midnight
It was the week after Commencement . The corridors , class-rooms , and study hall of Saint Andrew 's stretched in dim , silent vistas ; over the tennis court and the playground there brooded a dead calm ; the field , scene of so many strenuous struggles , lay bare and still in the summer sunlight ; the quadrangle , that so lately had rung to parting cheer and `` yell , '' might have been a cloister for midnight ghosts to walk . The only sign or sound of life came from the open archways of the Gym , where the `` left overs '' -LRB- as the boys who for various reasons had been obliged to summer at Saint Andrew 's -RRB- were working off the steam condensed , as Jim Norris declared , to the `` busting '' point by the last seven days . A city-bound college has its limitations , and vacation at Saint Andrew 's promised to be a very dull affair indeed . The `` left overs '' had tried everything to kill time .