"Outing Club!" snarled the dyspeptic Vagabond as he sank into the most luxurious easy-chair of his sumptuous suite. "Why can't they leave the outing clubs at Dartmouth, where that sort of thing belongs?" His complexion was losing its summer tan, taking on the familiar city sallowness, and his eyes were red with Cambridge soot. This Cambridge Scrooge rested upon his recumbent spine, and his head nodded.

Someone had opened a window. A bit of sweet fall air drifted into the room; a dry red leaf rustled on the sill. For some reason, Vag was thinking of his boyhood (how far away it seemed now, when one was old, and tired, and bored with Boston debutantes-). What a weekend that had been! They had come down the mountain in the dark, and there had been singing around the cabin stove after supper, and later a square dance in an old barn to the squeak of a country fiddle, stamping, and the laughter of pretty girls. He thought of long bicycle rides over country roads speckled with red and yellow leaves, and the tang of wood-smoke in the wind. And then there was the sharp outline of a snowy peak against the blue winter sky, the green of pines along the Sherburne trail, and the bright flash of skiers as they hissed through the new powder snow. And then when spring came there was canoeing down the swollen New England rivers, through the rushing white water of the spring freshets.

Sweet reminiscence had done its work on Vag's hard-boiled exterior and flabby frame. He eased himself painfully out of his soft chair. He would be in the Lowell House Common Room at 8 o'clock tonight.