THE KIDNAPING Fanwell Livingston was curled in the window-seat in his front room, his book close to the bleared pane, striving to find light enough by which to study.

Outside it was raining in a weary, desultory way, and the heavens were leaden-hued.

Livingston's quarters were on the front of that big lemon-yellow house at the corner of Oak and King Streets, about equidistant from campus and field.

The outlook to-day was far from inspiriting.

When he raised his eyes from the pages before him he saw an empty road running with water; beyond that a bare, weed-grown, sodden field that stretched westward to the unattractive backs of the one-and two-storied shops on Main Street.