the man's manner.

"Ha! So I was informed by the watchman." He looked at Tom antagonistically. "Well," he snapped, "why don't you continue? There's more, isn't there?"

"Not that I know of," replied Tom calmly. "I had permission to go to town, but I got in late, that's all."

"Oh, is it? What about the student who was with you? Wasn't there some one with you?"

"Yes, sir."

"And didn't he engage in a fight with the watchman, and, taking advantage of a mean trick, sneak to his room? Didn't he, I ask you?"

"I presume the watchman has correctly informed you of what happened."

Tom's voice was coldly indifferent now, and the proctor recognized that fact.

"He did," he snapped. "And you know of it, too. I expected you to tell me that."

"Since when has it been a college rule," asked Tom, "to confess to the doings of another student? I thought that all that was required of me was to report my own infraction of the rules."

Tom knew that he was right and that the proctor had no authority to ask him concerning the doings of Langridge, and the proctor knew that he himself was in the wrong, which knowledge, shared as it was by a student, did not add to his good temper.

"Then you refuse to say who was with you?" he snapped, his eyes fixed on Tom's face.

"I certainly refuse to inform on a fellow student, Mr. Zane," was Tom's answer, "and I don't think you have any right to ask me to do so."

If he had stopped with his first half of the reply all might have been well, for certainly the proctor did not expect Tom or any other student to be a tale-bearer, though he always asked them to speak in order to make more easy his own task. But to be practically defied, and by a freshman, was too much for the official, who had a certain dignity of which he was proud.

"Ha!" he exclaimed, "you are impertinent, Parsons."

"I didn't so intend, sir."

"Ha! I don't have to be informed of my rights by you. I know them. You will write me out two hundred lines of Virgil by to-morrow afternoon and you will stand suspended for two weeks, with absolutely no privileges regarding athletics or going away from college!"

It was a hard sentence under any circ.u.mstances. It was an unjust one in Tom's case, and he knew it. Yet what could he do?

"Very well, sir," he replied, trying to overcome a certain trembling feeling in his throat, and he turned to go.

"If," went on the proctor in a slightly more conciliatory voice, "you think better of your resolution and let me know the name of the student who so outrageously a.s.saulted the watchman, I may find it possible to mitigate your punishment. Mind, I am not asking you to inform me in an ordinary case of breaking the rules, but for an extraordinary infraction.

The watchman has a badly injured leg. So, if you wish to inform me later, I will be glad to hear from you."

"I shall not change my mind," said Tom simply.

"Nor I mine," added the proctor, jerking out the words quickly.

Tom turned on his heel and left the room.

CHAPTER XXII

DARK DAYS

Sid was waiting for Tom outside the proctor's office.

"Well?" he asked eagerly as his chum appeared, but it needed only a look at the downcast face to tell that it was not "well" but "ill."

"Rusticated!" exclaimed Tom.

"For how long?"

"Two weeks."

"On your own account, or----"

"Mainly because I wouldn't tell, I guess. Being out late just once isn't so monstrous."

"Of course not. Still you couldn't tell."

"Certainly not. It's tough, though. Suspended twice in the first term! I wonder what dad and the girls'll say."

"Don't tell 'em."

"Oh, I'll have to, but I guess they'll understand."

"It certainly is rocky," admitted Sid, "but, do you know, I envy you a bit. It's getting mighty hard in cla.s.s now. I have to bone away like a Trojan. Pitchfork has it in for me on Latin. I wish I had a vacation."

"Without baseball?" asked Tom.

"N-o--no, of course not without being on the team. But two weeks are soon over."

"Not soon enough," and Tom darted away.

"Where you going?"

"Back and study. I can't afford to fall behind in my work."

"My, but aren't you the grinder, though!" exclaimed Sid, but there was something of envy in his tone for all that. He went into recitation, while Tom continued on to their common room. He was walking along the path that led past Booker Memorial Chapel and paused for a moment to admire the effect of the early sun shining through a stained gla.s.s window. The combination of colors was perfect, and Tom, as he stood and looked at a depiction of a biblical scene which represented the Good Samaritan ministering to the stranger, felt somehow that it was a role that he himself had had a part in.

Then came a revulsion of feeling.

"Oh, pshaw! You're getting sentimental in your old age!" he exclaimed half aloud. "You've got to have your share of hard knocks in this world, and you've got to take what comes. But it's queer," he went on in his self-communing, "how Langridge seems to be getting mixed up with me.

This is twice I've had to suffer on his account. I'd like--yes, hang it all, what's the use of pretending to yourself--I'd like to take it out of him--in some way. It's not fair--that's what!"

The thought of Langridge brought another sort of musing to Tom. He saw a certain fair face, with pouting lips and bright, dancing eyes, a face framed in a fluffy ma.s.s of hair, and he fancied he could hear a little laugh, a mocking little laugh.

"Worse and worse," growled Tom to himself. "You're getting dopy. Better go take a long walk."