“Imagining!” gasped Cummings.
Jonesie nodded. “You have something on your conscience, haven’t you? You’ve done something you’re sorry for? Something you repent of, Cummings?”
Cummings nodded, all fight gone. “I guess so,” he muttered. “I—I’m sorry, Jonesie. I apologize.”
“For what?”
“You know. Reading that composition.”
“Oh! Why, I’d most forgotten that. So many things have happened since to—to vary the monotony, Cummings. But it’s decent of you to apologize, old man. And I accept it. I never hold grudges, Cummings. That’s not my way. If I can’t show fellows somehow that they have made a mistake, why, I forget it. So that’s all right.”
“And—and it won’t happen again?” pleaded Cummings.
“Not if my theory is right, old dear, and I think it is. In fact I almost think I can promise, Cummings, that it won’t happen again.”
It didn’t. Jonesie’s theory was vindicated.
Three days later “Sparrow” Bowles returned from the infirmary, and one of the first things he did was to take exception to Jonesie’s beautiful calendar. But if he hoped to start something he was disappointed. “That’s all right,” said Jonesie, “take it down. I’m through with it, anyway.” So “Sparrow” removed it, and, having done so, regarded the door closely.