_have_ to punch his head!"

Richard Sproule was a member of the senior class, and monitor for the
floor upon which he had his room. He had, perhaps, no positive meanness
in him. Most of his unpleasantness was traceable to envy. Just at
present he was cultivating a dislike for Joel because of the latter's
enviable success at lessons and because a resident of Hampton House had
taken him up. Sproule cared nothing for out-of-door amusements and hated
lessons. His whole time, except when study was absolutely compulsory,
was taken up with the reading of books of adventure; and Captain Marryat
and Fenimore Cooper were far closer acquaintances than either Cicero or
Caesar. Richard Sproule was popularly disliked and shunned.

In the dining hall that evening Joel ate and relished his first hearty
meal since he had arrived at Hillton. The exercise had brought back a
naturally good appetite, which had been playing truant.

The dining hall takes up most of the ground floor of Warren Hall. Eight
long, roomy tables are arranged at intervals, with broad aisles between,
through which the white-aproned waiters hurry noiselessly about.
To-night there was a cheerful clatter of spoons and forks and a loud
babel of voices, and Joel found himself hugely enjoying the novelty of
eating in the presence of more than a hundred and fifty other lads.
Outfield West and his neighbors in Hampton House occupied a far table,
and there the noise was loudest. West was dressed like a young prince,
and his associates were equally as splendid. As Joel observed them, West
glanced across and saw him, and waved a hilarious greeting with a soup
spoon. Joel nodded laughingly back, and then settled in his chair with
an agreeable sensation of being among friends. This feeling grew when,
toward the end of his meal, Wesley Blair, in leaving the hall, saw him