Dick, however, continued his walk, heedless if every friend on earth deserted him, so long as Culver should not be preferred before him behind that door.
He was getting tired of this solitary promenade, and beginning to wonder whether the "Select Sociables" had fallen asleep in the act of voting for him, when a ball pitched suddenly on to the pavement between his feet.
He couldn't tell where it came from--probably from some window above, for no one just then was about in the Quadrangle.
He stooped down to pick it up and pitch it back into the first open window, when, greatly to his surprise, he saw his name written across it, and discovered that the ball was not a tennis ball at all, but a round paper box, which came in two as he held it.
Dick was not superstitious.

He had scoffed at the Templeton ghost when he first heard of it, and made up his mind long since it was a bogey kept for the benefit of new boys.
But it certainly gave him a start to find himself, at this late period of the term, when he had almost forgotten he ever was a new boy, pitched upon as the recipient of one of these mysterious missives.
The letter inside was written in printed characters, like those addressed to Heathcote.
"Dick," it began.
"Hallo," thought Dick to himself, "rather cheek of a ghost to call a fellow by his Christian name, isn't it ?" "Dick,--Don't be a fool.

You were a fine fellow when you came.

What are you now?
Don't let fellows lead you astray.

You can be a fine fellow without being a bad one.