like the rest of you, I know; and don’t need Dud Fielding to tell me. But just let me get a good start and I’ll show folks what Dan Dolan can do. I’ll be ready for something better than a newsboy or a bootblack.”

“O Dan, you’ll never be anything like that!” said Freddy, in dismay.

“I have been,” was the frank reply. “Given many a good shine for a nickel. Could sell more papers than any little chap on the street. Was out before day on winter mornings to get them hot from the press, when I hadn’t turned seven years old. But I ain’t going back to it,—no, sir!” Dan’s lips set themselves firmly. “I’m on the climb. Maybe I won’t get very far, but I’ve got my foot on the ladder. I’m going to hold my own against Dud Fielding and all his kind, no matter how they push; and I told Father Rector that yesterday when they were plastering up Dud’s eye and nose.”

“O Dan, you didn’t!”

“Yes, I did. I was just boiling up, and had to bust out, I guess. And when he lectured us about being gentlemen, I told him I didn’t aim at anything like that. I wasn’t made for it, as I knew; but I was made to be a man, and I was going to hold up like one, and stand no shoving.”

“O Dan!” gasped Freddy, breathlessly. “And—and what did he say?”

“Nothing,” answered Dan, grimly. “But from the looks of things, I rather guess I’m in for a ticket of leave. That’s why I’m up here. Couldn’t go off without seeing you,—telling you how sorry I was I let you get that fall off my shoulders. I oughtn’t to have dared a kid like you to fool-tricks like that. I was a big dumb-head, and I’d like to kick myself for it. For I think more of you than any other boy in the college, little or big,—I surely do. And I’ve brought you something, so when I’m gone you won’t forget me.”

And Dan dived into his pocket and brought out a round disk of copper about the size of a half dollar. It was rimmed with some foreign crest, and name and date.

“An old sailor man gave it to me,” said Dan, as he reached over to Freddy’s bed and handed him the treasure. “He was a one-legged old chap that used to sit down on the wharf sort of dazed and batty, until the boys roused him by pelting and hooting at him; and then he’d fire back curse words at them that would raise your hair. It was mean of them, for he was old and lame and sick; and one day I just lit out a couple of measly little chaps and ducked them overboard for their sass. After that we were sort of friends, me and old ‘Nutty,’ as everyone called him. I’d buy tobacco and beer for him, and give him an old paper now and then; and when he got down and out for good Aunt Win made me go for the priest for him and see him through. He gave me this at the last. He had worn it on a string around his neck, and seemed to think it was something grand. It’s a medal for bravery that the poor old chap had won more than forty years ago. Ben Wharton offered me a dollar for it to put in his museum, but I wouldn’t sell it. It seemed sort of mean to sell poor old Nutty’s medal. But I’d like to give it to you, so you’ll remember me when I’ve gone.”

“Oh, but you’re not—not going away, Dan!” said Freddy. “And I can’t take your medal, anyhow. I’d remember you without it. You’re the best chum I ever had,—the very best. And—and—”

The speaker broke off, stammering; for a second visitor had suddenly appeared at his bedside: Father Regan who had entered the infirmary unheard and unseen, and who now stood with his eyes fixed in grave displeasure on the daring Dan.

“Dan Dolan!” said Father Regan, as the reckless interloper flushed and paled beneath his steady gaze.

“Dan Dolan!” echoed Brother Tim, who had come in behind his honored visitor. “How ever did he get past me! I’ve been saying my beads at the door without this half hour.”

“Swung in by Old Top,” ventured Dan, feeling concealment was vain.

“You dared Old Top at this height, when scarcely a bough is sound! You must be mad, boy. It is God’s mercy that you did not break your neck. Don’t you know the tree is unsafe?”

“Yes, Father,” answered Dan. “But—but I had to see Freddy again, and they wouldn’t let me come up. I just had to see him, if it killed me.”

And there was a sudden break in the young voice that startled his hearer. But a glance at the dizzy and forbidden height of Old Top and Father Regan was stern again.

“Why did you have to see him, if it killed you?” he asked briefly.

“Because I wanted to tell how bad I felt about letting him get hurt, because—because he has been better to me than any boy in the school, because—because—” (again Dan’s tone grew husky) “I just had to bid Freddy good-bye.”

“O Father, no, no!” Freddy burst out tremulously. “Don’t let him say good-bye! Don’t send Dan away, Father, please! He won’t fight any more, will you, Dan?”

“I am not promising that,” answered Dan, sturdily. “I won’t stand shoving and knocking, not even to keep my place here.”

“O Dan!” cried Freddy, in dismay at such an assertion. “Why, you said you would work day and night to stay at Saint Andrew’s!”

“Work, yes,” replied Dan, gruffly. “I don’t mind work, but I won’t ever play lickspittle.”

“And is that the way ye’d be talking before his reverence?” broke in Brother Tim, indignantly. “Get out of the infirmary this minute, Dan Dolan; for it’s the devil’s own pride that is on yer lips and in yer heart, God forgive me for saying it.”

“We’ll settle this later,” said Father Regan, quietly. “Go down to my study, Dan, and wait for me. I have a message for Freddy from his uncle.”

“O Dan, Dan!” (There was a sob in the younger boy’s voice as he felt all this parting might mean.) “I’ll—I’ll miss you dreadfully, Dan!”

“Don’t!” said Dan, gripping his little comrade’s hand. “I ain’t worth missing. I’m glad I came, anyhow, to say good-bye and good-luck, Freddy!” And he turned away at the words, with something shining in his blue eyes that Father Regan knew was not all defiance.

It was a long wait in the study. Dan had plenty of time to think, and his thoughts were not very cheerful. He felt he had lost his chance,—the chance that had been to him like the sudden opening of a gate in the grim stone wall of circumstances that had surrounded him,—a gate beyond which stretched free, sunlit paths to heights of which he had never dreamed. He had lost his chance; for a free scholarship at Saint Andrew’s depended on good conduct and observance of rules as well as study; and Dan felt he had doubly and trebly forfeited his claim. But he would not whine. Perhaps it was only the plucky spirit of the street Arab that filled his breast, perhaps something stronger and nobler that steadied his lip and kindled his eye, as he looked around the spacious, book-lined room, and realized all that he was losing—had lost. For Dan loved his books,—the hard-earned scholarship proved it. Many a midnight hour had found him, wrapped in his worn blankets, studying by the light of a flaring candle-end stuck perilously on his bedpost, after good Aunt Win had thriftily put out the lamp, and believed Danny was sound asleep preparatory to a start on his beat at break of day.

“One of the brightest, clearest, quickest minds I ever knew,” Dan’s teacher had told Father Regan when awarding the scholarship,—“if he can