"What does wind amount to in a hundred yards, I'd like to know? All a fellow needs is a good breath at the pistol. A good one will carry him over the string." The speaker leaned across the table; "Now, on the square, Jimmy, don't you think I can beat Billy Shaw?" he asked eagerly.

The young man opposite, tilting back his chair, eyed his companion critically from under half-dropped lids. He flecked the ash from his cigarette, scrupulous that it should not dust his clothes, and said slowly, and more as though by way of encouragement than expressive of an opinion-"Well, of course, there's a chance."

Nibs smiled broadly, at that, and settled back, apparently quite satisfied.

"I knew you were joking," he said.

It was a Saturday evening. Had the dial of the Court House clock been illuminated, it would have shown the hour to be half-past seven. On the corner, a gasolene lamp was burning at the top of a weather-stained post. In front of the Opera House an Uncle Tom's Cabin band was straining at the melancholy air, "Massa's In de Col', Col' Ground," played in circus tempo. Now and then was heard the scuffle of hurrying feet on the tar walk outside.

Nibs Morey and Jimmy Hulburt sat in silence for a space.

No one had ever been able-if, indeed, any one had sought-to fathom the friendship that for two years had been maintained unbroken between these two. Perhaps it was due to the counter effect of Hulburt's derision of Morey's abundant conceit, for had Nibs Morey been asked to cite an instance of Jimmy's championing him, he, positively, would have failed. It was the one's lack, or expressed lack, of confidence in the other, that evenly balanced the other's really splendid confidence in himself.

When first Nibs had expressed his intention of posting a challenge to Billy Shaw on the Bulletin Board in the Main Hall, Jimmy had sniffed and sneered derisively.

"What's the use making a Jack of yourself?" he asked.

"Who's going to?" Nibs replied, tartly.

"You are. He'll beat you by a rod," was the cool retort.

"Don't you believe it."

"Well, I do."

"You needn't."

"All right; we'll see."

And Jimmy did see, and it was a glorious sight-a splendid picture of a righteous triumph in which the best man won; to revel in the joy of victory a space, and then to meet, and join in combat, with a foeman vastly worthier of his steel. For, in spite of Jimmy's discouragement-which could not have been that, really, and perhaps was not even meant for that-Nibs posted the challenge.

It was written in huge letters, that all who ran might read, and was made doubly conspicuous, by its poster style, among the score or more announcements of class-meetings, conferences, and graduate-events that fluttered with it on the Board.

Nibs hung up the challenge one evening while the janitor's back was turned. He carried it into the corridor folded beneath his coat. Satisfied that they were not observed, he drew it out and spread it upon the long, marble-topped radiator, and invited the criticism of Jimmy, the which Jimmy was not loth to utter.

"Big as a barn, eh?" he said, sniffing.

"But I want him surely to see it," the author of the broadside replied, tilting his head and viewing his work admiringly in the dim light of the slim chandelier above.

"Well, I'm still thinking you're a fool,-a blamed big fool."

"Don't you think he'll accept?" Nibs asked eagerly, passing lightly over Jimmy's expression of what appeared at least superficially to be a definite opinion.

"Of course he will, that's just it; he'll see it and he'll accept it, and he'll beat the life out of you," was the discouraging rejoinder. "Hurry, hang it up," he added, "I don't want to wait here all night." And Jimmy slouched away in the direction of the great door.

So the document challenging Billy Shaw to run against Nibs Morey in State Street, on the evening of October nineteenth, at seven o'clock, was forthwith tacked upon the Board to the complete concealment of one bill announcing the publication of the Palladium, and another displayed to notify the scornful that the Dramatic Club would-at an early date-repeat its marvelously successful and delicately artistic performance of "Among the Breakers."

"There! I guess he'll take notice, now!" exclaimed the joyous Nibs, stepping back from the board, and gazing at the poster proudly.

"And so will all the University," replied Jimmy, not, however, without a secret pride in the valor of his friend, after all; for Billy Shaw, the prospective opponent, had brought with him to Ann Arbor a country record for swift running that was not to be considered lightly, even by a sprinter of the attainments of Nibs Morey.

All efforts to match the two had thus far failed. It was Nibs' zeal, purely, though tempered, of course, by his fine conceit, that prompted the posting of the challenge now-a zeal to prove-perhaps to Jimmy, more than to the others-his wisdom, and the justification of his own abundant confidence. And the challenge thus publicly offered achieved the end that Nibs had hoped it might.

There is record in undergraduate history of the excitement that prevailed upon the campus the day after its publication. No one seemed to doubt Billy Shaw's acceptance of it. He would have to run now, or ever after hold his peace,-they said-an alternative not to the relish of a youth of his temperament. And he did accept the challenge, and he did run; and bets were made, and money was won and lost, all to the undying credit of Alma Mater, who looked on, smiling, proud of her sons in their glorious youth, their honor and their prowess.