Page:The spirit of the leader (IA spiritofleader00heyl).pdf/45

 drew to an end, the man, walking down the aisle, dropped another order at the boy's place.

"Get me another bottle sometime to-day," he said in an undertone.

Some of the color came back to Perry's face. As the class filed out, Praska crowded over to him.

"What happened, Perry?"

"It was an accident." He could say no more for there was a choke in his throat.

In the hall Littlefield called to the guard. Perry went on alone to his next recitation. The managership and the bottle of ink, he muttered, had slipped inexorably from his fingers at the same moment. Several times he had felt that he was on the crest of success or in the valley of failure. There could be no doubt about this last happening. He was beaten.

It was indicative of the way he had begun to look at things that, even in this bitter moment, his thoughts went to Room 13. The red stain of the ink was before his eyes. So long as that stain stayed there it would be a reproach. The floor of the room would be marred. There would always be some to say that, in one of his silly gay moments, Perry King had. He winced.

When his last recitation of the day was over, he went down to the office for his ink.