1<br >It was already April fourth， and Neil Kelly finished his packing<br >savagely. He resented the fact that he was not yet in England. If<br >his original plans had been taken into account by anyone else，<br >he would have been settled there three weeks ago. Now that<br >April s there， I m here， he thought bitterly， cursing the college<br >and his own scrupulousness about his students. If he had just<br >handed his Elizabethan poets class over to the nincompoop<br >Hatterley.. ~ he growled disgustedly at himself and checked<br >the clock on the Congregational church， just visible over the<br >roof opposite. He had an hour. He stood looking for what<br >would be the last time for five months over the town of<br >Oldhampton and the campus of Old Hampton College. The<br >pale spring sun was encouraging a few student ballplayers to<br >loosen up， and two Frisbee tossers were skimming their toy<br >with insolent skill. All the pedestrians over twenty-two that he<br >could see were prudently buttoned and zipped into coats.<br > His plane would leave in the evening from Boston， which<br >meant that he had a ninety-mile bus ride ahead of him; he had<br >no intention of driving his old Volvo to Boston just for the<br > privilege of paying parking fees for almost half a year.<br > He buckled the third and final canvas suitcase with a sigh，<br > half grunt， of relief and lugged all three bags downstairs to the<br > front hall. Bradley Oakes， his student tenant， who had demon-<br > strated in the last three weeks of unanticipated joint tenancy<br > that one of them was not as smart as the other had hoped， was<br > standing grinning by the library doorway.<br > "You got a call."<br > "I hope you told them I left."<br >