Now, if mamma were only here I know I could explain everything to her, and she would n't think me so lacking in respect for my ancestors—so utterly lost—as she evidently does. But until she gets my letter (and perhaps even afterward) she will be unhappy over the crude, unqualified fact that I pawned my watch.
It belonged to my great-grandfather and is a fine old thing with a wreath of gold and platinum roses on its round gold face. I got twenty-five dollars on it. Nobody but Berri would have known, and there would n't have been the least fuss if Uncle Peter had n't come to town.
He was in Boston on business and appeared in my room one afternoon a few days afterward. I was ever so glad to see somebody from home, and I introduced him to Berri, who helped me show him the gym and Soldiers' Field and the glass flowers and pretty much everything open to visitors. He had a lovely time and asked us to dinner in the evening.
We had a pleasant dinner—only Uncle Peter kept glancing at his watch every few minutes (he was leaving on an early train). Finally he said: "What time is it, Tommy? I 'm afraid I 'm slow."
From force of habit I felt for my watch, and then, I suppose, I must have looked queer, for Berrisford began to chuckle, and Uncle Peter, after a moment of mystification, jumped hastily to a conclusion that, I am sorry to say, happened to be correct. He rubbed it in all through dinner and on the way to the station, and I suppose when he reached home he told mamma the first thing. For the evening of the day he arrived I got a telegram from mamma that said: "Redeem watch immediately. Keep this from your father; it would kill him."
Of course Berri had to elaborate the thing in his best style and keep Duggie awake for half an hour while he told him about it.
"I made it very graphic," he said to me gloomily, "but somehow or other it didn't seem to take."
V
The crash has come, and the Dean and my adviser, two or three instructors, some of the fellows at the table, and even Berrisford (this last is a little too much), have all taken occasion to inform me regretfully that they foresaw it from the first. This is the sort of thing that makes a man bitter. How did I know what was ahead of me? If they all realized so well that I was going to flunk the hour exams, why did n't they let me know then? It might have done some good if they had told me three weeks ago that they thought me stupid; but I fail to see the point of their giving me to understand at this stage of the game that they themselves all along have been so awfully clever. Yet, that's just what they've done; all except Duggie. And strangely enough it was Duggie that I most dreaded. As a matter of fact he has scarcely mentioned the subject. When I went into his room one night and stood around for a while without knowing how to begin and finally came out with,—
"Well, I suppose Berri 's told you that I didn't get through a single exam?"—he merely said,—