steal (or, in collegiate terms, "rag") the chapel Bible, with a view to
presenting it to some equally subtle humorists at Yale, expecting a
similar courtesy in return from that college. Unfortunately for the
joke, the college authorities had had the bad taste to guard against the
annually attempted substitution. Two of the marauders were caught, while
Watts only escaped by leaving his coat in the hands of the watchers.
Even then he would have been captured had he not met Peter in his
flight, and borrowed the latter's coat, in which he reached his room
without detection. Peter was caught by the pursuers, and summoned before
the faculty, but he easily proved that the captured coat was not his,
and that he had but just parted from one of the tutors, making it
certain that he could not have been an offender. There was some talk of
expelling him for aiding and abetting in the true culprit's escape, and
for refusing to tell who it was. Respect for his motives, however, and
his unimpeachable record saved him from everything but an admonition
from the president, which changed into a discussion of cotton printing
before that august official had delivered half of his intended rebuke.
People might not enthuse over Peter, but no one ever quarrelled with
him. So the interview, after travelling from cotton prints to spring
radishes, ended with a warm handshake, and a courteous suggestion that
he come again when there should be no charges nor admonitions to go
through with. Watts told him that he was a "devilish lucky" fellow to
have been on hand to help, for Peter had proved his pluck to his class,
had made a friend of the president and, as Watts considerately put it:
"but for your being on the corner at 11:10 that evening, old chap, you'd
never have known me." Truly on such small chances do the greatest events
of our life turn. Perhaps, could Peter have looked into the future, he
would have avoided that corner. Perhaps, could he have looked even
further, he would have found that in that chance lay the greatest
happiness of his life. Who can tell, when the bitter comes, and we later