Hickey, disillusionised and shocked, went glumly down the brownstone steps of Memorial and slowly about the green circle, resisting the shouted invitations to tarry under the nourishing apple trees.

He felt in him an imperative need to strike back, to instantly break some rule of the tyranny that encompassed him. With this heroic intention he walked nonchalantly up the main street to the jigger-shop, which no underformer may enter until after four. As he approached the forbidden haunt, suddenly the figure of Mr. Lorenzo Blackstone Tapping, the young assistant housemaster at the Dickinson, more popularly known as "Tabby," rolled up on a bicycle.

"Humph, Hicks!" said at once Mr. Tapping with a suspicious glance at the jigger-shop directly opposite, "how do you happen to be here out of hours?"

"Please, sir," said Hickey glibly, "I've got a nail that's sticking into my foot. I was just going to Bill Orum's to get it fixed."

"Humph!" Mr. Tapping gave him a searching look, hesitated and mounting his wheel continued, unconvinced.

"He looked back," said Hickey wrathfully, peering through the misty windows of the cobbler's shop. Then smarting at the injury, he added, "He didn't believe me—the sneak!"

It was a second reminder of the tyranny he lived under. He waited a moment, found the coast clear and flashed across to the jigger-shop. Half drugstore, half confectioner's, the jigger-shop was the property of Doctor Furnell, whose chief interest in life consisted in a devotion to the theory of the millennium, to the lengthy expounding of which an impoverished boy would sometimes listen in the vain hope of establishing a larger credit. On every-day occasions the shop was under the charge of "Al," a creature without heart or pity, who knew the exact financial status of each of the four hundred odd boys, even to the amount and date of his allowance. Al made no errors, his sympathies were deaf to the call, and he never (like the doctor), committed the mistake of returning too much change.

Al welcomed him with a grunt, carefully closing the little glass doors that protected the tray of éclairs and fruit cake, and leaning back drawled:

"What's the matter, Hickey? You look kind of discouraged."

"Give me a coffee jigger, with a chocolate syrup and a dash of whipped cream—stick a meringue in it," said Hickey. Then as Al remained passively expectant, he drew out a coin, saying, "Oh, I've got the money!"

He ate gloomily and in silence, refusing to be drawn into conversation. Something was wrong in the scheme of things. Twice in the same hour he had been regarded with suspicion and an accusing glance,—his simplest explanation discountenanced! Up to this time, he had been like a hundred other growing boys, loving mischief for mischief's sake, entering into a lark with no more definite purpose than the zest of an adventure. Of course he regarded a master as the Natural Enemy, but he had viewed him with the tolerance of an agile monkey for a wolf who does not climb. Now slowly it began to dawn upon him that there was an ethical side.

He vanished suddenly behind the counter as Mr. Tapping, returning, made directly for the jigger-shop. Hickey, at the end of the long counter, crouching amid stationery, heard him moving suspiciously toward his hiding place. Quickly he flicked a pencil down behind the counter and vanished through the back entrance as Tapping, falling into the trap, sprang in the direction of the noise.

The adventure served two purposes: it gave Hickey the measure of the enemy, and it revealed to him where first to strike.

II

The President of the Dickinson by virtue of the necessary authority to suppress all insubordination was Turkey Reiter, broad of shoulder, speckled and battling of face, but the spirit of the Dickinson was Hickey. Hickey it was, lank of figure and keen of feature, bustling of gait and drawling of speech, with face as innocent as a choir-boy's, who planned the revolts against the masters, organised the midnight feasts and the painting of water-towers. His genius lived in the nicknames of the Egghead, Beauty Sawtelle, Morning Glory, Red Dog, Wash Simmons and the Coffee Cooler, which he had bestowed on his comrades with unfailing felicity.

"Hickey it was ... who ... organised the midnight feasts"

Great was Hickey, and Macnooder was his prophet. Doc Macnooder roomed just across the hall. He was a sort of genius of all trades. He played quarter on the eleven and ran the half mile close to the two-minute mark. He was the mainstay of Banjo, Mandolin and Glee Clubs. He played the organ in chapel and had composed the famous Hamill House March in memory of his requested departure from that abode. He organised the school dramatic club. He was secretary and treasurer of his class and of every organisation to which he belonged. He received a commission from a dozen firms to sell to his likenesses, stationery, athletic goods, choice sets of books, fin de siecle neckties, fancy waistcoats, fountain pens and safety razors, all of which articles, if report is to be credited, he sold with ease and eloquence at ten per cent. above the retail price. His room was a combination of a sorcerer's den and junk-shop. At one corner a row of shelves held a villainous array of ill-smelling black, green and blue bottles, with which he was prepared to instantly cure anything from lockjaw to snake bite.

The full measure of Macnooder's activities was never known. Turkey Reiter had even surprised him drawing up a will for Bill Orum, the cobbler, to whom he had just sold a cure for rheumatism.

It was to Macnooder that Hickey opened his heart and his need of vengeance. It cannot be said that the ethical side of the struggle appealed to Macnooder, who had small predilection for philosophy and none at all for the moral sciences, but the love of mischief was strong. The encounter with Tapping in the morning had suggested a victim near at hand and conveniently inexperienced.

Mr. Tapping in advance of young Mr. Baldwin (of whom it shall be related) had arrived at Lawrenceville the previous year with latter-day theories on the education of boys. As luck would have it, Mr. Rogers, the housemaster, would be absent that evening at a little dinner of old classmates in Princeton, leaving the entire conduct of the Dickinson in the hands of his assistant. In passing, it must be noted that between the two masters there was little sympathy. Mr. Rogers had lived too long in the lair of the boy to be at all impressed with the new ideas on education that Mr. Tapping and later Mr. Baldwin advocated in the blissful state of their ignorance.

At three o'clock, Tapping departed to convey to a class of impatient boys, decked out in athletic costumes with base-balls stuffed in their pockets and tennis rackets waiting at their sides, the interesting shades of distinction in that exciting study, Greek prose composition. Then Hickey gleefully, while Macnooder guarded the stairs, entered the study, and with a screw-driver loosened the screw which held the inner door-knob, to the extent that it could later be easily removed with the fingers.

At half past seven o'clock, when study hour had begun, Hickey entered the sanctum ostensibly for