would have been one of those carrying the chair, saying something into his ear as we went along.
My aid alone had never seemed to him in the category of help. The reason for this occurred to
me as the procession moved slowly across the brilliant foyer to the doors; Phineas had thought of
me as an extension of himself.
Dr. Stanpole stopped near the doors, looking for the light switch. There was an interval of a few
seconds when no one was near him. I came up to him and tried to phrase my question but
nothing came out, I couldn’t find the word to begin. I was being torn irreconcilably between “Is
he” and “What is” when Dr. Stanpole, without appearing to notice my tangle, said
conversationally, “It’s the leg again. Broken again. But a much cleaner break I think, much
cleaner. A simple fracture.” He found the light switch and the foyer was plunged into darkness.
Outside, the doctor’s car was surrounded by boys while Finny was being lifted inside it by Phil
Latham. Phil and Dr. Stanpole then got into the car and drove slowly away, the headlights
forming a bright parallel as they receded down the road, and then swinging into another parallel
at right angles to the first as they turned into the Infirmary driveway. The crowd began to thin
rapidly; the faculty had at last heard that something was amiss in the night, and several alarmed
and alarming masters materialized in the darkness and ordered the students to their dormitories.
Mr. Ludsbury loomed abruptly out of a. background of shrubbery. “Get along to the dormitory,
Forrester,” he said with a dry certainty in my obedience which suddenly struck me as funny,
definitely funny. Since it was beneath his dignity to wait and see that I actually followed his
order, I was by not budging free of him a moment later. I walked into the bank of shrubbery,
circled past trees in the direction of the chapel, doubled back along a large building donated by
the alumni which no one had ever been able to put to use, recrossed the street and walked
noiselessly up the emerging grass next to the Infirmary driveway.
Dr. Stanpole’s car was at the top of it, headlights on and motor running, empty. I idly considered
stealing it, in the way that people idly consider many crimes it would be possible for them to
commit. I took an academic interest in the thought of stealing the car, knowing all the time that it
would be not so much criminal as meaningless, a lapse into nothing, an escape into nowhere. As
I walked past it the motor was throbbing with wheezy reluctance—prep school doctors don’t
own very desirable getaway cars, I remember thinking to myself—and then I turned the comer of
the building and began to creep along behind it. There was only one window lighted, at the far
end, and opposite it I found some thin shrubbery which provided enough cover for me to study
the window. It was too high for me to see directly into the room, but after I made sure that the
ground had softened enough so that I could jump without making much noise, I sprang as high as
I could. I had a flashing glimpse of a door at the other end of the room, opening on the corridor. I
jumped again; someone’s back. Again; nothing new. I jumped again and saw a head and
shoulders partially turned away from me; Phil Latham’s. This was the room.
The ground was too damp to sit on, so I crouched down and waited. I could hear their blurred
voices droning monotonously through the window. If they do nothing worse, they’re going to
bore Finny to death, I said to myself. My head seemed to be full of bright remarks this evening.
It was cold crouching motionless next to the ground. I stood up and jumped several times, not so
much to see into the room as to warm up. The only sounds were occasional snorts from the