"Oh, that's it—eh?" said Parley, somewhat mollified. "It isn't only the fellows that have changed and their sports, but the curriculum—eh? That it?"
"Precisely," rejoined old Billie, with a sigh of relief that Parley should understand him. "I'm beginning to understand, my boy, why you fellows have to be little men and not boys. No average boy could pass any such stiff paper as that, and I found myself as ignorant as you are."
"Thanks," said Parley, with a short laugh. "I think you ought to have found it out before leading me into accepting your Christmas gift, though."
"It was you who should have found out and told me," retorted the ghost. "All I can say is that in my day I'd have got you through with flying colors."
"Well, I'm much obliged," said Parley. "I'll get out of it somehow, but it means hard work; only, Mr. Spook, don't be so free with your Christmas gifts another time."
"I won't, Jack," said the spirit—"that is, I won't if you'll forgive me and stop calling me mister. Call me Billie again, and show you've forgiven me."
"All right, Billie, my boy," said Parley. "We'll call it square."
And the unhappy ghost wandered off into the night, leaving Parley to fight his battles alone. Whether he has turned up again or not, I am not aware, but, from my observation of Jack Parley's ways ever since, I think he really did learn something from his contact with Billie Watkins's ghost. He has been a good deal of a boy ever since. As for Watkins, I hope that the genial old soul off in space somewhere has also learned something from Jack. If the old chaps and the youngsters can only get together and appreciate one another's good points, and how each has had to labor towards the same end under possibly different conditions, there will be a greater harmony and sympathy between them, and they will discover that, in spite of differing times and differing customs, 'way down at bottom they are the same old wild animals, after all. There is no more delightful spectacle anywhere than that to be seen at a college gathering, where the patriarchs of the fifties and the Freshmen of the present join hand-in-hand and lark it together, and it is this spirit that makes for the glory of Alma Mater everywhere.
So, after all, perhaps the meeting of Jack Parley and old Billie Watkins's ghost had its value. For my part, I can only hope that it had, and leave them both with my blessing.