"I'm sure I don't think—" I began defensively.
"No, I don't believe you do realize the true state of affairs," Berri interrupted. "Lots of fellows would, and then pretend all the time that they did n't; that's what I do. But you don't. You just have the big-head from pure delight, and go around swelled up like a hop-toad without in the least knowing it. Your old friends know it, though, and it naturally makes them a dash tired. And besides, what do you expect them to do, anyhow? Run after us? Of course they won't do that. In the first place, we 've both become rather obnoxious; I don't mind it in myself, but with you it's scarcely in character. And in the second place, none of the fellows at our table are swipes, and if any advances are made, well, they won't make them. So there you are!"
There was nothing much to say to this, because, after a few minutes of resentment, I felt all over that it was perfectly true. I did n't say anything, but you bet it was n't more than a day or two before the fellows seemed to me just the way they always had seemed. I think I had a pretty close call; I might have turned into a Dick Benton.
Three days before Class Day, who should blow in but Duggie? He literally did blow in, come to think of it, as he crossed from Cadiz in a sailing-vessel and was as brown as a Spaniard. He brought Mrs. Chester a black lace shawl, and told her that if she 'd drape it around her head and sit at her upstairs window some evening, he 'd come and serenade her. To which the old girl responded with one of her roguish little digs at Duggie's ribs, and exclaimed,—
"Land sakes, Mr. Duggie, you can't sing, and never could."
Duggie wanted Berri and me to dine with him that evening, but Berri's last examination was to come the next morning (I had finished all of mine) and he could n't. I did, though, and we walked out to Cambridge afterwards in the moonlight. He told me all about his trip, and when I let him know that we were going abroad for the summer and that Berri was going over with us to join his mother at Dinard, he said,—
"I had a letter from Berri in answer to mine. I don't often keep letters, but I 've kept his. I suppose you know I did n't think much of Berri at first, but I don't mind confessing that I sized him up all wrong."
It was such a beautiful night that when we got to our gate, it seemed like wasting something to go in the house. Berri had finished his grind and was leaning out of my window. He said that his brain felt like a dead jellyfish (I think that was the pretty simile), and told us not to go in, as he would put on his coat and come down to us. So we strolled, all three, over to the Yard, and sat on the steps in front of one of the Holworthy entries. It was very late, but the finals were not yet over, and the yellow of many windows blurred through the trees. The long quadrangle was flecked with moonlight, and little groups like our own were sitting in front of almost every doorway. The Yard, except on great occasions, is rarely noisy, and that night it seemed particularly quiet,—a kind of lull before the crash of Class Day and Commencement.
Duggie and Berri and I sat there talking until the air and the sky had changed from summer night to summer morning. Even then a few of the windows were still glowing.
THE END.