this he said no more about the mathemati

cal episode.

The

Summer drew to a close. The neighboring cottages shut one by one. crescent beach emptied of brown-shouldered lads, and the day of Eben's going appeared on the calendar piteously near. The twins swam and played tennis stoically. Edgar watched their tall figures dwindle down the lane, arm in arm, after meals and heard their slow voices by night. He kept out of their path with delicate zeal. The smile remained in his thought. He had seen it before, but never turned on himself. Now that Judson stood sixtynine inches barefoot, the oddity was not amusing. He did not pretend even to women that he was a brave man. The last night of the united existence Edgar went to his up-stairs library after dinner and read "Tess of the D'Urbervilles." reveled in high emotions, printed.

He

Eben sat by the table of the white-andyellow living-room, adorned with Gillray cartoons, doing a sketch of Judson, who lounged on the table, clad in a dry bathsuit. Under the clean candle-light he was very good to look at, and Eben ached as he sketched. They could find nothing to say except weary repetitions. The matches. lit by Edgar above for his French cigarettes were quite audible, and the lunge of surf on the rocks.

"Will you start smokin' now?" Judson asked.

"Guess not. Not for a while, anyhow. Hold your head up a little, Brother." "Does Arthur smoke?"

"Better than havin' to eat with a bunch of left-overs and fifth-formers all winter," grunted Judson, selecting his second.

"Oh, shucks! Won't be so awful. There 's Walter and Colin and Mark Dines, anyhow. They 're all right. So's Hollister. Brace up, Jud. 'T won't be so long and-"

"Algebra, geom, algebra, geom. No; that 'll be slick!"

"All you 've got to do is swallow the stuff and get it over with. You can as well as any one," Eben argued.

"Can't teach a cow the violin. I'm a dub at math, always was, always will be," wailed Judson through his third doughnut, his chin powdered with sugar.

"I know you are," said Eben, with all kindness, "but you can do it, as I did Greek. Oh, I 've said all this before." He flung the half-circle of sweetness into the warm night. He was in dreadful pain. There seemed no excitement, less pleasure, in the new adventure without Jud to share it.

"Don't talk about it," muttered Judson, who was in pain quite as mordant, "or I'll cry or somethin'."

Eben sat up and watched Judson eat the fourth doughnut. He was aware that the sheen of the model's eyes was not natural. By and by Judson wiped his mouth and spat an appalling oath.

"When I think of hearin' Mutrie say: "This is one of the simpler problems. Angle A is'-it makes me sick."

He clutched the fifth doughnut, the beautiful muscles of his arm contracting.

The old cook came in with a plate of hot and sugary doughnuts for excuse, really to see Eben's picture. She planted her burden at Judson's elbow and withdrew, after cackling. Judson ate a doughnut mournfully. He had always been fond of pastry.

"They say the grub at New Haven 's awful," said Eben, finishing his work of art, which was extremely well done, and taking a doughnut in turn. He said this to cheer Judson.

head, staring at the sheer curtains of the hall, his body stiff with wrath. Then he chuckled drearily and began to eat.

"You'll make yourself sick if you go on eating those," said Eben, anxiously. They had excellent apparatus in their lean abdomens, but five large doughnuts seemed enough.

"Well, there's one left. Might as well finish the lot."

"I would n't, Brother."

"Watch me. Compliment to Maggie." He engulfed the thing in the manner

of a young anaconda and slid off the table.

"It 's eleven, an' your train goes at nine. Let's go to bed."

Eben flinched. They had slept in one room for seventeen years, for the first seven in one bed, and passing Edgar's cigarette-oozing door, it beat upon him that they had but one kinsman, no friend of theirs.

Night passed. A sea-gull yelled and woke Judson into a pitifully bright morning, cool and clear. He lay, getting his fogged brain to work, leaden between the sheets. The string of his pajama breeches hurt acutely, caught somehow, but he was too dull to loosen it. Sorrow smote him, half roused, and weighted his breathing as he scowled at the flowered ceiling. The gay tints darted at his hot eyes, and his head buzzed. His mouth was full of sourness that rose from his deeper being, and he felt decayed inside, unclean outside, a pariah, a martyr, an imbecile, and a butt of the coarse universe. He closed his eyelids to analyze these feelings and heard Eben getting up, the slump of falling night-gear, the pad of bare feet pausing beside him a second, the splutter of the shower-bath, the click of a tooth-brush on an enamel stand. He could see Eben going the round of the bath-room, alert and methodical, collecting his sponge, his tooth-paste, his nail-brush, an ancient friendly bottle. They would be gone when he went to bathe at night, and Eben also, leaving him, leaving him, leaving him! The continuing sea-gull made a refrain. of this, and it seemed to echo back on the pit of Judson's stomach like the bump of a boxing-glove. He opened his eyes, but the flowers stabbed him, and he relapsed into red shadow, a great rage hardening his gorge. Desolations of chalky black board, eons of lonely bedtime, snow-chilled morning, plangent hockey hours with no Eben, the naked shells in spring, and no brother to powder his sun-scarred back. Eben was leaving him, was dressing now in a duplicate blue serge that would cover him that night in the tumult of York Street, in a shirt that only fat, nonchalant

Arthur Letellier would see him strip. To new life, new friends, new tables. Leaving him! Going off, not glad perhaps, but thrilled, expectant, sure to succeed,Eben must, to come back in quiet triumph, to be a new Eben. The phantasm swelled and wavered, spurring his rage. He hated all men; he hated himself. He sat up and felt sicker still.

Eben, entirely clad, was selecting his ties from the cord stretched between their dressers. He had several on his wrist, and was looking at the plentiful fringe with fixed attention; so he did not hear Judson's movement, did not turn. Judson felt hurt. He wanted that consolatory morning grin. Then Eben put his hand on a green striped scarf and lifted it into the light, whistling gently the just-arrived "Merry Widow Waltz." It was ghastly that Eben should whistle looking at a tie, his tie.

"Here," said Judson, "that 's mine!"

Eben looked round with a frown. He had not heard Judson sit up. It bothered his misery that he should have neglected this. He wanted to be normal, casual, But the tie was his. "Why, no it is n't, Juddy.

kinder than ever. kinder than ever.

"That? It certainly is." Judson got out of bed, his intestines like hot metal, dizzy, mad.

"This thing? Brace up! Here's the tear from that rotten pin Mrs. Alin gave me," said Eben, lightly, patting the silk.

"Get out! I 've worn that three years. You 've got enough of your own; let alone mine," gasped Judson. "Brace up, your self! You've been telling me to brace up all summer!" The hypnotism of wrath was upon him; the room danced. "Brace up! Be a good kid an' go back to school an' study algebra an' geom,' and you go off to college! You get the fun out of the thing. Damn you!"

Breath failed him. The blood called in his ears like high surf. He could not see Eben's horror, begotten of that smile. He could hear him say:

"Why, Juddy, you never spoke to me that way before!"

Judson's rage shriveled, the surf ceased.

"There's the tie," said Eben, gently. He waited a moment, blinking at the rigid, familiar face, his heart full of agony; then dropped the scarf and went out. Jud would be himself in a moment; it was impossible that any of this could be real. He walked slowly down-stairs, glancing back, his eyes full of tears.

Judson heard the door close and writhed in dismay, his knees bending. He opened his eyes and saw, amid dancing arabesques of nausea, the green scarf, knelt and picked it up in fingers as large as gate-posts. It was not even his! Another thing to beg pardon for! Sweat ran down his face as he struggled up; but he was too ill to follow.

"Where's Jud?" asked Edgar, watching Eben's hands flutter over his melon.

"Dressin'," said Eben, huskily.

"He'd better hurry. It 's half-past eight."

"Plenty of time, sir."

"Ten minutes to the station. Does he know how late it is?" Edgar wanted to witness the entraining of Eben. Since Judson's silent smile he had grown to loathe him.

"Late, yes," said Eben, at a loss. He ate food automatically. Edgar must not see the state of things. Poor Jud was wild with grief; that was it. He would be down in a moment.

"Really," said Edgar, "he 's cutting it fine. It's quarter of."

"I'll go call him, sir," said the butler. "Oh, he 'll be down," Eben protested. The poor kid might be crying. It would n't do for Simon to see that. He swallowed his coffee. Edgar lit a cigarette, staring at his wrist watch.

"Thirteen."

"I'll go up," said Eben. He stopped in the hall to seize his hat and trampled up-stairs, then paused in the corridor.

Suppose Jud still stood there smiling, still mad? He did not want to see that. "Jud!" he called. "Hi, Juddy!" Edgar's voice cut into the silence, whip fashion.

"Come, Ben, you can't stop for that!" "Jud!"

Then he turned and stumbled downstairs so wretched that he did not care if Edgar saw it, the green lawn a sea of smiles.

A maid was clearing the used dishes when Judson, his bath-robe flapping, got to the dining-room. She stared politely. "They-they have n't gone?"

"Why, it's five of nine, sir. Master Ben's train was nine."

Quite gone, wordless, offended! Judson pressed his hands on his eyes.

"You must 'ave hoverslept, sir," said the maid, cheerfully.

"'Fraid so," said Judson. The scent of food was making him sick again. He left the dining-room, and threw himself on the living-room window-seat, cold and quivering, as the far train whistled. Then he wept simply as a child weeps for his great treachery and a sorrow that was plowed by shame.

In the afternoon he sat on the veranda and wrote his letter carefully. It would be in New Haven next day, and that must He wrote:

serve.

It was not the tie. I was sicker than I ever want to be again. I suppose it was those rotten doughnuts. I woke up so sick I could not think straight and about crazy over your going away. I did think it was my tie, but the whole thing got mixed up in my head, and I went crazy. I have no idea what I said, but I did not mean any of it. I know I hurt you like the devil. I heard what you said, but I could not say anything then. This sounds footless, but it is perfectly true. I was sick, and angry at my luck, that was all, and until you write me it is all right I shall be crazy. Please forgive me. It was bad enough before. I shall be here until Tuesday.

He addressed this "Eben Harland, Yale Station, New Haven, Conn.," and took it

to the little post-office. Then he waited, trying to remember what he had said to Ben, and magnifying every chance-brought word into foul insults.

THE letters of Yale are assorted in the special post-office under Fayerweather Hall. It is not too well lighted, and shadows from the passers-by make the clerks' task less easy than they wish. Mr. Eden Hursland, a member of the senior class, unlocked his mail-box next morning and found Judson's letter, glanced at the address, tore open the envelop, and was joined by a friend who had a story to tell. They walked across Elm Street to morning service, and Mr. Hursland, excited by the anecdote, crumpled the envelop in his hand and dropped it on the steps of Battell Chapel. In his seat he recalled the letter, and read it with amazement several times. Then he searched his pockets for the envelop. It does him credit to say that he missed a recitation hunting for the clue across Elm Street. He was a decent, well-meaning fellow, and here was an unsigned letter, rather pathetic in its brevity, that might mean a great deal to some one. At last he went back to the post-office.

"I've got a letter. It was addressed Hursland; at least it looked all right, but it's not to me. What other Hurslands are there?"

The clerk said there was none. He had no imagination and no list of the freshman class.

Mr. Hursland was equally destitute. He worried over the matter for a day or two, read the letter once or twice, and forgot it before Eben was done with the early bruises of freshman foot-ball practice.

EBEN waited for that letter in the midst of his new world. It might take Jud a day or two to get over his fit, to see that things could n't be helped. Then he began to worry. He reviewed the summer in gross and detail. Had he lorded it over Jud, criticized him unduly, swaggered? He fretted, rubbing his bruises, and slept ill, wasted a good deal of note-paper be

ginning letters that he could not finish. He was in shadowy pain, novel and impossible to combat, untinctured by anger. This endured a week, while his foot-ball reputation grew and freshmen sought his acquaintance. At the week's end he was visiting the rooms of another St. Paul foot-ball-player and there met a tall, thin being, ex-Hotchkiss, who professed many odd beliefs in a slow, shrill exhalation permeated with cigarette smoke.

"There is n't any such thing as friendship," he said amiably. "You like a man? All right. Wait till you have a row with him. Does n't matter who 's in the right. You 're both wrong usually. Then it 's a toss up if he does n't drop you. Unless-" he shrugged-"unless he can get something out of you by coming round. Whose deal?"

Several lads laughed, but a couple of eighteen-year-old cynics wagged their

heads.

"Pretty near true," said one.

"One real row," said the other, "and the beans are spilled."

"Oh, bunk!" cried their host. "S'pose I have a row with my old man, huh? You mean we 're never goin' to get together again? My foot!"

"What did I say?" yawned the exponent. "You've got something to get out of him, he out of you. Spades."

"Thank you," the host remarked, with a hot edge in his voice. The thin youth shifted the subject neatly. Eben swallowed hard, the pips of his cards melting into the image of that smile; and after a while he gave his place to some one else. That night he did not sleep well. Next day, coming back at noon from English, he caught up with Bradley, strolling around the corner of York Street. The elm-studded way was full of freshmen, swirled into groups based on school alliances, or solitary, self-conscious figures. Boys were yelling to one another from the lofty, hideous front of Pierson Hall and the expensive private dormitories. The October sun dripped upon youth its mild. benediction.

"What were you saying about friends

last night?" he stammered, after commonplaces.

Bradley sent back his memory in some haste. He was the child of a suffragist by a clergyman, and his upbringing had taught him to talk for results. He recollected his remarks clearly enough and nodded.

"Yes, I'm afraid I rather offended Martin."

buried in Paris. His lawyer, Mr. Edwardson, happened to be in the supposedly gay city and attended to these details. He duly wrote the twins and invited them to spend Christmas with him. He was very fond of them. Both accepted. He found their letters on his arrival in New York toward mid-December, and looked forward to seeing them with great pleasure. Meanwhile Eben had been mentioned

"Oh," said Bradley, with grandeur, "I've lived in a lot of places; been to three schools, you know."

"I see; but-"

Bradley studied the handsome big lad sidelong, and saw that he had done some damage here. His conscience wriggled, but he was making a reputation as a sage of sorts and wanted to progress.

"I would n't bother about it. "T is n't worth bothering about," he said kindly. "The thing is, have a good time with a fellow as long as he lasts, then forget about him."

He wondered for some weeks as to just what Eben had thought, and then, like Mr. Hursland, forgot about it. During those weeks the victim squirmed on the stake with such gory results that he began to distrust his sanity, except when the turf tingled through his cleated soles and he could jar against fugitive flesh. Insidiously the thing worked. He grew somber rather than silent. It ceased to surprise him when no letter lay on his table. He said nothing.

EDGAR went to Paris in early November. There was a sale at Villequier's that he wished to attend. There was a lady who wished to see him. They started back from an inn near Suresne one wet night, in the lady's motor. She chose to drive. This resulted in a collision with a beer-van at the corner of the Rue Caulaincourt; Edgar took six days to die. He regulated all his affairs perfectly, left legacies to twenty women, and the residue of his estate to the twins, with directions that everything be sold and that he be

a rising star. The journals even showed a bad picture of him, taken during the Yale-Princeton freshman game. His class forgave him his quiet gloom, and admired his sketches loudly. "The Yale Record" published several of these, and the director of the Yale Art School, seeing one, invited him to dinner. A foot-ballplayer who could draw interested him. He did not find Eben very entertaining, but supposed that the death of his uncle. was afflicting the boy, who looked extremely well in black.

"What does Jud say about school?" asked Arthur Letellier.

"Nothing much," said Eben.

"Both of you come out to St. Louis for Christmas?"

"Think it over," Arthur begged. He would have rolled naked in hot coals for Eben. Judson he did not care for so greatly. He repeated his invitation several times, but Eben was submerged in a new wave of feeling.

The autumn was done. He had waited for Jud to write, even grown to believe that Judson did not trouble over their terrible scene. But the approach of reunion cured all this. At the worst, one touch, one grin, and the ugly edifice of grief would clatter down; they would laugh at it together. He avoided Bradley, and walked a good deal in the misty evenings. alone, smiling happily at the stark trees. His heart swelled toward his brother; he became gay, and his classmates liked him much more than before. It came to the day of departure, and he made the afternoon journey to New York with Arthur