It was the afternoon of the last day before commencement. The atmosphere in the class was solemn and more than a little wistful. "It is our last hour together," said Dally when all were back in their seats after the pause. "History is on the schedule, but--schedules are not made for moments like these. Let us just have a friendly talk." He did practically all the talking, and he talked to them more as an older boy, a chum with somewhat wider experience, than as a teacher and class principal. It made them feel their own importance rather heavily, but still more it made them conscious of an irreparable loss. They knew that school would not be the same in the fall, when Dally no longer was with them. In accordance with established custom, he would go back to the first grade and start piloting a new generation up to the point where they had just arrived. The class would break up, too. Some would have to stay behind. One or two had gone as far as they could and would make a premature transfer from school to life. Others were bound for other schools or other cities. The rest would split in two and join with the corresponding parts of the parallel section to form two entirely new classes. It gave them a foretaste of what it would mean to graduate into the gymnasium, and from there into the university. And it filled their hearts with wistful pride. The last hour was drawing to a close and everybody was talking at once, when Dally unexpectedly asked them to give him their full attention once more for few minutes. "An act of justice remains to be performed," he said. "There is a boy among you who has not received all that he had justly deserved. It was withheld from him by me for his own welfare. The time has now come when he and you should know all about it." As he paused for a moment, the boys looked around at each other with something like consternation. Their curiosity was intense. He spoke with a tensity of feeling they had hardly ever noticed in him before, and not one of them had an inkling of what he was driving at. "It means that some of you have received more than they deserved," he resumed. "That also should be known--for the good of all. It is a reflection on no one but myself, however, and I think you know me well enough by this time to be sure that I have been moved by no other consideration than the future good of the one most nearly concerned." Again he stopped, the class waiting breathlessly for him to go on. At that moment Keith became aware that the teacher's gaze rested firmly on him with an expression that sent the blood in a hot stream to his face. "Wellander," Dally began again, and in spite of the beating of his own heart, Keith noticed that the teacher's voice trembled a little as he spoke. "Will you do me the favour of rising a moment? You are the boy I have in mind." Keith rose like an automaton. His eyes clung to the lips of the teacher, and he seemed to expect from those lips some utterance that must make his whole future life different. As often happened in moments of intensified emotion, he became strangely oblivious of all the little eddies and cross-currents of thoughts and feelings that made up his ordinary, every-day consciousness of himself. "For two years I have kept you number two in the class," Dally said, speaking in an easier tone as if to lighten the strain on everybody. "You should have been number one. Davidson, whom I placed above you has at no time been your superior in anything but self-control. But it was just your--what I have sometimes called your fuzzy-wuzziness, that made me afraid of placing you where you rightly belonged, at the head of the class. It is my belief that you have in you greater gifts than any other boy in this class, but I am not yet sure of what you will do with them. It was my eagerness to see you make full use of them that made me poke fun at you and keep you out of the place that rightfully was yours. Perhaps I did wrong, but my meaning was right. I shall always watch you closely, and I hope you will try your best not to disappoint me. Will you promise that?" "I will," gasped Keith. The clock had already struck three. The moment Dally stopped, the class broke up, but only to gather about Keith--every one of them except Davidson, who slipped out of the room with a face white as chalk. Keith caught a glimpse of that face, and a sense of reckless elation shot through him. He sped as never before on his way home. It was still impossible for him to think the matter through. First he must tell his parents and hear what they had to say about it. On hearing what had happened, his mother hugged and kissed him, her face all smiles while big tears dripped down her cheeks. Then the father came home and was told everything. His mother looked serious by that time, and Keith noticed a wavering expression in her voice. "Your teacher evidently knows you," was the father's first remark to Keith, but by his tone the boy knew that he was pleased. Then he hesitated, and after a while he said as if speaking to himself: "But if Keith really had earned the first place...." "That's what I have been thinking," the mother broke in with blazing eyes. "Do you remember what I said about that boy Davidson? He was the richest boy in the class, and Lector Dahlström simply did not dare to put Keith above him. Now he is trying to make up for it when it's too late." "Perhaps," said the father thoughtfully. "The sum of it is what I have always said: the coin that was made for a farthing will never be a dollar." "But Keith was not made for a farthing," the mother retorted sharply and indignantly. "That is the main point of what his teacher confessed in school this very day." "Well, if not," said the father wearily, "it is up to him to prove it." And Keith, too, all of a sudden felt very, very tired.