and Clif kept an anxious eye on his watch, he narrated his adventures briefly, yawning cavernously the while. "We got here about five minutes to twelve and stopped the car over on Stoddard Street," he concluded. "Then Wattles and I went up the lane a ways, and headed for East. Wattles had my bag. I'd forgotten about the brook, and it was pretty dark, and so Wattles stepped right into it. Luckily the bag got away from him and landed on the bank. I helped him out, and we got in Loring's window, and I stuck the bag in his closet and came on up here."
"And no one saw you?" asked Clif anxiously.
"I don't—" Tom yawned widely—"think so."
"Fool's luck," commented Billy, slipping into his coat, and heading for the door. "That's all I've got to say!"
"Go roll your hoop," said Tom without rancor.
"Just the same, Tom, you know you were an absolute dumbbell, now don't you?" demanded Clif, as he held the other's jacket and tried to hurry him into it.
"I guess so. I don't know. How much time we got?"
"Minute and a quarter."
"Fine. I've made it in fifty seconds flat. Come on!"
That afternoon Loring did not attend practice. Instead, he and Tom sat at opposite sides of the table in Loring's room and Tom, alternately despairing and hopeful, worked on that theme. Loring gave no aid in the actual writing, nor even in the composition, but
