“My goodness!” mutters Ted under his breath, staring at Chris a moment in blank astonishment, and then straightway pretends to be all absorbed in his own mail. One or two college bills, forwarded by Harry Allyn from Oxford, were all there was to it, for, alas! there were no home letters for Ted in these days of self-imposed exile from kith and kin. The bills, however, gave him a chance to pull himself together, as he made a ruse of carefully examining them, while his heart thumped like a trip-hammer at the thought of Uncle Fritz coming down to Nuneham and finding him stranded there, helpless, good-for-nothing fellow that he felt himself to be.