professional pugilist. As a matter of fact, he was the best exponent of
the manly art of self-defense that Jimmy Torrance had ever faced, and in
addition thereto he outweighed the senior and outreached him.

The boxing contest, as the faculty members of the athletic committee
preferred to call it, was, from the tap of the gong, as pretty a
two-fisted scrap as ever any aggregation of low-browed fight fans
witnessed. The details of this gory contest, while interesting, have no
particular bearing upon the development of this tale. What interests us
is the outcome, which occurred in the middle of a very bloody fourth
round, in which Jimmy Torrance scored a clean knock-out.

It was a battered but happy Jimmy who sat in his room the following
Monday afternoon, striving to concentrate his mind upon a college
text-book which should, by all the laws of fiction, have been 'well
thumbed,' but in reality, possessed unruffled freshness which belied its
real age.

"I wish," mused Jimmy, "that I could have got to the bird who invented
mathematics before he inflicted all this unnecessary anguish upon an
already unhappy world. In about three rounds I could have saved
thousands from the sorrow which I feel every time I open this blooming
book."

He was still deeply engrossed in the futile attempt of accomplishing in
an hour that for which the college curriculum set aside several months
when there came sounds of approaching footsteps rapidly ascending the
stairway. His door was unceremoniously thrown open, and there appeared
one of those strange apparitions which is the envy and despair of the
small-town youth--a naturally good-looking young fellow, the sartorial