"How long are you here?" said the principal.
"I am here since the first day of March," said he.
"I think that you are out of your senses," said the principal, "there is no person of your name in the college, and there has not been for twenty years, for I am more than twenty years here."
"Though you were in it since you were born, yet I am here since last March, and I can show you my room and my books."
With that he went up the stairs, and the principal after him. He went into his room and looked round him, and said, "This is my room, but that is not my furniture, and those are not my books that are in it." He saw an old bible upon the table and he opened it, and said: "This is my bible, my mother gave it to me when I was coming here; and, see, my name is written in it."
The principal looked at the bible, and there, as sure as God is in heaven, was the name of Patrick O'Flynn written in it, and the day of the month that he left home.
Now there was great trouble of mind on the principal, and he did not know what he should do. He sent for the masters and the professors and told them the story.
"By my word," said an old priest that was in it, "I heard talk when I was young, of a student who went away out of this college, and there was no account of him since, whether living or dead. The people searched the river and the bog holes, but there was no account to be had of him, and they never got the body."
The principal called to them then and bade them bring him a great book in which the name of every person was written who had come to that college since it was founded. He looked through the book, and see! Patrick O'Flynn's name was in it, and the day of the month that he came, and this [note] was written opposite to his name, that the same Patrick O'Flynn had departed on such a day, and that nobody knew what had become of him. Now it was exactly one hundred and one years from the day he went until the day he came back in that fashion.