Catherwood sat upright.
"I'm half sick," he cried, "half sick. It's so strange. I know no one who would have a reason for hazing me; I can't understand it; it's like a bad dream."
He rose and paced back and forth the length of the room.
"Ah, yes, to be sure," the assistant professor murmured, consolingly. "Now, I shall go. You will hear from me later—perhaps very soon."
Catherwood stood motionless in the middle of the floor until he heard the outer door close, then he descended the stairs slowly, and encountering Mrs. Turner in the kitchen begged the privilege of taking dinner at her table.
"This face," he explained. "I can't go to 'Pret's' with this face."
And she, gentle motherly soul, bade him be seated, and fed him well, and consoled him; while Willie, fascinated by the streaked and horrid face of the self-bidden guest, allowed his rice-pudding to grow cold while he gazed at him.
III
Little Green, the pink-cheeked reporter of the 'Varsity News, was not that at all, and on this occasion he gave his name the lie direct.
Little Green possessed a nasal organ keenly atuned to news. As he hastened back down town after his summary dismissal from Catherwood's room, he calculated accurately the latent story value in the assistant professor's indefinite account of his pupil's case.