“That’s precisely what they said.”
“Well, then—by heaven! I’ll fool them.” He really meant it.
“Oh, I wish you would! It would be easy after all. There’s time yet. I’ll help you with your English—both courses—and your Latin. You’re all right in French, of course, and the History won’t be so terrible. Is it a go?” Haydock held out his hand.
“I’ll fool them,” repeated Billy, solemnly. He gravely let his long, brown fingers rest in Haydock’s palm. And Haydock had one of those moments of quiet exultation that are the perquisites of the intelligent.
The next morning Billy and Dilly disappeared from Cambridge, and were neither seen nor heard of for five days. On the afternoon of the fourth day John, looking positively thin, turned up in Haydock’s room.
“Get up a search party and explore darkest Boston,” advised the senior, drumming on the desk with his pencil.
“Oh, I did!” John’s tone was without hope. “Harry Hollis and Jimmy Fenton took me all over—to the most awful hotels and places. They seemed to know Billy at all of them; but he wasn’t there. I never had such a night. I don’t know what to do.”
“How much money did he have?” Haydock continued to drum thoughtfully.
“Twenty dollars. I’m sure, because we both put our allowances in the bank that morning. Billy kept twenty.”
Now Haydock, who had met a great number of Billys and Dillys in his short life, knew that this particular Billy was not living anywhere on the modest sum of five dollars a day. So, after a little more drumming, he said,—