the school dormitory. "If I can get lessons without studying"
"Oh, Roger, you know better than that," burst out Dave Porter, with a smile. "Of course I have to study—just the same as anybody. But when I study, I study, and when I play, I play. I've found out that it doesn't pay to mix the two up—it is best to buckle your mind down to the thing on hand and to nothing else."
"That's the talk," came from a boy resting on one of the beds. "It puts me in mind of a story I once heard about a fellow who fell from the roof of a house to the ground"
"There goes Shadow again!" cried Roger Morr. "Shadow, will you ever get done telling chestnuts?"
"This isn't a chestnut, and I haven't told it over twice in my life. The man fell to the ground past an open window. As he was going down, he grabbed another man at the window by the hair. The hair it was a wig came off. 'Say,' yells the man at the window. 'Leave me alone. If you want to fall, 'tend to business, and fall!'" And a smile passed around among the assembled schoolboys.
"Perhaps Roger would like to come along," continued Dave. "I was going out for a row, and Phil said he would go, too," he explained.
"That suits me," answered Roger Morr. "It will give us an appetite for supper."
