“If you promise to get back not later than eight o’clock,” said Lester, “I’ll go with you. I’ve got to be home then to write that theme.”
“All right; we’ll do it. We want a fourth; there’s Chuck Morley. O Chuck!”
Summoned with energetic beckoning as well as with vociferous shouting, the stout youth who had just descended the steps of the dormitory near which they stood approached. He consented to join the expedition, and early in the afternoon the four started off in Bemis’s new high-powered car.
It was a sunny day, the air was mild, and the car ran smoothly. They sped from one town to another, cheerfully regardless of time and place, until Lester suggested that they had better look for an inn and have supper. It was half-past six before they came upon a hostelry that seemed to them sufficiently attractive to deserve their patronage; it was eight o’clock by the time they had finished what they all regarded as an unsatisfactory and expensive meal; and it was after ten o’clock when they finally drew up in front of the dormitory in which Lester and Kelly had their rooms.
Lester hastened up the stairs, intending to set to work at once upon his theme. Richard was not in; Lester had the room to himself; now if he could only think of something to write about. But the automobile ride, which Bemis had assured him would furnish him with inspiration, seemed only to have made him numb and drowsy. For almost two weeks he had been getting less than his usual amount of sleep. His head nodded over the blank page before him on his desk; he was roused by the slipping of the pen from his fingers.
He rose, plunged his face into cold water and then walked about the room for a few minutes. Still finding himself unable to think of a subject on which he could write, he decided to go to David and ask for suggestions.
It meant merely going down one flight of stairs in the dormitory. When he knocked on David’s door, however, there was no answer. He tried the door, found it unlocked, and entered. Then he turned on the light; if he sat down for a moment, David might perhaps come in, and anyway he should be just as likely to think of a subject in David’s room as in his own.
On the desk lay David’s neatly folded, freshly typewritten theme; beside it lay the rough draft from which he had made the copy. Out of curiosity Lester picked up the theme and began to read it. He became interested, for it dealt with athletics and their place in college life, and he recognized in it many ideas that he and David had frequently thrashed out in discussion. In fact, it was just such a theme as he himself might have written had he happened to hit upon that topic.
It would certainly be all right for him to take it to his room and see whether he could not prepare an essay on the subject without in any way duplicating David’s work. Perhaps in the rough draft there were passages that had not been used in the final copy and that would prove helpful.