Rivals For The Team, by Ralph Henry Barbour

“I’d hate to live up here in summer, Bert,” said Ted Trafford, carefully easing his five feet and ten inches of tired, aching body to the window-seat and turning a perspiring face to the faint breeze that entered. “It must be hotter than Tophet.”

“Oh, it’s high enough, all right! If I had to climb those three flights of stairs a dozen times a day——”

“Wonder why slate stairs seem harder than others,” said Nick Blake, fanning himself with a magazine.

CHAPTER		PAGE
I.	After Practice	1
II.	Players and Coach	12
III.	A Moonlight Plunge	22
IV.	“I’m Ordway”	29
V.	Hugh Finds a Word	42
VI.	The Awkward Squad	54
VII.	His Grace, the Duke	65
VIII.	Battle!	77
IX.	Cathcart, Proctor	90
X.	Hanrihan Promises	106
XI.	Thirteen to Ten	118
XII.	Two in a Canoe	136
XIII.	Back to the Fold	149
XIV.	Bert Confides	164
XV.	Grafton Scores	178
XVI.	A Broken Rib	192
XVII.	Friends in Need	203
XVIII.	Benched	220
XIX.	Behind the Boathouse	234
XX.	“Hobo” Wins Fame	248
XXI.	Hugh Moves Again	260
XXII.	Pop Elucidates	270
XXIII.	In the Lime-light	283
XXIV.	Hugh Goes to the Village	298
XXV.	Bowles Attends a Football Game	311
XXVI.	Hugh Is Unmasked	326

“‘Go it, you Winslow’”	Frontispiece
	FACING PAGE
“‘I’m Ordway’”	38
“That avenue of escape was out of the question”	92
“‘You’re off,’ said Hugh. ‘May I have that, please?’”	288

“Because they are harder, naturally.” Ted looked about the study. “It isn’t so bad, though, when you get here. And I dare say it’ll be fine in winter. You haven’t an open fireplace, though.”

“I had one last year in 19. It was only a bother. If I had a fire the ashes got all over the shop. Besides, it was always so warm in the room that when I wanted one I had to keep all the windows open. There’s dandy steam heat in Lothrop.”

“Oh, get out, Ted!” interrupted Nick. “I’ve been in your study when the thermometer wasn’t over fifty! Everyone knows that Trow’s a regular barn in cold weather.”

“Trow’s older than this, isn’t it?” asked Bert Winslow. He had yielded the window-seat to his visitors and was stretched out on the leather cushions of a Morris chair, the back of which he had lowered to the last notch. It was very warm in Number 29, for the study was on the top floor of the building and overhead the September sun had been shining all day on the slate roof. Then, too, since the Fall Term did not begin for two days yet, all but a few of the rooms were closed and what little breeze there was found scant circulation. Bert had opened the door and windows of 32, across the corridor, and that helped to some extent, but Lothrop Hall seemed to have caught all the heat of the past[3] summer and to be bent on hoarding it on the top floor.

“Why, yes,” Ted was replying. “Trow was the first of the new buildings. It’s been built about twelve years, I think. I dare say the heating is better here and in Manning. Still, I never have any trouble keeping warm. You chaps over here are a pampered lot, anyway, with your common room and your library and your recreation room and—and your shower baths and all the rest of it! Sybarites, that’s what you are!”

“Don’t judge us all, Ted, by this palatial suite,” begged Nick. “Some of us live in monastic simplicity, in one bare little room.”

“I’ve seen your bare little room,” replied Ted, smiling. “You’re a lot of mollycoddles, the bunch of you. What time is it?”

Nick, stretched at the other end of the seat, his cheek on the windowsill and his gaze fixed on the shadowed stretches of the campus below, moved his hand toward his fob only to let it fall idly again.

“Seventeen to five,” said Bert, dropping his watch back with a sigh. Ted digested the information in silence for several minutes. Nick continued his somnolent regard of the campus and[4] Bert thoughtfully tapped together the toes of his rubber-soled shoes.

“More than an hour to supper,” said Ted finally. “Not that I’m particularly hungry, though. It’s too hot to eat. Honest, fellows, I believe it’s hotter up here than it is in New York! If this last week is a sample of New England summer weather I don’t see why folks come here the way they do.”

“Air! That’s the trouble. There isn’t any. This place is hotter than Broadway on the Fourth of July!”

“Sure; it almost blew out the door,” replied Ted sarcastically. “Come on over to my place. It’s a heap cooler, I’ll bet.”

“I’m too tired to move,” protested his host. “We can go downstairs, if you like. I dare say it’s cooler in the common room.”

“Who’s with you this year?” asked Ted, his gaze traveling to the open door of the bedroom at the left.

“Fellow by the name of Ordway, or something. Comes from Maryland. Upper middler, I think.”

“So I do, but I’ve had my eye on this suite ever since I came over from Manning. Gus Livingstone and I had it all fixed to take it together and applied last fall for it. Then, when Gus didn’t come back after winter vacation, I tried to get Nick to come in with me, and——”

“I wanted to hard enough,” said Nick, without turning, “but my dad kicked like a steer. He said seven hundred was too much for his pocket.”

“Wow!” exclaimed Ted. “Is that what this stands you? Seven hundred each?”

“Two-fifty. Seven hundred for room and board, a hundred and fifty for tuition and a couple of hundred for incidentals; total, ten hundred and fifty a year! Say, Bert, I’ll bet your old man will be mighty glad when you’re through here!”

“Then it’ll be college,” answered Bert, “and I guess that won’t be much cheaper. We do cost our folks a lot of money, though, don’t we?”

Ted Trafford laughed. “I’m worth two-fifty and you’re worth three, eh? And Bert’s worth seven. Well, it’s a peach of a suite, all right, Bert, but I’d just as lief have my dive. Besides, I’ve got it to myself. When you have another chap with you he always wants to cut up when you want to plug. Not for mine, thanks!”

“Single blessedness for me, too,” murmured Nick. “When I was in Manning in junior year I roomed with young Fessenden and we nearly got fired because we were always scrapping. He was a quarrelsome little brute!”

“No, but I wanted to lots of times. He quit the next year. Went to some school in Pennsylvania. His folks wanted him nearer home, he said. I don’t see why they should!”

“Hope you like your new chum, Bert,” said Ted. “Broadway’s a funny name, though, eh?”

“Ordway,” Bert corrected. “I dare say we’ll get along. I have a nice disposition.”

Nick giggled and Bert gazed across at him speculatively. “Of course everyone knows why Nick rooms alone,” he added. “He’s too mean to live with.”

Nick raised his head to answer, but thought better of it. A vagrant breeze crept through the[7] windows and the boys said, “A-ah!” in ecstatic chorus.

“Listen,” said Nick, suddenly propping himself up on the cushions. “I’ve got a good scheme!”

“Mud and frogs your eye! It’s dandy if you don’t go to wading around. We don’t have to stay in the pool, anyway. Rules don’t apply before term begins. We can go in the river. No one will see us.”

“Safest thing,” said Ted, “is to find a canoe and upset, the way we did a couple of years ago. Pete used to go crazy and threaten to report us, but he couldn’t prove it wasn’t an accident.”

“Aren’t any canoes out yet, I guess,” said Bert. “And the boat house is locked.”

“Never mind your old canoes,” said Nick. “That’s an underhand scheme, anyway. Fair and open’s my motto! Oh, say, but that water’s going to feel good!”

“That isn’t such an awfully rotten idea,” said Ted. “I’m blessed if I know where to look for my trunks, though.”

“Not with a moon shining, you silly chump,” said Bert. “You can take a pair of running trunks of mine, Ted. Only, worse luck, I’ll have to unpack that box over there.” He pulled himself from the chair with a sigh of resignation and kicked experimentally at the lid of the packing case. “Wonder where I can find a hatchet,” he muttered. “Got anything I can bust this lid off with, Nick?”

“Find out, you lazy beast,” replied Bert. “Tell me how to get this thing open, you chaps.”

“Oh, all right, then you go without the trunks,” said Bert, returning to his chair. “I’d like to know why I pounded a million dollars’ worth of nails into it, anyway.” There was no solution forthcoming, it seemed. Nick had returned to his study of the world outside and Ted had picked up the discarded magazine and was idly looking at the pictures. Bert sighed again and stretched[9] his arms overhead. Then he said “Ouch!” suddenly and loudly and ruefully rubbed a shoulder. Ted looked over and grinned.

“Sore as a boil! You wouldn’t think a fellow would get so soft in summer, swimming and playing tennis and everything. I wish Bonner would let us off tomorrow. I think he might. It wouldn’t hurt him to give us a day’s rest.”

“He’s going to give us the afternoon off,” replied Ted. “Only morning practice tomorrow. You can thank me for it, Bert. It was my pretty little thought.”

“He wouldn’t have seen me on the field tomorrow, anyway,” remarked Nick. “I’m going down to the junction to meet Guy at three-something. Come on with me.”

“I wouldn’t make that trip in this weather for the King of England, much less Guy Murtha,” responded Bert impressively.

“Oh, you fellows make me weary!” sighed Nick. “No sporting blood at all! No——”

“Is that your idea of sporting?” jeered Ted.[10] “Get on a hot, stuffy little one-horse train and dawdle down to Needham Junction, four miles away, in something like half an hour? I’ve made that trip once this fall and, Fortune aiding me, I shan’t make it again!”

“Come on to supper,” said Bert. “It’s almost a quarter of. It will be cooler over there on the steps than it is here, too.”

“Just when I was beginning to get comfortable,” mourned Nick. “Say, Ted, did you do this last year?”

“I did. And we had ten days of it last fall instead of only a week. You fellows needn’t kick!”

“I do kick, though, Teddy, old scout! Look here, you! I gave up a whole week of the best sort of fun at Deal Beach to come up here and frizzle and fry in my juices and chase a contemptible football over a sun-smitten cow-pasture! Needn’t kick, eh? Why, man, back there there’s a nice cool breeze off the ocean and a band playing moosics and piles of eats and—and nothing to do but play around! And just because I’m—I’m patriotic enough and unselfish enough to leave all that you lie there like a ton of bricks and tell me I needn’t kick! I do kick! I’m kicking!”

“I hear you,” murmured Ted. “Go on kicking. Nobody’s going to miss you if you go back to Deal Beach tomorrow. We could have got on well enough without you, anyhow. You were simply asked because we thought you’d feel hurt if you weren’t.”

“I like your nerve!” gasped Nick. “My word! Who’s been doing the work for five days out there? Trying to get drive into you chaps is like pulling teeth! Why, you miserable sandy-haired——”

“Oh, come on,” begged Bert. “I’m getting hungry. Anyone want to wash up? Come along if you do. You’ll have to wipe your hands on your handkerchiefs, though. They haven’t given us any towels yet.”

“What’s the good of washing if we’re going in swimming later?” asked Nick, sprawling off the window-seat.

“Because for once, old son, you’re dining with gentlemen,” Ted answered, gripping the smaller youth by the shoulders and propelling him towards the door in the wake of Bert.

A few minutes later the three boys were crossing the campus unhurriedly and with an impressive disregard of “Keep Off the Grass” signs. And three good-looking, healthy, well-set-up youths they were. Their bare heads—there wasn’t a hat among them—showed three distinctly different colors. Ted Trafford’s hair was sandy, Bert Winslow’s black, Nick Blake’s reddish-brown. Between sandy hair and brown lay a matter of four inches in height, with black hair halving the difference. In build the trio were again at variance. Ted was a big, broad-bodied chap, Bert was slenderer, without being thin, and Nick was at once short and slight. Although Nick was only five months Bert’s junior—and Bert was seventeen—his smallness made him appear much younger. He had a thin face, deeply tanned, and gray eyes. Nick’s usual expression was one of intense, even somber, thoughtfulness. He had, in fact, the appearance of a boy with a deep and secret sorrow. But in his case appearances[13] were deceptive, or, if he had a sorrow, it was merely that there are only a certain number of ways to create mischief and that he had pretty well exhausted them all.

Bert Winslow was a very normal-looking fellow with good features, a healthy color under his tan and a pair of eyes so darkly blue that they seemed black. Ted’s features were more rugged, like his body, and, if such a thing is possible, his complexion was as sandy as his hair. He had a wealth of freckles and two rather sleepy-looking brown eyes very far apart. Ted’s countenance expressed good nature first, and after that a sort of quiet purposefulness. One wouldn’t have expected brilliant mental feats of Ted, but one would have expected him to succeed where physical strength and dogged determination were demanded. Ted thought slowly, reached conclusions only after some effort, and then stuck immovably to his conclusions. He had been three years at Grafton School and during that time his great ambition had been to captain the football team in his senior year. He had attained that ambition and had now substituted another, which was, to put it in his own words, “Knock the tar out of Mt. Morris in November!” Having accomplished or failed in that, Ted would undoubtedly drag another ambition from the recesses of his[14] mind. But at present that was enough. With Ted it was always “one thing at a time.”

Between them, the three boys loitering across the grass represented just three-elevenths of the Grafton School Football Team. Captain Trafford played right tackle, Bert Winslow was left half-back and Nick Blake was quarter. Ted had played on the School Team ever since he had entered the lower middle class, which meant two years. Bert, who was now an upper-middler, had made his position only last season, beating out Siedhof in the final contests. Nick had been second-string quarter-back last year and now, owing to the graduation of Balch, had automatically succeeded to the position. Barring unforeseen and unexpected accidents, each of the trio was certain of playing the coming season through as first-choice.

At Grafton the school buildings stood in a row midway across the campus, a three-acre expanse of level turf intersected by gravel paths shaded by elms and surrounded by an ancient fence of granite posts and squared timbers, the latter thoughtlessly set with an angle uppermost. In shape the campus was a square with one corner rounded off where Crumbie Street changed its mind about continuing northward and swung westward to River Street and, a half mile beyond[15] that, the station. River Street marked the westerly limits of the school property all the way to the river, which, in its turn, formed the southerly boundary. The campus proper ended at School Street, but successive purchases had added many more acres between it and the Needham River, so that now the school property extended in an unbroken strip some two blocks wide from Needham Street, at the back, all the way down to the river. What was virtually a continuation of the campus lay to the south of School Street, but, since it was of later acquisition, it was, for some unknown reason, called “the green.” A tree-bordered path led through the middle of the green to Front Street, and, across that quiet road, an ornamental gateway of old brick and sandstone and lacy ironwork. Set in the right-hand pillar was a bronze tablet bearing the inscription: “Lothrop Field. In Memory of Charles Parkinson Lothrop, Class of 1911.”

Beyond the gateway the land sloped gently to the river, and here was the Field House, near at hand as one entered, the tennis courts to the right, the diamond beyond them, the running track to the left of the gate, with the School Team gridiron inclosed in the blue-gray ribbon, and, further toward the river, the practice field. Beyond that again, near where Crumbie Street crossed by an[16] old covered bridge on its way to Needham, stood the boat house.

But we are too far afield, for our present destination is that of the three boys whom we left crossing the campus. At one corner of the green, where River and School Streets intersect, stood two old-fashioned white dwelling houses. The one nearer River Street had been just there when the land was bought by the School, but the second had stood at the other end of the green and had been moved to its present location to make room for tennis courts. When, however, a few years later, Lothrop Field had been presented to the School the tennis courts were transferred thither and now, save for the two white-clapboarded, many-dormered houses, the green was only a pleasant, shady expanse of close-cropped sward. The old houses, used now as dormitories since the buildings in the campus failed to meet the requirements of the ever-increasing student body, still retained the names of their former owners. The larger one, nearer the side street, was known as Morris House, the other as Fuller.

At a few minutes before six this afternoon the front steps and the adjacent turf—there was no such thing as a porch or piazza on either dwelling—were sprinkled with boys. There seemed to be at least two dozen of them. As a matter of[17] fact, until Ted, Bert and Nick joined them, they numbered exactly seventeen. In age they varied from sixteen to twenty, although only one of them, John Driver, commonly known as “Pop,” had attained the latter age. Pop was, as he laughingly explained it, “doing the four-year course in six.” That was a slight exaggeration, for Pop had been at Grafton only four years, was now a senior and would undoubtedly be graduated next June whether he was willing or not! He was big and slow; slow to move, slow to speak and slow to anger. He played right guard in a steady, highly-satisfactory if not brilliant fashion.

Since this was Tuesday, the fellows who had gathered from various and, in some instances, distant parts of the country for early football practice, had been at Grafton six days. Those six days had been busy ones. There had been morning and afternoon sessions on each day and the weather had been almost unreasonably hot. More than one of the candidates showed the result of those strenuous days in his tired face and fagged movements. Not one of the twenty who had been bidden had, however, failed to respond. Those summons meant a week less of vacation time and an added week of hard labor, but it also meant honor, for only the most likely of last year’s first and second players had been called on. While the[18] fellows were occupying their rooms in the dormitories, neither of the big dining halls in Lothrop and Manning were open and so they were being served with meals at Morris where, in a room and at a table designed to accommodate only the dozen or fourteen residents of the two houses, they were packed in like sardines in a box.

However, none minded that so long as there was plenty of food on the dishes and plenty of milk in the big pitchers. Mr. Bonner, the coach, arrived just as the crowd had squeezed themselves to the two tables and had begun their onslaught. Somehow he didn’t look quite like the popular conception of a football coach. He was of only medium size and height and had the preoccupied expression of a business man with his mind on the day’s sales. In age he was twenty-eight or -nine, had a somewhat narrow face, brown hair and eyes and wore a closely-trimmed mustache that was several shades lighter than his hair. The reason for the mustache was apparent when, on close observation, what seemed at first to be a natural crease running from one corner of his mouth was seen to be a deep, white scar. The mustache didn’t hide the whole of that scar but it concealed the most of it. David Bonner had acquired it in a certain hard-fought game when[19] he was playing end in his junior year at Amherst, and there was a story at Grafton to the effect that his opponent in that contest had subsequently fared much worse than Mr. Bonner had. However, as the coach was a remarkably even-tempered man, that may have been merely an invention of someone’s imagination.

Supper proceeded with as much and probably no more noise than is usual when twenty fairly hungry youths are left to their own devices at table. There was a good deal of loud talk, some far from silent mastication, much rattling and clashing of dishes and, it is not to be denied, some horse-play toward the end of the meal. Two capable if not over-neat waitresses flitted in and out and did their best to supply the demands on the kitchen. Now and then Coach Bonner’s voice was raised in warning, but for the most part that gentleman attended closely to the business of consuming his supper, and it was not until cold rice pudding had appeared as the final course that he entered into the conversation to any extent. By that time many of the fellows, having either picked the raisins from their portion of the dessert or engulfed it with the aid of much milk and sugar, had moved back from the tables to loll more comfortably half in, half off their chairs. The four windows were wide open and a slight[20] breeze was swaying the curtain-cords, but the heat of the day still lingered.

“I’ll trouble you for the milk, Willard,” said the coach, eyeing his pudding with but slight enthusiasm. “Thanks. Traf, I’ve been thinking that maybe it would be well to cut out practise tomorrow. You fellows have been at it pretty hard and this weather is trying. I thought it might be cooler tomorrow, but that sunset says not. What do you think?”

“Oh, we ought to be able to stand a little work in the morning, if we don’t do any in the afternoon. Still, it’s just as you like, Coach. It is awfully hot for football, and that’s a fact.”

“That’s the scheme, sir,” exclaimed Nick Blake. “It’s going to be hotter than ever tomorrow.” Nick expertly thrust some bread crumbs down Pop Driver’s neck. “We’d all be better for a rest, sir. Just look at Pop here! Overcome by the heat, Mr. Bonner!”

Pop, squirming and muttering, really looked as if something was vastly wrong with him, but the coach didn’t seem inclined to accept Nick’s theory. He studied Pop’s spasms a moment in thoughtful silence and then pushed back his chair.

“We’ll cut it out for tomorrow, then,” he announced as he stood up. “And, by the way, Mrs.[21] Fair will give us our breakfasts in the morning, but we’ll have to shift for ourselves at noon.”

“They’re going to serve cold lunch in Manning at noon, sir,” said one of the boys. “I guess we can get in on that.”

“All right. Next practise, then, will be Thursday at three-thirty. Traf, you look me up tomorrow evening, will you? There are one or two things—and bring Quinn along with you, please. Don’t stay around here, fellows. Give Mrs. Fair a chance to get these tables cleaned off. Good night.”

Coach Bonner passed out briskly and the fellows, with much scraping of chairs and good-natured horseplay, followed. Twilight was settling over the world. The sun had just dropped behind the distant spires and tree-tops of the village and on Mt. Grafton, the sugar-loaf hill behind the school, its last rays rested on the spindley observatory crowning the rocky summit. The campus was fast filling with shadows, and along the streets and walks the lamps made lemon-yellow points in the purple dusk. In Manning and Trow and Lothrop lights glowed wanly at the entrances, but School Hall and the gymnasium were dark. Doubtless there were lights, too, in the Principal’s residence, far to the right, but the clustering maples hid all of that but the roof. A faint breeze fluttered from the southwest, but the evening was still oppressively hot. By twos and threes and in larger groups the fellows wandered away, some turning their steps toward the village, a half-mile distant,[23] others seeking the dormitories. Bert, Nick and Ted, however, still loitered on the steps of Morris, waiting for the moon to rise, and with them loitered Pop Driver.

“It’s frightfully hot over in my room,” observed the latter, sprawling his big form over the steps. “I’m on the wrong side of the building tonight.”

Bert prodded Nick with his foot. “Guess I’ll bunk in with you, old man,” he said.

“You’ll bunk on the window-seat, then. Why don’t you sleep in one of the rooms across the hall? No one would care.”

“Someone lighted up in Fuller,” replied Bert. “Let’s go along down. We don’t have to have the moon, anyhow.”

“It’s a lot more fun,” said Nick drowsily, settling back against Bert’s knees. “Say, fellows, isn’t it nice that school begins day after tomorrow? Aren’t you all tickled to death?”

“No, come on and get that swim,” agreed Ted,[24] getting to his feet and ungently tousling Bert’s hair. “If we wait for the moon we never will get in. And I’m hot and uncomfortable and——”

“Something’s happened to the moon,” murmured Nick. “Probably got a hot-box.”

“What about towels?” Bert got up, letting Nick subside violently against the steps.

Nick, rubbing the back of his head, arose with groans and protests and draped himself against Pop Driver.

“Nick wants to be carried,” he whimpered. “Pop, please carry Nick. He’s so ’ittle!”

Pop complacently gathered the other in his big arms and bore him away around the corner of the house, Nick babbling nonsense. “Pop likes to carry his ’ittle Nick, doesn’t he? Pop loves his ’ittle Nick.”

“Pop loves him to death,” grunted Pop, depositing him suddenly in a barberry hedge. There arose a piercing wail from Nick as he came into contact with the thorns, the sound of cracking shrubbery and the thud of Pop’s feet as he hurried off into the darkness.

“Oh, you big brute!” shouted Nick. “You wait till I get hold of you! I’m full of stickers![25] Which way did that big, ugly hippopotamus go, Ted?”

“Straight on into the engulfing gloom,” answered Bert. “Look out for that clothes-line, Nick.”

“Pop!” called Nick sweetly. “Pop, come back to me, darling! Honest, Pop, I haven’t a thing in my hands! I just want to love you!”

“I’m busy,” responded Pop from the darkness ahead. “I got some of those old thorns myself.”

“Oh, Pop, I’m so sorry! Do they hurt, Pop? Come back here and let me drive them in for you!”

Peace was restored by the time they were passing the tennis courts. Eastward, above the trees beyond the little river, a silvery radiance heralded the moon. They skirted the running track and made their way to where, dimly, the dark form of the boathouse loomed ahead of them. When they reached it Pop experimentally tried all the doors, but found them fast. They disrobed in the shadow of the building and then, making certain that there were no passers on the road, a few rods distant, they raced down the float and plunged into the water with whoops of glee. When their heads emerged the moon had topped the trees and, save where the shadow of the covered bridge lay across it, the stream was[26] bathed in silver. The water was warm, but far cooler than the air, and Pop grunted ecstatically as he rolled over on his back and floated lazily, blinking at the moon. It was then that Nick obtained his revenge. Sinking very quietly, he swam across under water, emerged behind the unsuspecting Pop, and—

“Glug-gug-gug!” observed Pop, as his head went suddenly under and his feet flashed white in the radiance. When he arose again, sputtering and gasping, Nick was far across the stream, paddling gently and crooning a little song.

Stirring moments then, ending in the terrestrial flight of Nick, Pop begging him to come back and be drowned! Finally they all gathered under the bridge and lolled on a crosspiece and dabbled their legs in the cool water and talked. Once a team went past overhead, and once an automobile sped across, roaring fearsomely and threatening to bring the old structure down on top of them. Then quiet again, and the winding stretch of the river below, black and silver. With the rising of the moon the little breeze had found courage and now blew cooler from the west. Nine[27] o’clock struck in the village and they splashed back into the water and swam to the float. Half an hour later they parted in front of Trow, Ted and Pop turning in there and Bert and Nick going on to Lothrop.

Nick turned off at the top of the second flight and Bert continued to his room. But when he had donned pajamas the latter descended again, the slate steps gratefully cool to his bare feet, and he and Nick stretched out on the window-seat and talked while the breeze blew past them and softly rustled the papers on the table. Ten o’clock struck. The conversation became fitful. Once Nick snored frankly and then jerked himself awake again, and replied brightly to an observation of Bert’s made five minutes before. Through the window they could look for nearly a mile over fields and tree-bordered roads. A little way off the buildings of a small farm were clustered about the black shadows of a group of elms. Beyond that two streaks of silver glittered where the moon glinted on the railroad tracks. Bert wondered if, after all, the view from this side of the building was not more attractive than that from the front, wondered what sort of a chap this new roommate of his would turn out to be, wondered if he had not taken a pretty big chance in accepting him sight-unseen, wondered[28] why Nick didn’t wake himself up with his own snoring, wondered—

Some time in the early morning he disentangled himself from the encumbering Nick and groped his way down to his own room. He didn’t remember much about it afterwards, though.

Bert, for one, found himself at a loose end the next morning. He lingered as long as possible over breakfast, but the day promised to be even hotter than the one before, and his appetite was soon satisfied. He and Nick sat for a while in the shade of the trees near the middle gate, but the heat soon drove them indoors, and Bert climbed up to Number 29 and unenthusiastically wrenched the lid from the packing case there and set about the distribution of the contents. The few pictures were deposited against a wall, since it was best to see what his roommate was bringing before deciding as to the disposition of them. His books he found place for and he laid some extra clothing in the dresser drawers in the bedroom on the right. He had selected that room in preference to the one on the other side since Lothrop stood at right angles to the other buildings in the row and from “29b” one had an uninterrupted view along the fronts of Trow, School and Manning. Only the[30] gymnasium, hiding behind the shoulder of the last dormitory, was out of sight. From the other bedroom, “29a,” much of this view was cut off by a corner of Trow, and Bert acted on the basis of “first come, first served.”

The study was a good-sized square room, lighted by two windows set in a dormer, beneath which was a wide and comfortable seat. A bright-hued rug occupied the center of the floor and the walls were papered attractively to the height of the picture molding in tones of golden-brown. Above the molding was a foot of white plaster, and two plastered beams ran the length of the ceiling. The furniture was of brown mission; two study desks, a table in the center of the room, a Morris chair upholstered in brown leather beside it, two armchairs, two sidechairs, and a settle. The desks were supplied with green-shaded droplights.

The bedrooms were identical. Each had a single dormer window. Blue two-tone paper covered the walls and a rug flanked the single white iron bed. A dresser, a washstand and a chair completed the furnishings. There was generous closet room.

Bert was glad when Nick came in at eleven and gave him an excuse for stopping his half-hearted labors. Nick was down to a pair of soiled flannel[31] trousers, supported by a most disreputable leather strap that scarcely deserved the name of belt, a white tennis shirt, open at the throat, and a pair of brown canvas “sneakers.” And he looked as though he thought he still had far too much on as he stretched himself out on the window-seat, sprawled one foot over the edge, and hung the other across the sill.

“Four or five fellows came a while ago,” he announced. “Leddy and Ayer and some others. Hairwig, too. Hairwig looks like he’d been sitting in the sun all summer. Tanned to beat the band.”

Hairwig’s real name was Helwig, and he was instructor in physics and chemistry. Being a German, the boys had at first called him Herr Helwig, and later had shortened it to Hairwig. The news of his advent didn’t, however, greatly interest Bert, who inquired:

“Haven’t seen any. I told you, didn’t I, that I ran across Smiles in New York one day? He was all dolled up. Said he was going out west somewhere to teach at a summer school. He seemed real glad to see me, too. Smiles is a good old sport.”

“N-no, but Latin instructors always seem old.[32] They know so plaguey much! Who do you think will be proctor up here this year?”

“Cathcart, I suppose. He’s the only senior on the floor. Wonder if we’re going to have a big junior class.”

Bert shook his head. “No, and I’m glad I don’t. You always have to look after them, and they’re nuisances.”

“You’ll have to do the guide and mentor act for your friend Ordway,” reminded Nick, with a malicious grin. “Did you say he was an upper middler?”

“I’d hate to enter a school in the middle like that,” reflected Nick. “I should think it would be hard.”

“Well, you don’t know anyone, in the first place. It would take most of the year to get acquainted, and then you’d only have one year left. Going to put him up for Lit?”

“I suppose so, if he wants me to. You have to do that much for a roommate, I guess.”

“Downstairs. You don’t think I carry all that money around with me, do you?”

“All right, but we’ll stop in for it before you forget it. Are you really going over to the Junction to meet Guy?”

“I wouldn’t make the trip on that hot, dusty old train for a thousand dollars!”

Bert grunted. “I’m likely to! I’ve been wondering if he will bring any pictures and truck like that. I hope, if he does, he won’t have the usual rot. This is too good a study to fill up with chromos. Something tells me, Nick, that I’m an awful idiot to go in with some fellow I’ve never seen. Bet you anything he will be a fresh kid.”

Nick chuckled. “I decline the wager, Bert. Also, I agree with you that you’re taking a chance. Still, you can’t tell. Where does he come from?”

“Baltimore? I knew a fellow who lived in Baltimore, and he was a crackajack.”

“No, some place I never heard of. I forget it now. I suppose that makes him a Southerner, doesn’t it?”

“No, only they’re a bit stuck up. If he tries it with me I’ll shut him up mighty quick!”

“Bert, your disposition is entirely ruined. I guess it’s the weather. I’m glad I’m not What’s-his-name, Ordway.”

“Don’t blame me, old scout. Write to dad about it. I wanted to, all right. Put something on and let’s do something.”

“Tennis! I see myself racing around a court a day like this! How hot is it, anyway?”

“About two hundred in the shade. Then why stay in the shade? Say, Bert, what sort of a captain is Ted going to make?”

“Yes, but he isn’t awfully—oh, you know what I mean; he isn’t exactly brilliant, eh?”

“Well, I never saw any sparks flying from Bonner, for that matter,” returned Nick dryly.

“What’s the good of being brilliant, as you call it? In football, I mean. It’s knowledge of the game that does the business. And Bonner certainly knows football; and so does Ted.”

“Yes, that’s so. All right. We’ll hope for the best. Come on down and I’ll find that old dollar. Then we’ll go over and see Leddy. He’s probably trying to unpack, and he oughtn’t to do it in this weather.”

They managed to kill time until luncheon was[36] served in Manning, and after that they joined a crowd in the common room there and remained until it was time for Nick to go to the station to take the train for Needham Junction. Mr. Russell, Greek instructor, having arrived, Bert went over to Trow to consult him about his new work. Greek had been hard sledding for Bert the year before and he viewed the first four books of Hellenica with misgiving. The consultation in the master’s study in Trow took up the better part of a half hour, for “J. P.,” as Mr. Russell was called, was not to be hurried. When he finally got away Bert climbed up to Pop Driver’s room on the floor above and found Ted Trafford and Roy Dresser in possession. Roy was Pop’s roommate. Pop, he explained, had gone to the village to buy some lemons. They had drawn lots and Pop had lost. If he didn’t die of sunstroke before he got back there was going to be a lemonade of magnificence. Bert decided to wait around.

But Pop tarried and after awhile Ted discovered that it was after four o’clock and hurried out. They could hear him taking the stairs three at a time. Bert abandoned hope of that lemonade and followed Ted, Roy Dresser apologizing for Pop and adding that if Bert would keep his ears open he, Roy, would yell across when the lemons arrived.

It seemed a trifle cooler in the campus and the shadow of Lothrop stretched far along the red brick walk that ran, the main artery of travel, along the fronts of the buildings. A locomotive shrieked despairingly a mile or so away and Bert knew that the first of the two trains on which the bulk of the returning students would arrive was nearing the station. Again his thoughts reverted to Ordway and again he wondered pessimistically what sort of a youth fate was going to impose upon him. Ordway might not come until six-thirty, however; many fellows didn’t; and Bert rather hoped he would be of their number. He was disposed to postpone the inevitable.

The rooms in Lothrop had been thrown open, doors and windows alike, and the corridors were far cooler than they had been since he had taken possession of Number 29. Quite a draft of air was blowing down the staircase well. In the study, he put away the last few belongings, placed the packing-case outside for removal to the store-room, and finally, lowering the shades at the windows through which the afternoon sun was shining hotly, took up his schedule and, stretching himself on the window-seat, studied it dubiously. Mathematics 4, Greek 3, English 4, French 1, History 3a; eighteen hours altogether, aside from Physical Training. From the latter, however, he[38] was exempt so long as he was in training with the football team. Eighteen hours was the least required for the third year, and he was expected to select another study. He mentally pondered the respective merits of physics and chemistry. Physics was known as a “snap course,” but Bert was in favor of leaving it for his senior year. The same with chemistry. He rather leaned toward German, but Mr. Teschner, or “Jules,” as he was usually called, was a hard taskmaster and his classes were not viewed with much enthusiasm. Still, unless he took physics or chemistry it would have to be German, and after a few minutes of cogitation he wrote German 1 on the card in his hand. The schedule had yet to be approved and he wondered whether he would be allowed to go in so heavily for languages. The schedule was a bit top-heavy in that way, with thirteen hours of the twenty-one given to Greek, German, and French. Probably they would make him substitute physics for German. He slipped the card in his pocket, with a sigh for the vexations of life, and became aware that Lothrop Hall was at last inhabited. Steps scuffed on the stairs, voices sounded, bags and trunks thumped. The invasion had begun in earnest. Half inclined to go down and see if Guy Murtha had arrived, he nevertheless found himself too lazy to stir and so when, a few moments[39] later, footsteps drew near the open door he was still sprawled on his back.

“This must be it, Bowles,” said a voice. “Yes, twenty-nine. Oh, I beg your pardon!”

Bert sat up and slid his feet to the floor. In the doorway stood a slim, pleasant-faced youth, and behind him a very serious-looking man held an extremely large kit-bag, an umbrella, and a folded gray overcoat. The youth advanced toward Bert, smiling and removing a gray glove.

“I fancy you are Winslow,” he said. “I’m Ordway. I believe we share these quarters, eh?”

Bert shook hands. “Glad to know you,” he replied. “Beastly hot, isn’t it? That’s your room over there.” He glanced inquiringly at the second arrival who, still holding his burdens, had paused just inside the door. But if he looked for an introduction none was forthcoming. Ordway, who had now removed both gloves and tossed them nonchalantly to the table, evidently had no thought of making his companion known.

“Ripping view from here,” he said, glancing from the window. Then, turning: “In there, Bowles,” he directed, and nodded toward the open door of the bedroom. “Just dump them, will you? I’ll look after them myself.”

Bag and coat and umbrella disappeared, Bert’s gaze following their bearer curiously. Ordway[40] had thrust his hands in his pockets and was leisurely examining the study. His manner was a queer mixture of quiet assurance and diffidence. When he had shaken hands he had reddened perceptibly, but now he was looking the place over just as though, as Bert silently told himself, he had ordered the whole thing. “I like this,” he said, after a moment. “Rather jolly, isn’t it?”

Bert was spared a reply, for just then the mysterious Bowles appeared in the bedroom doorway. “Shan’t I unpack the bag, sir?” he asked.

“No, never mind it, thanks.” Ordway consulted a watch. “I fancy you’d better beat it, Bowles. Your train leaves in fifteen minutes, you know.”

“Are you sure of that?” Ordway glanced inquiringly at Bert. “He’s wrong, eh?”

“Yes, the next one doesn’t go until seven-five. If he wants to get this one he will have to hustle. It’s a good ten minutes’ walk to the station.”

“Thanks. This gentleman’s right, Bowles. You’d better start along. You know your way, eh? Tell mother I’m quite all right; everything’s very jolly.” The boy walked to the door with the man and pulled a leather purse from his pocket. “Better treat yourself to a bit of a jinks when[41] you get to town. You’ll have four hours to wait, you know. Good-by, Bowles.”

“Thank you, Master Hugh. Good-by, sir. I hung the coat in the closet, sir, and the keys are on the dresser.”

Ordway sauntered back to the study, smiling. “Bowles always gets time-tables twisted,” he chuckled. “Rum chap that way. Bet you anything you like he will miss that train.”

“Bowles? Yes, he’s been looking after me ever since I was out of the nursery. He’s a little bit of all right, Bowles.” Ordway seated himself on the farther end of the seat, looked interestedly about the campus, no longer silent and empty, and finally turned his gaze to Bert. Again the color crept into his cheeks and he said diffidently, almost stammeringly:

Half an hour later, having left his new roommate to the business of unpacking his trunk, Bert was in Number 12, and he and Nick and Guy Murtha, their host, were talking it over.

“We saw him on the train just after we left the city,” Guy was saying. “Some of us had been in the diner and when we came back through the parlor car we saw this chap and the man with him. They had a table and the kid was eating a lunch out of a box and the chap in the derby hat was waiting on him, or, anyway, that’s how it looked. He’d take a sandwich out of the box and put it on the kid’s plate and then he’d move the mustard nearer and sort of fuss over the table. He wasn’t eating a thing himself. I suppose he ate at second table!”

Guy was a tall fellow of eighteen, a senior and captain of the nine. He was not a handsome youth; rather plain, in fact; but he had so many likable qualities that one soon forgot that his nose[43] was short and broad, that his heavy eyebrows met above it, that his mouth was large and somewhat loose and that his pale eyes, of a washed-out blue, were too small. He had a jolly laugh and a pleasant, deep voice that won friends.

Nick chuckled. “When they got off at the Junction the man got confused and tried to get back on the express again, and your friend stood in the middle of the platform, with his hands in his pockets, and shouted: ‘Bowles, you silly ass, came back here!’ Everyone laughed like the dickens.”

“Ordway, too. I asked him. He was born in England; I forget where; is there a place called Pants?”

“That’s it, Hants. His father is English, he says, and his mother American. They live in Maryland now.”

Bert nodded. “Yes,” he agreed doubtfully. “Yes, he’s a nice-looking kid, but——” His voice dwindled to silence. Nick laughed.

“Cheer up, old scout! He can’t be awfully British if he has an American mama and lives in ‘Maryland, my Maryland.’ Bet you the sodas he will be singing ‘Dixie’ when you get back!”

“More likely ‘Rule Britannia’ or ‘God Save the King,’” replied Bert ruefully. After a moment: “He’s got awfully smooth manners,” he added grudgingly. “Makes me feel like a—an Indian.”

“Wish he might have kept Bowles here with him,” said Nick regretfully. “It would have given Lothrop a lot of class!”

“I liked what I saw of him,” said Guy, “and I guess you’ll take to him when you know him better, Bert. Anyway, he’s a gentleman. You might have been saddled with a regular mucker, you know. We get one now and then.”

“Oh, he’s a gentleman, all right,” laughed Bert. “That’s the trouble. I’ve got to live up to him, don’t you see? I dare say he will put on a dinner jacket and stuff his handkerchief up his sleeve. He makes me feel like an awfully rough, uncivilized sort of fellow.”

“No, he has it on a fob. And, say, fellows, if you want to see some swell things, come up and give his dresser the once-over! Solid silver everything![45] Crest, too. Oh, we’re going to be pretty classy in 29 this year, I can tell you!” And Bert sighed.

“That’s what I said. I’ve got a peachy one. Dad had someone make it for him and put it on the automobile doors. It was the proper caper that year to have your crest on your auto, and Dad doesn’t let anyone put anything over on him. I told him I thought a cake of soap, rampant, surrounded by the motto, ‘Won’t dry the skin,’ would be rather appropriate, but he didn’t like it. Dad makes soap, you know.”

“Yes, I do know,” replied Guy. “I tried some of it once. And it didn’t dry the skin, either. It took it off.”

“Well, you’re not supposed to wash your hands with laundry soap,” said Nick. “Of course, if you’re used to that sort, though, and don’t know any better——”

“I suppose,” said Guy gravely, “you’ll have to sort of look after Ordway, Bert, now that he hasn’t any valet; lay out his things in the morning, you know, and put his studs in, and all that.”

“Fine!” approved Nick. “Maybe he will give you a tip now and then. Say, did you pipe the[46] gray suede gloves he wore? Think of gloves on a day like this! Still, noblesse oblige, eh, what?”

“I noticed the stunning Norfolk suit he wore,” said Guy. “I’ll bet that wasn’t cut out by any village tailor down in Maryland.”

“Rawther not!” drawled Nick. “I fawncy he goes across every year and gets togged out in Bond Street. What ho, old top!”

“Well, I guess I’ll go back and pilot him down to supper,” said Bert. “Mind if I bring him down here afterwards, Guy? Or, say, you fellows come up, will you? I—I sort of funk the job of talking up to his level all evening!”

“You bet we’ll come,” agreed Nick. “I want to meet him. Something tells me that he and I have a lot of mutual acquaintances amongst royalty in dear old England.”

“Well, don’t come up there and act the fool,” warned Bert. “He’s new yet and not used to our simple, democratic ways.”

“Oh, I won’t shock him,” chuckled Nick. “Nothing like that, dear boy, ’pon honor. You’ll see that he and I will get along like a house on fire. Say, what’s his front name, the one you take hold by?”

“Hugh,” answered Bert from the doorway, “Hugh Brodwick Ordway. Some name, what?”

“Cut it,” laughed Guy, “or we’ll all be talking that way! I feel it coming on. We’ll come up after supper, Bert, and help you entertain, although when I’m going to get my things unpacked——”

“I’ll help you, Guy,” Nick volunteered. “I’m a remarkable little unpacker. A misplace for everything and everything misplaced, is my motto. Bye-bye, Bert. Give my love to Broadway—I should say Ordway. Tell him I’ll be around later and cheer him up!”

Hugh Ordway was not, however, singing either ‘Dixie’ or anything else when Bert got back to Number 29. He was sitting at the window, attired principally in a bathrobe, gazing a trifle disconsolately, or so Bert thought, out over the campus. He turned as Bert entered.

“I say, Winslow, what about a bath?” he asked. “Is there a tub on this floor?”

“Yes, but it’s five minutes to supper time, Ordway. You’d better leave it till afterwards.”

The other reflected. “Very well,” he said. “And, another thing.” He hesitated. “Do I put on—er—do I dress, you know?”

“No, but just regular things, eh? You see, I really don’t know much about American prep[48] schools. I dare say I’ll make an awful ass of myself,” he added ruefully.

“Wear whatever you like. Sweaters are the only things barred. I’ll wait for you and show you the way.”

“Thanks,” was the grateful reply. “That’s decent of you. I won’t be a minute.” He disappeared into the bedroom and, judging from the sounds, managed a very good substitute for that prohibited bath. Still, although he wasn’t back in a minute, Bert didn’t have long to wait. Ordway returned in a blue serge suit and patent leather shoes. He was certainly, thought Bert, a mighty good-looking chap; straight, well formed, with a clear, fair complexion, nice brown eyes and hair of the same color. His nose was a bit aquiline and his chin was at once round and strong looking. Bert, studying him as he paused to make certain that he had placed a handkerchief in his pocket, decided that he was far more American than English in appearance, whatever his character might prove.

Bert moved to the door, while Ordway was securing the missing article of attire, and pulled it open. “All right?” he asked.

Bert unconsciously stepped aside for the other to pass out first. Afterwards, going down the[49] stairs, he was angry with himself for having done so.

“I’m just as good as he is, for all his airs,” he told himself, “and I’m the older, too.”

The big dining hall which ran across the north end of the building and accommodated one hundred students and faculty members at its fourteen tables, was well filled when they entered. Bert led Ordway toward the table at the far end of the room at which he had sat last term only to find that, in the confusion incident to the beginning of school, all the seats there had been taken. There were not two empty chairs together anywhere near by and, in the end, Bert and Ordway were obliged to sit at separate tables, the latter, as Bert saw, being sandwiched in between Pop Driver and a lower middle boy named Keller. Bert’s own seat placed him amongst fellows whom he knew only well enough to speak to, and he was frankly bored and left the room as soon as he had satisfied a not enthusiastic hunger. Ordway, however, was still at table when Bert went out, and the latter, desiring to accept Nate Leddy’s invitation to go canoeing, nevertheless listened to the voice of duty and waited in the corridor for his friend’s appearance. Ordway came out finally and Bert suggested that they take a stroll around the grounds.

“Food, I meant. I say, Winslow, I wish you’d help me break myself of using—er—English expressions like that, you know. I want to talk like the rest of you chaps. Of course, I know a lot of American slang now, but I don’t seem to always get it in right, someway. Now what do you say for ‘chow’?”

“‘Eats,’ I guess,” laughed Bert. “You’ll be talking like the rest of us quick enough. Don’t worry. Besides, what’s it matter?”

“Well, a chap doesn’t like to seem different, if you know what I mean. And, anyway, I’m as much American as English.”

“Oh, I say, Winslow, a chap can’t control that! I might have been born in France, you know. Fact is, I came rather near it! But that wouldn’t have made me a Frenchie, eh?”

“No, but your father’s English and you were born in England. That makes you a British citizen, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, yes, but——” He paused. Then, confidentially: “Fact is, Winslow, I’m awfully fond of this country, don’t you know, and as long as[51] I’m going to be here at Grafton two years I’d like to—to be like the rest of you, if you know what I mean. Of course, I am English. There’s no getting around that. But my mother’s American as anything. Her family has lived in Maryland for a hundred and fifty years, I think it is, and I always consider myself about half American, too. On the other side, now, they’re always taking me for a Yankee.”

Bert laughed. “They might on the other side, but they wouldn’t here, Ordway! This is School Hall. The recitation rooms and offices are on the first two floors. On the third floor there’s the assembly room where you attend chapel in the morning and hear lectures and things. On the floor above are the clubrooms: The Forum, the Literary, the Glee, and the Banjo and Mandolin. And the Campus, the monthly paper, has its rooms there, too. The building beyond is Manning. That’s where the juniors live. It’s about like Lothrop, only it has ten more rooms.”

“Oh, we have ’em as young as twelve now and then, but that’s unusual. They’re thirteen and fourteen, mostly. The rooms downstairs on this end are Jules’s. That’s Mr. Teschner, French and German instructor. He and Mrs. Teschner have[52] four rooms there, separate from the rest of the hall. Then Mrs. Prouty, the matron, lives on the floor above, just over them. ‘Mother Prouty,’ the fellows call her. Mr. Gring is on that floor, and Mr. Sargent on the floor above. They call Gring ‘Cupid’ and Sargent ‘Pete.’ All the faculty have pet names. Doctor Duncan—that’s his cottage there behind the trees—is ‘Charlie.’ Then there’s ‘Nell’; you’ll have him in math; his name is Nellis; and Mr. Smiley is called ‘Smiles,’ and Mr. Gibbs is ‘Gusty,’ and Mr. Rumford is ‘Jimmy,’ and Mr. Russell is ‘J. P.,’ and so on.”

“I’ll have to learn them, won’t I?” asked Ordway soberly. “That’s the gymnasium there, isn’t it? I fancy it isn’t open, eh?”

“I had a lot of fun in the summer looking at the catalogue and wondering what things would really be like. You know, you Americans have——”

Ordway laughed and colored. “I mean, we Americans have a way of laying it on a bit thick, if you know what I mean. Can’t always believe all you read in the advertisements, you know. That’s why I fancied this place might not be quite up to specifications. It is, though. Everything’s just about the way the catalogue gives it.”

“I guess so. Let’s go back to the room. That’s about all there is to see. Except Morris and Fuller over there. The two white houses at the corner. They’re dormitories, too. Morris has twelve fellows and Fuller eight. Some chaps like them, but I never thought I’d care for them. It’s getting a lot cooler, isn’t it?”

“Yes, the breeze is bully. You’d say ‘bully,’ wouldn’t you?” he added doubtfully.

“I guess so,” laughed Bert. “Or ‘great,’ or ‘fine and dandy.’ What would you say?”

“Oh,” replied the other vaguely, “we might say it was ‘ripping,’ or ‘topping,’ or ‘a little bit of all right.’ ‘Bully’ wasn’t the word I meant, though. It was——” He hesitated. Then, “Corking!” he exclaimed triumphantly. “That’s the word!”

The school year began the next morning at half past seven when the bell on School Hall rang its imperative summons to chapel. Hugh Ordway, sitting beside Bert in one of the yellow settees in the back of assembly hall—precedent gave the back seats to the upper-class fellows at chapel and to the lower-class boys at other times—observed everything with lively interest. When, the short service over, the fellows rustled back into their seats to listen to the Principal’s talk, Bert whispered to Hugh: “You’d better try for the Glee Club, old man, if you can sing like that.”

Doctor Duncan, middle-aged, tall, sallow, bearded, and near-sighted, arose to the clapping of hands and moved to the front of the platform. His little speech was the same, almost word for word, that the seniors had heard three times already, but the juniors huddled in the front rows listened with flattering attention and were, we[55] will trust, properly impressed. The Principal’s advice was excellent and they certainly couldn’t do better than follow it. Then came a few announcements: Mr. Gibbs had been detained at home by illness and pending his return to duty his classes in History would be taken by Mr. Gring; German 1 would be held in Room F instead of H, as formerly; seniors and upper middlers whose courses had not been as yet approved would submit them to Mr. Rumford during the morning; the reception to students would be held that evening at the Principal’s residence, and it was hoped that all would attend.

Dr. Duncan bowed, removed his spectacles and substituted his shell-rimmed glasses, and said, “Dismissed,” and the hall emptied. Breakfast was at eight o’clock and the first recitation period was at nine. Neither Bert nor Hugh had a first-hour class and they took advantage of that to wait on Mr. Rumford, Assistant Principal and instructor in history, with their schedules. Bert’s misgivings proved not idle, for the German course was changed to physics. Hugh had elected physics, chemistry, and history in addition to the regular studies for his year and his card was promptly approved. At ten they went into Mathematics 4 together and at eleven they had Greek. In the afternoon there were two more periods for Bert—French[56] and History, and one, the latter, for Hugh.

They came out of Mr. Gring’s class together and hurried to the room to leave their books and change to football togs. Hugh, who had the evening before announced his desire to play football and been unblushingly encouraged by Nick, had provided himself with a most complete supply of clothing and paraphernalia, including a head-guard and a football! He confessed that he hadn’t been certain about the necessity for the last article, but had decided to be on the safe side. He looked remarkably spick-and-span in his brand-new regalia when they sallied forth again, a violent contrast to his companion, whose togs were battle-scarred and weather-worn and not, it must be confessed, overclean.

All Grafton, in togs or out, was flocking toward Lothrop Field, and Hugh’s immaculate costume was no longer spectacular once they had joined the throng, since at least half the entering class appeared to have donned football attire quite as fresh and unsullied as his. The juniors were not allowed to try for the School Team but, under the direction of Mr. Sargent, Athletic Director, were trained in the science of the game and later herded into a first or second junior eleven and held notable contests. Still later, the upper-middle[57] and lower-middle classes formed teams and they and the first juniors battled for the class championship, a much-coveted prize.

Already a few tennis enthusiasts were busy on the courts as Bert and his companion passed through the gate, and Hugh stopped a moment to watch. “I dare say a chap doesn’t have much time for tennis if he plays football,” he remarked questioningly.

“A bit. It’s a rip—a corking game, I think. If I don’t have any luck with football I’ll have to go in for it. I saw a notice up about a Fall Tournament, I think.”

“Yes, they have one in a week or two. We’ve got some rather decent players here. Last year we didn’t do a thing to Mount Morris.”

“We certainly did! They didn’t have a chance. By the way, have you a racket?”

“I sold a peach to Nick yesterday for a dollar and a quarter. I was thinking maybe you might have liked it.”

“That’s awfully good of you,” replied the other gratefully, “but I’m fixed very well for rackets. I brought three along.”

“Three! Then I guess you wouldn’t have[58] needed that one. There’s your crowd over there, Hugh. You wait with them, and Bonner will be after you in a few minutes.”

What happened to Hugh that afternoon Bert didn’t have much time to discover, for the regulars had a pretty busy session. But afterwards, back in 29, Hugh recounted his experiences with a quiet drollery that brought many chuckles from Bert.

“It was all rather different from what I’d thought,” said Hugh, reflectively rubbing a sore knee. “A chap named Hannigan——”

“Well, he took a lot of us over on the other side of the tennis courts and made us do the most astonishing things, do you know? We’d chuck the ball around, one to another, and then when someone would drop it, you know, instead of picking it up he’d have to fall over on the wobbly thing!” He rubbed his knee again. “I had to do it myself a number of times. A bit awkward I felt, too. The silly ball had a way of not being there when you dropped down for it. And this chap Hanrihan was most awfully impatient with us, do you know? Some of the things he said were quite rude. I fancy he didn’t mean anything, though. I[59] dare say we were a bit trying. There was a fat Johnnie with us who was always trying to catch the ball in his mouth and, of course, his mouth wasn’t big enough. Hannigan—I should say Hanrihan—told me he was a tub of butter. Queer thing to call him, I think. I wondered why a tub of butter. Because he was fat, eh?”

“Yes. You mustn’t mind what they say to you, Hugh. It’s part of the game.”

“I didn’t. Of course, I understood that. Then he had us line up and start off when he rolled the ball and run like a ballywhack. But you’ve been through with all that, eh?”

“Well, I’ll tell you, Bert. You see, on the other side we don’t practise quite that way. I mean we—well, we don’t—aren’t so serious about it, if you know what I mean. Take rugger, for instance——”

“Eh? Oh, rugger—Rugby, you know. We rather make play of it. Of course, we do practise, but not the way you American—I should say we American—chaps do. But I dare say it isn’t so hard when you’ve learned a bit, eh?”

“I’m afraid it is,” replied Bert. “The more you know and the better player you are the harder[60] grind you have to go through. If you make the School Team you work like a slave for a good six weeks.”

“Yes, of course, but——” Hugh hesitated, with a perplexed frown on his face. “Mind you, I’ve seen football played, and I got beastly nervous and excited about it, but what I’m trying to get at is this, old chap: suppose, now, you didn’t work so hard in getting ready for the other chap, what would happen?”

“Like it? I should say not! Mount Morris beat us last year, twelve to three, and this place was like a—a morgue for a week afterwards. This year we’re going to rub it into her.”

“That’s what I gathered,” said Hugh. “I mean, those fellows I saw play last Autumn didn’t seem to be having much sport, you know; didn’t appear to be there for—for the fun they’d get out of it, if you know what I mean. It looked to me very much like hard work. The only time they showed any pleasure was when they scored on the other chaps. Then they’d wave their arms and jump up and down like mad. And a thousand[61] or so Johnnies in the seats would cheer themselves hoarse. But that was ’varsity football, and I fancied you fellows here at prep school would go in more for the fun of it.”

“Oh, we get plenty of fun out of it,” said Bert. “We all like it, or we wouldn’t do it. That is——” He hesitated. “Maybe some of us do go in for football more for the glory than the sport,” he went on thoughtfully. “I guess it’s got to be rather a—a fashion. It’s like this, Hugh. A fellow who makes his School Team is a bit important and he gets some reputation and fellows like to know him. And then, when he goes up to college he finds it easier. If he keeps on making good he meets fellows he wants to know, fellows who can help him, you see, and he probably makes one of the sophomore societies and—there he is.”

“I don’t mean that all the fellows who try for the team think about all that. They don’t. Lots of them play football because they love it. But now, take Ted Trafford, for instance. Ted’s a bully sort of a fellow, but he isn’t—well, brilliant. Ted started out with the intention of doing just what he has done, that is, being captain of the team in his senior year. Ted’s going to Princeton next fall. He will get there with the—the[62] prestige of having captained the Grafton School Football Team, and it’s going to be a lot easier for him. If Ted went up there unknown he would have hard work getting anywhere, probably. He’s just a big, good-looking, good-natured fellow, and he isn’t a smart student and he wouldn’t shine at anything outside of football. His folks aren’t wealthy, although I guess they have enough money to live on, and they haven’t any special social position in New York, I suppose. But that won’t matter in Ted’s case because he will go up there and make the freshman team and then get on the ’varsity and make a name for himself. He will meet fellows of money and position that way, have a good time in college and fall into something soft when he gets through.”

“I see,” said Hugh. “It’s that way to some extent, I fancy, on the other side. I mean that if a chap makes a name for himself at school he finds it easier getting in when he goes up to Oxford or Cambridge. It’s quite natural.” He was silent a moment. Then: “I dare say that explains why you chaps go in for sports so seriously. You’re working for something, eh?”

“No, that isn’t quite right,” objected Bert. “I didn’t mean you to think that every fellow has that idea in his head. I guess more than half of us take part in athletics because we want to. I[63] know that in my case I never thought of getting any advantages by it. In fact, I don’t believe I ever thought the thing out before. I play football just as I play tennis or hockey or anything else, because I like the game, like mixing with a lot of good fellows, like to do what I can for the School.”

“That’s the part of it that seems a bit odd, now. As I make it out you don’t care so much for playing football as you do for winning from the other chap, the rival school, you know. If you do win it’s all awfully jolly and everyone’s as happy as a lark. If you lose, why, you all draw long faces and feel sort of disgraced.”

“That’s rather exaggerated, but you get the idea. And why not? Don’t you like to win when you start out to?”

“Oh, rather! But playing a game is playing a game, old chap. It isn’t business or war, is it? Why not play for the fun of it? Try as hard as you like and then if you don’t win—er—forget it!” Hugh was palpably proud of his bit of slang.

“That’s all right,” replied Bert. “I’ve heard a lot about your English sportsmanship and all[64] that, but I notice that when we go over to your side of the pond and beat you, you don’t like it a bit and you come back at us with charges of professionalism.”

“I didn’t know we did,” said Hugh. “If we do, maybe it’s because you go into it so hard that—that you look like professionals! You know you do go a pretty long way sometimes to beat the other chap.”

“Yes, I know, but there are some things a chap wouldn’t do to win, aren’t there? He wouldn’t cheat, for instance, and he wouldn’t take advantage of—of technicalities, if you know what I mean. Oh, I dare say I’ll come around to your way of looking at it after a bit,” Hugh added cheerfully. “Anyway, I’m going to keep on plugging along at football, because, maybe, you know, after a while I’ll really think it’s fun!”

Hugh smiled and shook his head. “I’m afraid I don’t—yet. Beastly grind, I’d call it now. I say, isn’t it time for eats?”

Hugh Ordway was a success from the start. Everyone who met him found him interesting and attractive. They didn’t put it in just that way. Nick said: “His Grace, the Duke of Glyndestoke, is a little bit of all-right.” Pop Driver said, “A clever lad, that Ordway. Bring him over some evening, Bert.” Tom Hanrihan said, “Ordway’s got the stuff in him, Coach. He’ll bear watching. Doesn’t know a thing about football, but he’s a regular wonder at doing what he’s told to. Makes some of the others over there look like regular bone-heads.” Mr. Rumford, House Master at Lothrop Hall, confided to Mrs. Rumford at dinner one evening during the first week of school that “Ordway, in 29, is a most interesting boy, my dear. I wish you’d remember to have him in for dinner some Sunday. The fellow actually thinks for himself.”

Perhaps of equal importance, however, was Bert’s verdict, since, willy-nilly, the two boys were doomed to daily companionship. Bert’s verdict[66] was delivered to himself three days after Hugh’s advent. “He’s a queer duffer, but I like him,” said Bert. What was doubtless equally fortunate was the fact that Bert’s liking was returned and perhaps with more enthusiasm. Hugh had felt rather strange, and, although he had tried not to show it, a little bit homesick at first, and Bert, more from a sense of duty than from affection at that stage, had taken him under his wing and done everything possible to make things easy for him. As Nick had remarked, entering school in the third year had its difficulties. Your classmates had formed their associations and your position was a good deal like that of a fifth hand at whist. You were not especially needed, and, while welcome enough to look on, there was no place for you at the table. But Bert’s efforts, coupled with Hugh’s personality, had succeeded, to continue the metaphor, in squeezing the newcomer up to the table. If at present Hugh was not actually taking part in the game, at least he was where he could enjoy seeing it. And for this Hugh was grateful.

As a matter of fact, he had come to Grafton with many misgivings. He had spent most of his sixteen years in England, only coming across to this country at long intervals and for brief stays. At such times his mother’s house on the East Shore in Maryland had been opened up for two[67] or three months, infrequently for a longer period, and Hugh had lived a life not greatly different from his life in England. His father, a member of Parliament, and holding a position under the government, seldom accompanied them across. Within the last three years Hugh’s visits in the United States had occurred annually and had lasted longer, for his mother, whose idea it was to have Hugh educated in America, thought it well for him to know the country better than he did. Consequently, they had traveled a good deal last year and the year before, accompanied invariably by a tutor. That would not have been an American youth’s notion of ideal sight-seeing, but Hugh had been brought up with, first a governess, and, subsequently, a tutor at his elbow, and was thoroughly used to having them around. Nevertheless, when, last year, the Balliol College tutor had been left behind and a young, red-headed, and extremely energetic graduate of Yale had appeared at Shorefields and taken the boy in charge, Hugh had welcomed the change.

That fall and during part of the following winter Hugh had been coached for Grafton School. He had, for instance, a far more mature outlook but Mr. Fairway wouldn’t hear of it. Why waste a year, he asked, when, with a little harder work, he could enter the upper middle? Hugh, who[68] had no great enthusiasm for the program in any case, agreed that to waste a year would be a criminal matter and set diligently to work unlearning not a little of what his English tutor had taught him. When, in January, they had returned to London he was pronounced ready for Grafton, his name was entered for admission the next September and he had contracted a certain amount of pleasurable anticipation, most of which, however, evaporated before he was once more headed across the ocean in August. By that time a realization of the fact that this New England preparatory school for which he was booked was quite dissimilar to any school of which he had knowledge, that the fellows he would meet there were different from him in manners and point of view, that, in short, he was taking a plunge into a strange pool filled with strange fishes, filled him with alarm. That he managed to conceal any sign of it was creditable. But he had found the school not so different, after all, from those he knew of, and the fellows were far less strange in their ways, views and speech than he had expected. Perhaps he did not actually give Bert the credit for bringing all this about, but he did somehow arrive at the conclusion that his roommate had worked something in the nature of a miracle in his behalf, and his gratitude, although[69] not expressed in words, was deep and evident. Gratitude even when out of proportion to benefits bestowed is pleasant to the recipient, and doubtless the fact that Hugh was grateful and wanted Bert to know it had something to do with the latter’s liking for the younger boy.

That difference in age—it was in reality a matter of eight months—was not greatly apparent. In some ways Hugh seemed older than Bert. He had expected to enter the lower-middle class, on life and things in general. Bert sometimes felt annoyingly young and thoughtless during their discussions. Hugh had studied so many things out that Bert had never even considered, and studied them out, too, to a conclusion which, right or wrong, was at least something to tie to. Bert’s convictions were few and concerned matters close at hand. Hugh’s had to do with the most extraordinary things: American politics, the British foreign policy, income taxation, home rule for Ireland, back-court versus net play in tennis, woman suffrage, the abolition of the stymie in golf, fancy waistcoats, farming as a profession, and many, many more. Once Bert asked curiously if all English fellows bothered themselves with as many things as Hugh did and failed to get any information because Hugh forgot the question in trying to establish himself as only a[70] half-Englishman. (“Fifty-fifty,” suggested Bert, which expression on being explained was seized on joyfully by Hugh and added to his rapidly increasing collection of slang phrases.)

Next to Bert, Hugh’s liking was given to Nick Blake, and then to Pop Driver, and after that, I suspect, to Guy Murtha. But Hugh had a fine capacity for liking everyone he met, finding, often to Bert’s amusement, qualities worthy of admiration in the fellows whom Bert had long since set down as utterly hopeless. Nick and Guy were daily visitors at Number 29, and many quite remarkable discussions took place up there under the roof, discussions usually conducted principally by Hugh and Guy, with Nick supplying a light comedy seasoning and Bert acting the rôle of audience and, generally, deciding the matter in the end. For, although frequently Bert found the argument too deep for him, he could sum up and award a verdict like a judge of the Supreme Court!

That study up there was a very attractive room now. Hugh had not brought a great deal with him in the way of pictures, but what he had brought were interesting and, as Nick said, gave tone. Bert’s wall decorations ran to “shingles” and framed posters, although he was the proud possessor of a good etching of sheep by Monks,[71] and a rather jolly coaching print. Then there was a six-foot silk banner of vivid scarlet, with the word “Grafton” in gray letters, along one wall, and a captured Mount Morris pennant, green and white, and showing battle marks, over the window-seat. The pillows were the usual strange collections of all hues and styles, many of them, of course, running to scarlet-and-gray. Hugh’s contributions were photographs, some quite large and all handsomely framed. The one that produced the most interest on the part of visitors was the picture of his home in England. It was just like the baronial manors and lordly castles you read about, Nick declared, and when he got enormously rich he was going to buy one just like it. It was a stone building, with the stones set in a peculiarly haphazard fashion, and it rambled over the best part of an acre, or seemed to. There were turrets and battlements, and much very orderly ivy, and the remains of a moat, and many stately trees and a “front yard,” as Nick called it, that looked like two or three perfectly level golf links thrown into one! That photograph was a never-ceasing source of joy to Nick, and if he was there when a new visitor arrived he always haled the latter up to see it.

“Our ancestral home,” he would explain, to[72] Hugh’s embarrassment, “Lockley Manor, Glyndestoke, Hants, England, by Jove!”

There was a smaller photograph of the home in Maryland, but that was less impressive and more like what Nick had seen. The two or three English country views interested him more. “This,” he would inform the newcomer, “is a view of the spinney back of the home farm. And here we have the bridge at Glyndestoke, with the Old Inn in the distance. Right there is where Ordway catches his salmon for breakfast. Every morning when it’s rainy enough he saunters down that road there accompanied by the head gamekeeper and two or three assistant gamekeepers and a few dozen gillies and fishes up a salmon. That is, he gets the salmon on the hook, but, bless your simple heart, he doesn’t pull him in. Oh, dear no! Rather not! I should say otherwise and vastly to the contrary. That’s where the first assistant gamekeeper has his innings, d’ye see? The first assistant gamekeeper takes the rod and plays the fish while the head gamekeeper stands ready with the landing-net. It’s all very simple, you see. Nothing irksome about it all. Ordway seldom gets tired fishing. He——”

“Oh, I say, Nick, cut it out, like a good chap!” Hugh would beg. “Stuff a pillow in his mouth, someone, please!”

Nick had various sobriquets for Hugh. Sometimes he was “Your Grace,” sometimes “The Duke of Glyndestoke,” sometimes just “’Ighness.” Eventually, though, it was Nick who discovered in the school catalogue, when that was issued in October, that Hugh’s full name as there set down was Hugh Oswald Brodwick Ordway, and, in consequence of the initials, promptly dubbed him “Hobo!”

Possibly it was its absolute incongruity that made that nickname instantly popular. At all events, while Hugh’s more intimate friends did not ordinarily call him “Hobo,” others and the school in general did. But that was later, when Hugh, greatly to his surprise, found himself a rather important person at Grafton.

Meanwhile, in that first fortnight of the fall term, Hugh was a very busy youth. He pegged away unfalteringly at football and began to like it, in spite of the drudgery. He weathered two cuts in the squad and saw other fellows with far more experience released to private life or their class teams. When, the second Saturday after the opening of the term, Grafton played the local high school and won without trouble by the score of 26–0, Hugh saw the game from the stand, and, with Guy Murtha to elucidate obscure points, enjoyed it vastly. High School presented[74] a team badly in need of practice and Grafton ran rings about her and could have scored at least twice more had Coach Bonner thought fit to let her do so. But when the third period was a few minutes old and the score was 20–0, he began to send in second-string players, with the result that Grafton’s offensive powers waned perceptibly. One more touchdown was secured against the opponent in the last few minutes of the final period when Siedhof, who had substituted Bert Winslow at left half, secured the ball after High School had blocked Nate Leddy’s try-at-goal. Siedhof picked the ball literally from a High School forward’s hands and in some miraculous manner swung around and dodged and feinted his way through a crowded field and over six white lines to a score. Leddy missed the goal and play ended soon after. Grafton showed the benefit of those ten days of ante-season practice so long as her first-string men were in the line-up, and, on the whole, coach, captain, players, and supporters were well satisfied with the showing made in that first contest.

Hugh gained more knowledge of the finer points of football that evening when Nick, Pop Driver, Guy and Bert threshed it all out in Number 29. Much of the discussion went over his head, but he awoke to the realization that there[75] was a great deal more to football than meets the eyes of the spectator. Nick and Bert argued for ten minutes over one play which had gone awry. Bert declared that it shouldn’t have been called for in the circumstances and Nick proved, to his own satisfaction at least, that it was fundamentally, psychologically, scientifically correct. Whereupon Pop, who had listened without comment, informed Nick that he was wrong. And, for some reason, Nick and everyone else accepted the dictum without question. Much technical talk followed, and Hugh was soon beyond his depth, but he tried hard to understand and stored up a fine collection of questions to ask Bert later.

But other interests besides football demanded Hugh’s attention. He was nominated for election to “Lit” by Bert and seconded by Nick and Pop. The Literary Society and The Forum were the rival social and debating clubs. Secret organizations of any sort were tabooed at Grafton, although there was, or was said to be, a certain lower middle-class society known as “Thag” which was supposed to exist in defiance of the law. If it really existed outside the imaginations of lower middlers it was of such slight consequence that faculty winked at it. Hugh might have been put up for The Forum instead of “Lit”[76] had he wished, for Guy was an enthusiastic member of the older club and did his best to get Hugh’s permission to nominate him. Hugh, though, with no real preference, felt that he ought to allow Bert to decide the matter for him, and Bert naturally claimed his chum for his own society.

Hugh was also elected, much less formally, to the Canoe Club, and, at Bert’s urging, attended several trials for the Glee Club, to which he was eventually admitted. The elections to The Forum and the Literary Society took place in January, but candidates were meanwhile admitted to a quasi-membership that gave them the use of the club rooms and allowed them to attend meetings, without participation in debates or affairs.

In the class rooms Hugh progressed well, for the fiery-locked Mr. Fairway had done his work thoroughly. In fact, Hugh began his career at Grafton most satisfactorily, and progressed serenely and pleasantly and without especial incident along the stream of school life until, just two weeks to a day after his arrival, he struck his first snag.

It was the custom for the juniors to hold a meeting shortly after the beginning of the school year and elect class officials, and it was also the custom of the lower middle and upper middle fellows to take quite a flattering interest in the affair. Perhaps it would be more correct to say that the lower middlers were interested in the meeting and the upper middlers were interested in the lower middlers. Just why the second-year boys held it incumbent to do all in their power to prevent the juniors from getting together successfully it is difficult to say; but they did. The upper middlers’ part in the proceedings was theoretically to see that the first-year fellows had fair play, but what they actually did was to have a good-natured mix-up with the lower middlers. Consequently the evening of junior meeting was looked forward to with pleasurable anticipation by the whole school, unless we omit a portion of the junior class whose disposition was entirely peaceable.

The juniors did their best to hold the meeting in secret, but someone outside the class invariably got wind of it in time to give the alarm. Faculty had on one or two occasions, when the fun had become rather too noisy, threatened to prohibit the ceremony, but at the time of this story it was still observed. This fall it was arranged among the juniors that they were to meet at five o’clock on Wednesday afternoon in assembly hall. But the watchful lower middlers prevented that by the simple expedient of locking both doors on the inside and leaving the keys in, departing by way of a window and by means of a rope. By the time Mr. Crump, the head janitor, had pushed out one of the keys and fitted a new one it was too late for the meeting and the juniors retired in defeat. Subsequently they allowed it to leak out that the postponed assembly would take place in the same room on Saturday evening, and, for some reason, their story was believed.

But on Thursday evening at about eight o’clock cries of “Lower middle, all out!” echoed through the dormitories and books were abandoned and green eye-shades tossed aside. In a few minutes it became known that the juniors had stolen a march and were safely barricaded in the gymnasium! Lower middle hastened to the scene in force, and upper middle followed swiftly. The[79] seniors, forgetting dignity, likewise repaired to the gathering to play the part of spectators. As Roy Dresser remarked to Ted Trafford as they secured positions of vantage against the end wall of Manning, it looked very much as though, in the words of the country newspapers, “a good time was to be had by all.”

Lower middle tried doors and windows and found them impregnable. They were denied even a glimpse of the proceedings inside, for the juniors had carefully draped blankets against the windows. Lower middle held a conference of war and upper middle jeered. Upper middle not only jeered but made remarks calculated to displease the enemy. Lower middle replied in kind and the seniors applauded both sides. And there the matter would have rested until the juniors had finished their meeting and sallied forth had not an ambitious lower middler taken it into his head to try to reach the second story by means of a copper rain-spout. Why that should have annoyed upper middle I don’t know, but upper middle resented the trespass and surged forward. The attack was so unexpected that lower middle gave way and the ambitious climber was pulled, struggling, from his place halfway up the metal pipe. He reached the ranks of his friends no worse for the adventure, but lower middle felt[80] that her rights had been interfered with and the fun commenced.

Up and down in front of the gymnasium the battle waged, the two classes fairly even in numbers. For the first few minutes it was a mere matter of pushing and shoving, one throng against the other, lower middle giving way only to close ranks again and force upper middle back. The seniors, laughing and impartially encouraging the belligerents, watched appreciatively. And in the meanwhile, quite forgotten, the juniors proceeded undisturbed with their election.

Afterwards lower middle declared that upper middle had started the real trouble, and upper middle stoutly laid the blame on her opponent. At all events, what was to be expected happened and someone, losing his temper for the instant, struck a blow. His adversary accepted the challenge. Others at once adopted the new tactics and cries of “Fight! Fight!” arose from both factions, and those behind surged eagerly forward. At first it was only those in the front ranks who became engaged, but the others soon got into action and presently some ninety-odd youths were hard at it. More than one old score was settled, doubtless, in the ensuing five minutes. The seniors, scattering away from the field of battle, viewed proceedings dubiously. This was[81] more than precedent called for, and if a master happened to put in an appearance there would be trouble for all concerned.

It was Ted Trafford and Joe Leslie, the latter senior class president, who finally, calling for volunteers, attempted to put an end to hostilities. It was no easy task, however, for while many of the belligerents were fighting for the sheer love of it, keeping their tempers in check, there were others who were mad clear through and who had to be literally dragged apart. Pop Driver performed lustily for the peace party, his simple way of tripping up one adversary and holding the other proving peculiarly efficacious. But at that it is doubtful if the seniors could have ended the battle for a long time if Guy Murtha, who had intercepted a blow meant for someone else and was ruefully nursing a bruised cheek, had not hit on the expedient of raising the warning cry of “Faculty, fellows, faculty!” Fortunately, there was no truth in the announcement, but it did the business. Panting for breath, upper and lower middlers drew apart, searching the half-darkness with anxious gaze, ready to disappear as soon as they discovered from which direction danger threatened. Leslie took advantage of the lull to read the riot act and his words of counsel had effect. Upper middle bitterly laid the onus on[82] lower middle and lower middle indignantly returned the charge.

“Never mind who started it,” said Leslie impatiently. “You fellows beat it to your rooms before you get caught. You’re a lot of silly idiots to do a thing like this, anyway, and it would serve you all right if you got what you deserve. Hanrihan, you ought to know better than to let this happen!”

“Someone jumped on me,” replied Tom Hanrihan cheerfully. “I didn’t start it, Joe.”

Nursing bruised faces and knuckles, holding handkerchiefs to bleeding noses, the participants in the recent fracas began to disperse, slowly, however, since neither side wished to be the first to withdraw. Still, the incident would have been closed there and then had not the juniors seen fit to throw open the gymnasium door at that moment and burst triumphantly forth. That was too much for the sore and smarting lower middlers to endure with equanimity. There was a murmur of displeasure and then a howl of rage and the lower middlers surged up the steps and literally crushed the juniors back through the portals.

“You like it so well in there you can stay[83] there!” they shouted. “It’s all night for you fellows! You don’t get out! Keep ’em in, lower middle!”

But that was not so easy, since there were plenty of windows, and it didn’t take the juniors long to remember the fact. The sight of figures skulking away in the darkness soon apprised the guardians of the portal of what was happening and shouts of “Windows, fellows, windows!” was heard and half their number left the portico to intercept the escaping prisoners. That presented upper middle with an excellent opportunity to take a hand again and she seized it eagerly. In a twinkling the doorway was cleared of lower middlers and the juniors came forth. Lower middle, resenting upper middle’s interference, again rallied and tried to force the portico, only to be thrice hurled back before superior numbers. As occasion occurred, the juniors fled to the safety of Manning, or tried to, for not a few were caught and held prisoners by the enemy. Jeers and taunts were exchanged, while the seniors once more attempted to persuade the warring factions to cease hostilities. Finally upper middlers and such juniors as remained with them sallied down the steps in force and the battle broke forth again. It was a running fight now, for the juniors fled helter skelter for the nearby dormitory, protected[84] by upper middlers, while the lower middlers tried to capture them. Confusion reigned supreme.

Hugh, who had taken part in the proceedings with zest and had sustained a lump as large as a bantam’s egg over one eye and a set of sore knuckles, became separated from his friends somewhere between Manning and School Hall. A minute before he had been battling with Nick at his side and his back against the rubbish barrel at the corner, but now Nick had disappeared and although the combat waged behind and before him, he was alone and unchallenged. That, thought Hugh, would never do. For the glory of upper middle he must find an adversary. So he raced down the bricks toward the steps of School Hall, where he could discern under the lamplight a group of fellows struggling strenuously. He slowed up as he approached in order to distinguish friend from foe, but, to his surprise, someone pinioned his arms from behind and he was thrust rudely into the group in front of the door.

Before he knew it he was being forced up the steps and through the door of School Hall, struggling but helpless, someone holding his arms at[85] his sides and someone’s hand gripped chokingly about his neck. Down the corridor to the stairs, up the stairs, along another corridor and, at last, into a classroom. Then the uncomfortable grasp on his neck was removed, the door slammed, a key turned outside and Hugh, breathless and dizzy but still unconquered, wheeled around with ready fists.

The room, one of the smaller ones, was unlighted save for what radiance came through the window from the lamps along the path below, but Hugh could see two other figures in the gloom and he was eager for battle.

“I—I don’t want to fight, thanks,” said a mild voice from the darkness. “I—I——”

“Yes, they collared me and Twining just as we were coming around the corner. We climbed out of a window in the gym and were trying to get to Manning. Do you suppose they mean to keep us here long?”

“So that’s it, eh?” mused Hugh. “I thought you were upper middle fellows when I saw you scuffling down there. Well, they’ve got us to[86] rights, haven’t they?” He made his way to the window, raised the lower sash and looked out. Everything was quiet below, a fact explainable by the unmistakable presence on the walk further along near Manning of two masters in conference. Hugh pulled his head in quickly for fear they might look up and see him.

“They’ve all gone,” he announced to his fellow prisoners, “and Mr. Smiley and one of the other masters are down there.”

“Then if we call to them they’ll let us out,” said the youth who wasn’t Twining.

“Yes, but——” Hugh thought a moment. Then: “All right,” he agreed. But when he put his head through the window again the masters had disappeared. “They’ve gone now,” he reported. “Try that door and see if it’s really locked, one of you chaps.”

“Yes, it is,” was the answer from Twining, who had a thin, piping voice and sounded as though he might be only about thirteen. “Don’t you think they’ll come back pretty soon and let us out?”

“I fancy so. They’ll wait until things quiet down, I dare say. All we can do is wait.” Hugh felt his way to a chair and seated himself and the others followed his example. There was silence for a minute or two during which Hugh[87] felt admiringly of the lump over his left eye. Then Twining spoke with something like a sniffle.

“I don’t think it’s fair for them to do this,” he complained. “We juniors have to be in by nine o’clock and I guess it must be more than that now, isn’t it?”

“No,” replied the other junior disgustedly. “They lock the door about a quarter past and you have to ring. We’ll get the dickens!”

“Well, it’s all in a lifetime,” returned Hugh philosophically. “Anyway, you chaps held your meeting. That ought to comfort you, eh?”

“That’s the idea,” exclaimed Hugh. “Stay up here and they won’t know you weren’t in, will they?”

They seemed doubtful about that. Twining was of the opinion that Mr. Gring, who was master on his floor, would somehow learn of his absence. “He finds out everything, Cupid does,” he sniffled. “Besides, I can’t sleep here in this hard seat all night.”

“Try the floor then, old chap. That’s what I shall do if they don’t come back and let us out.”

“But they will, of course,” said the other of[88] the two. “They wouldn’t dare not to, would they?”

“I really can’t——” Then Hugh amended his answer. “Search me,” he said. They talked desultorily for a while. Hugh learned that the second and presumably older boy was named Struthers. Struthers boasted of the junior class’s success in pulling the meeting off and told how he had put lower middle off the track by writing a note to one of their members announcing the affair for Saturday night and purposely dropping it in the corridor of School Hall. Struthers chuckled a lot about that, but Twining appeared incapable of seeing humor in anything just now. He was all for putting his head out the window and calling for help, but Hugh vetoed that plan and threatened to punch the first one who tried it.

“A silly-looking lot we’d be,” he said disgustedly, “if the masters had to come up here and free us! We’d be laughed at all over school. If they don’t let us out pretty soon I’ll see if I can climb around to the next window. It’s only about four or five feet from this one, and if there’s anything to hold on to I can do it.”

“I don’t think so. It isn’t far to the ground, for that matter. If we could find a rope or something[89] I might be able to drop. Anyone got a vesta?”

“A vest on?” asked Struthers. “No, but we could tie our jackets together and——”

“I said a vesta, a match,” laughed Hugh. “Tying our jackets together isn’t a bad idea, though. If I can’t make it by the window——”

“Now we’ll all be hung together,” he said cheerfully. “If I get caught coming in after ten I’ll get ballywhack too. I’m going to have a look at that window.”

Hugh thrust his body through the window again. No one was in sight along the front. By leaning well out he could see the lighted windows of Number 29 Lothrop, and he smiled as he reflected that Bert was probably wondering what had become of his roommate. Then he viewed the next window, some five feet distant.

The sills were broad and extended a few inches beyond the casements, but Hugh doubted that he would be able to stretch his legs far enough to reach, even could he find anything to hold on to. He crawled out on the sill, to the alarm of the hysterical Twining, and, while keeping a firm hold of the window sash, felt about over the bricks in search of some projection to cling to. In the end he had to return to the classroom defeated. That avenue of escape was out of the question. The distance to the ground didn’t look far, but it must be, he realized, about twenty feet, and that meant a drop of fifteen feet, enough to shake one up[91] considerably. But by knotting their coats together it might be done.

“Let me have your coats, fellows,” he said, pulling his own off. They emptied the pockets first, stowing the treasures away in their trousers, and then handed the garments over. Hugh tied the three sleeve to sleeve, testing each knot, but when the task was completed the result was disappointing, for the improvised rope measured only about five feet in length, a portion of which would have to remain across the sill and, since there was nothing to tie it to, be held by the juniors. Hugh studied a moment. Then he unbelted his trousers.

“I don’t know how strong these things are,” he said, “but I fancy they’ll stand the strain all right.”

He made a pile of his pocket contents on the floor and knotted the end of one leg to a sleeve of a coat, adding another three feet to the length of the whole.

“Now,” he said cheerfully, “you chaps lay hold of this end, d’ye see? Pull it tight across the sill and you won’t have any trouble. Better sit down on the floor, the two of you, eh? That’s the idea. If you happen to find you can’t hold on, or the thing starts to rip, shout out to me so I can drop. All right now?”

“So do I,” replied Hugh grimly as he squirmed his body across the sill. “If you can’t I’ll get down quicker than I fancy. Hold tight now. I’m going to put my weight on it.”

There was a breathless moment of suspense, a moment during which the garments made threatening sounds of giving at the seams, and then Hugh’s head disappeared from sight, the two boys on the floor, feet braced against the wall, held on for dear life and——

“All right!” called a cautious voice from outside. There was a sound of a thud on the bricks and the two juniors simultaneously toppled over backwards.

There was one thing, though, which Hugh had neglected to take into consideration, and that was the probability of the door of School Hall being locked. And when, a bit jarred but quite unhurt, he climbed the steps and tried it, he realized the fact, for the portal was fast. Flattening himself against the door in the shadow, he wondered how he had bettered the condition of his fellow prisoners. They couldn’t follow him by the window, of course, and he, it seemed, was unable to unlock the door to the corridor for them! And, to add interest to the situation, he was sensible[93] of being most unconventionally clad—or, rather, unclad—and didn’t at all relish standing down there in the light and calling up for his trousers to be thrown to him! Meanwhile it was quite within the possibilities that one of the masters might come prowling past and find him!

But something had to be done, and the only thing that occurred to him was to try the windows in the hope of finding one unlatched. So, making certain that no one was in sight, he scuttled from his place of concealment and fled around to the back of the building, where the possibility of being observed at his burglarous task was not so great. It was as dark as pitch back there, but after waiting a minute to accustom his sight to the gloom he was able to discern a window. The sill was at the height of his chin and he wondered whether, even if he was lucky enough to find one unlatched, he could get through it.

The first resisted all his pushing and heaving, and so with the second and third, but when he thrust upward on the next the sash gave readily, but with a fearsome screech that brought his heart to his mouth. After waiting a moment there in the darkness, however, he pushed the window as high as he could reach and then set about the next step. There was nothing to put his feet on, but by getting his arms over the sill he[94] finally managed to work his body up and was soon inside.

The first thing he did was to walk squarely into a desk, and after that it seemed to him hours before he found the door into the corridor. Once outside, his troubles were by no means over, for when he had at last discovered the stairway and descended the first flight he couldn’t think in which direction the room he sought lay. He found it at last, though, turned the key and entered to be greeted by exclamations of mingled relief and displeasure. It was Struthers who expressed relief, and Twining who voiced displeasure.

“Seems to me you took your time,” said the latter. “You must think it’s lots of fun waiting up here——”

“Stow it!” interrupted Hugh, his temper not improved by the adventures of the past ten minutes. “It would serve you jolly right to make you shin down the coats and trousers!”

Twining subsided to mutters and Hugh clothed himself again and rescued his treasures from the floor. When he had finished, the two juniors were already outside.

“You can’t get out the door,” said Hugh. “It’s locked. Keep with me and we’ll slip out a window at the back.”

Twining again demurred, but Struthers promptly[95] sat on him, and a minute later they were outside.

“Now you chaps see if you can find a window unlocked. That’s what I’m going to do. I don’t fancy having it known that I was locked up in School Hall by a lot of fresh lower class chaps. Good night.”

Twining, however, was already creeping off in the darkness, wasting no time on amenities. Hugh felt a strong desire to overtake the youngster and cuff him, but in the end he only shrugged his shoulders and considered his own plight. He carefully closed the window before he turned away to seek Lothrop, and when he did he kept along at the back of Trow to avoid the lights in front. It was well after ten o’clock now and most of the windows were dark, but here and there a light still shone. Mr. Russell’s study on the first floor of Trow was illumined and the curtains were raised, and as Hugh, bending low, passed beneath them he fervently hoped that the Greek master would not take it into his head to approach a casement just then.

The ground floor of Lothrop was given over to public rooms save where, at the farther end, Mr. Rumford had his suite of five rooms and[96] bath. Along the front, between the two entrances, were the library, the common room and the recreation room. At the back were rooms occupied by the superintendent of buildings, Mr. Craig, and by the head janitor, Mr. Crump, a store room and a serving room. The nearer end of the building was taken up by the big dining hall. There were ten windows in the latter and Hugh hoped to find one of the number unlatched. He kept away from the front of the building, for it was disconcertingly light there, and tried the first window on the end. It was fast, however, and so was the next one. Then, to his consternation, the ground began to slope away to the level of the basement floor at the rear of the building, for the kitchen and laundry and various other service rooms were above ground at the back. This brought the third window almost head-high and placed the fourth beyond his reach, and the third window was locked as fast as the others!

He knew nothing of the lay of the land below-stairs and feared to try his fortunes there. Consequently there was nothing to do but risk detection while trying the windows along the front or to ring a door-bell and be reported by Mr. Crump. He had little liking for either alternative and hesitated a moment in the shadow at the corner before emerging into the publicity[97] of the walk which, while deserted, was in plain view of Trow. After all, though, it was, he reflected, no hanging matter, and so he presently emerged quite boldly and, as he passed along the front of the dormitory, tried each window. He had progressed as far as the library when his perseverance was at last rewarded. A sash gave readily to his pressure and in a twinkling he was inside.

Lights in the corridor shone through the open doors and he had no trouble, after he had silently closed the window again and fastened it, in making his way between chairs and tables. At the door nearest to the stairs he paused and looked out. No one was in sight and he swiftly stepped into the corridor, around the corner and through the swinging door that gave on the stairs. He stepped lightly, for he knew that on each floor a master’s bedroom was separated from him by only the thickness of a wall. It was when he had reached the fourth floor and had his hand on the door there that he recalled the fact that directly across the hallway was Number 34, inhabited by Cathcart. Cathcart was a proctor and, so it was said, a most conscientious one. He would have done better, as he now realized, to have gained the floor by the other stairway. However, Cathcart’s door was tightly closed and it[98] was more than likely that Cathcart was sound asleep. So Hugh pushed the swinging portal softly ajar, slipped through and turned along the corridor toward 29. Halfway, he thought he heard a sound behind him, but he didn’t stop or turn. He scuttled into 29—Bert had thoughtfully left the door unlocked—and the instant the latch had slipped into place behind him tore off his coat and fumbled at his belt. The study was empty and dark, but a light shone from Bert’s bedroom and as Hugh hurried into his own apartment a sibilant voice came to him.

“Yes.” Hugh was slipping out of his trousers. “I’ll be in in a minute.” He kicked off his shoes and tugged at his tie.

“Where the dickens have you been?” demanded Bert, more loudly. Hugh heard his bed creak and a moment later his bare feet on the floor. And that instant there was a gentle knock on the door.

Hugh flung things from him wildly and dived for his bed. There was silence. Then the knock was repeated, and:

After a moment’s hesitation Bert, making a good deal of noise about it, went to the door and[99] flung it open. Hugh, the covers pulled to his chin, held his breath and listened.

“Hello, Wallace.” That was Bert’s voice, surprised and sleepy. “What’s up?”

“Sorry to disturb you,” said Cathcart, pushing past Bert and closing the door behind him, “but someone just came up the stairs and entered this room.”

“Nonsense,” replied Bert, suppressing a yawn. “You probably heard me coming from the bathroom.”

“I didn’t only hear, I saw,” said Cathcart quietly. “You don’t usually visit the bathroom with all your clothes on, I suppose.”

“Not usually, old man, but I couldn’t find my bathrobe. I suppose it’s somewhere around——”

“If you don’t mind,” murmured Cathcart. He crossed to Hugh’s room and looked in. “Would you mind turning on a light, please, Bert?”

Bert obeyed grumblingly and Cathcart viewed the bedroom. Hugh’s coat lay on the floor near[100] the foot of the bed, his trousers were in front of the dresser, one shoe was on top the trousers and the other a yard away and his shirt hung limply from the footrail. Cathcart took it all in silently and gravely. Then:

“Now look here, Cathcart,” interrupted Bert persuasively. “You’re all wrong, old man. You were dreaming, probably. You can see easily enough that Ordway and I have been in bed for a long time.”

“I’m afraid he does. He’s an untidy beggar. You are, aren’t you, Hugh?”

“Perfectly rotten,” replied Hugh cheerfully. “Still, you know, they’re awfully easy to find in case of—er—fire or anything.”

Cathcart smiled wanly. Then he shook his head. “I’m sorry, Ordway,” he said, “but I’ll have to report you. Good night, fellows.”

“Look here, Cathcart, have a heart,” pleaded[101] Bert. “You can’t prove anything against him. Why, look at him! You say someone came in here a minute ago. Now you know very well Ordway couldn’t undress in that time!”

“I don’t think I said he entered a minute ago, Bert. However, if Ordway cares to get out of bed and show me that he has his pajamas on——” He viewed Hugh inquiringly.

“Pajamas,” said Hugh indignantly. “Why, I say, I never wear ’em, you know. Beastly uncomfortable things, pajamas.”

“Indeed? May I look in here?” Cathcart opened the closet door. On a hook inside hung a pair of white pajamas with broad blue stripes. “Yours, I think, Ordway?”

Hugh nodded. “Right-o, Cathcart,” he said. “You win. What’s the penalty?”

“I can’t say,” replied the proctor. “I guess it won’t amount to much. I wouldn’t try it again, though, Ordway. They’re rather strict here about being out of hall after hours. Probably you can give a good explanation.”

“Oh, yes, I can,” said Hugh. “Only,” he added under his breath, “I’m switched if I’m going to!”

“I’m sorry, fellows,” said Cathcart again, regretfully. “You know I have to do it, though. Good night.”

“Good night,” returned Bert morosely. “It doesn’t seem to me, Wallace, that you need to be so confounded snoopy, though! Of course you’re a proctor, and all that, but a fellow doesn’t have to go out of his way to look for trouble!”

“I didn’t go out of my way, Bert,” replied Cathcart quietly. “I was awake and heard steps on the stairs and then heard the door pushed open. It was my place to see who was coming up.”

“Then, if you saw him,” said Bert crossly, “what was the good of coming down here and making all this fuss?”

“I saw only his back, and the light was dim. I couldn’t be certain whether it was you or Ordway.”

“Oh!” Bert shot a glance at Hugh, now sitting up in bed and hugging his knees. “Then—then perhaps it will interest you, Wallace, to learn that it wasn’t Ordway, after all! It happened to be me, old man. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!” And Bert viewed the other truculently.

Cathcart smiled gently and shook his head. “That won’t do, Bert,” he said. “Ordway’s owned up, you see.”

“Because he thought I didn’t want to be reported.[103] Besides, he didn’t own up. He only said——”

“Oh, come, Bert! What’s the use?” asked Cathcart. “I know it was Ordway.”

“You do? Even when I say it wasn’t? When I say it was me? You’re mighty smart, aren’t you?”

Cathcart colored and frowned. “Very well,” he said stiffly. “I’ll report you both and you can settle it between you. I’m not quite such a fool as you seem to think, Winslow.”

“Stow it, you chaps,” Hugh broke in. “Be fair, Bert. Cathcart’s only doing what he has to. Much obliged for lying, old chap, but I don’t really mind being reported. It’s all right, Cathcart,” he added reassuringly. “I’m the culprit. Sorry to get you out of bed.”

Bert opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it and shrugged. Cathcart nodded to Hugh and went out. When the door was closed behind him and Bert had turned the key with a venomous click he strode back to Hugh’s room and eyed him wrathfully.

“Why the dickens did you have to butt in?” he demanded. “I could have made him believe it was me in another minute. You haven’t got as much sense as—a—as a——”

“Proctor?” suggested Hugh helpfully. Bert grunted. Hugh threw the clothes aside and swung his feet to the floor. “Mind tossing me those pajamas?” he asked. “Thanks. Now, look here, old chap——”

“You’ll get the very dickens, that’s what you’ll get,” interrupted Bert. “Where were you? How did you get in? Didn’t you know——”

“Yes, old dear, I knew all about it. The degrading truth is that a half-dozen of those beastly lower middle chaps got me and a couple of juniors and locked us up in a classroom in School Hall and I had to shin down the coats and trousers——”

Hugh smiled. “The coats and trousers. We tied our coats together, you know,—and my trousers, too,—and I got down that way and got in a window at the back and unlocked the door. Then I climbed in through the library.”

“Couldn’t see them. Dare say I shouldn’t have known them if I had. It was all over in a jiffy. Someone grabbed me from behind, another chap throttled me and the whole lot pushed me upstairs. Next thing I knew I was locked in that room with a pair of silly juniors named Twining[105] and Struthers. Struthers wasn’t so bad, but Twining was a mean little bounder. I say, you’ve a remarkable looking mouth, old chap!”

“And you’ve got a fine-looking lump over that eye! You’ll make a big hit with the faculty when you’re called up tomorrow!”

“I can say I ran into a door,” replied Hugh untroubledly. “I did once, you know, and had just such a lump.”

“I’ll keep that hand behind me,” laughed Hugh. “Anyway, it was a—a—it was some scrap, wasn’t it?”

“The beauty of being on probation,” observed Nick, “is that a fellow is able to give his entire time to the improvement of his mind. I recall that during my junior year being on pro was very helpful to me. It allowed me to do a lot of studying that I wouldn’t have been able to accomplish otherwise, and so, without doubt, preserved me to Grafton posterity. If it hadn’t been for that thoughtful act on the part of faculty you might not have me with you this evening, fellows.”

“I don’t mind—much,” said Hugh. “It knocks me out of football, though, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, and the worst of it is,” said Pop Driver, “that you’ll have to go to gym and do your four hours per week.”

“I don’t think I shall mind that, really. I fancy it’s dumb bells and clubs and that sort of thing, eh?”

“Yes, and bar bells and free arm movements, which are tiresome things, and chest weights. Creak—creak—creak—creak! I hate the thought of the things.” And Nick disgustedly shook his head.

“You got off easily, if you want to know it,” said Bert. “Two weeks isn’t anything. Usually it’s a month at least. The only thing that saved you from getting it harder was that faculty is up in the air about last night’s rumpus. It has a sort of an idea that a lot of things went on it doesn’t know about and that if justice was done half the school would be on pro.”

“They’re always easier with a new fellow,” said Guy. “Two weeks will soon pass, Hugh. Take my advice, though, and try for B’s in everything. That always makes them happy and they’ll let you off easy.”

“B’s?” exclaimed Bert. “Why B’s? Hugh gets an A-minus in about everything now! By the way, fellows, Jimmy’s been pussy-footing it all over school today trying to find out what really happened last night. He cornered me in lower hall after French this morning and said he had heard the juniors had held a very successful meeting. You know the way he smiles when he wants to—to lull your suspicions?”

“So I said yes, I’d heard they had. And then he asked: ‘You—ah—you weren’t present then yourself, Winslow?’ And I said no, I didn’t think the juniors allowed any of the other class fellows at their meeting. Innocent, I was. So he said, ‘H’m, yes, very true, Winslow,’ and I beat it. What gets me is that they didn’t hear the racket and come out. I suppose, though, they thought it was the usual rumpus.”

“There are some mighty funny-looking faces around today,” observed Pop. “Phillips couldn’t see at all out of one eye, and——”

“Phillips isn’t anything,” cut in Nick. “You should see Downer! He’s positively disreputable! I told him so, too. Told him he oughtn’t to appear among gentlemen looking as he did. He was quite short-tempered about it.”

“Someone said he’d heard they were going to stop junior meeting after this,” replied Guy. “It would be a good thing if they did. Such behavior is most—er—reprehensible.”

“Piffle!” scoffed Nick. “You were just dying to get into it yourself last night, you old hypocrite!”

“I did get into it,” said Guy grimly. “And I got this for my pains.” He laid a finger on his bruise. “Pop was the one who put ’em to rights. Pop went into it like a whirlwind. Thump! Down goes a lower! Bang! Down goes an upper! Great stuff, Pop!”

“You fellows could have fought all night,” replied Pop calmly, “for all I cared, only I thought it would be rather a silly piece of business for half of you to get nabbed and put on pro. To come right down to hunks, though, it was a pretty rank piece of business for grown kids to pummel each other for no reason at all. You upper middlers ought to be proud of it.”

“Well, we didn’t start it,” said Nick aggrievedly. “One of those chaps punched one of us and so we punched back.”

“It’s always the other fellow who starts things, I notice. If you and Bert and Kinley and a few more had been caught at it a fat chance the team would have had!”

“That’s so,” agreed Guy. “I understand that Bonner was extremely eloquent this afternoon.”

“It struck me he was mighty easy with you,” said Pop unfeelingly. “When you’re on the[110] School Team, Bert, you’re supposed to behave yourself and not act like a kid.”

“Oh, chuck it, Pop,” returned Bert shortly. “I’ve been lectured enough. You’re as cheerful as a raven.”

“After all,” said Nick, “’is ’Ighness is the only one should kick. He’s dished on football for two weeks, anyway, and that queers him utterly for this year. If anyone has a right to grouch it’s Hugh, and he’s the most cheerful of the lot.”

“Do you really think it lets me out for the year?” asked Hugh sadly. “I was hoping that maybe, if it was only two weeks, they’d let me back on the—the—grinds.”

“The what?” demanded Nick. “Oh, the scrubs! Grinds isn’t bad, though! That’s what they do, all right.”

“Hope on, hope ever,” said Guy. “Put it up to Ted some time. Maybe he will fix it for you. Who’s going to captain the second this year, Pop?”

“Honest? Poor old Bennie! He’s been trying for the first team for three years now. I hoped he would make it this time.”

“Perhaps he will, but I doubt it. Ben just[111] doesn’t reach to the first. He’s a clever player, too.”

“Better than Tom Hanrihan, in my estimation,” said Nick. “I’d like to see Ben make it this time.”

“So would I,” agreed Pop, “but he isn’t the player Tom is. Tom’s got the zip, you know. Ben’s too good-natured, I guess.”

“There’s something in that,” mused Guy. “Remember Powell, who pitched for us year before last, Pop? He was a nifty twirler, all right, and had a fast one that would fool you two times out of three, but you simply couldn’t rile him, and when things got away from us Powell was no earthly use in the box. When you’re a run or two behind along in the eighth or ninth you want just nine fellows in the field who are mad clear through!”

“Nary a spoof, Duke,” replied Guy. “Getting your mad up is what does the business. I don’t mean you’re to show it or froth at the mouth, you understand, but you want to have it inside you. Then when your chance comes you bust out and something happens.”

“Really?” marveled Hugh. “I’ve always thought quite the contrary. It seems to me, you[112] know, that a chap who keeps his temper is the one who can do the best.”

“Yes, I think so. I know that when a fellow plays football he has to sort of seethe inside before he can really do much.”

“Me? Great Scott, yes! But you’re such a sleepy, unemotional beggar, Pop, that I didn’t suppose you ever felt that way. Bert and I, now, being sort of temperamental——”

“I always get mad,” confessed Bert, “the first time a fellow tackles me or gives me a jolt. I’ve got a rotten temper, anyway.”

“Good reason to play football, then,” said Pop. “Football’s a fine thing for temper.”

“I fancy I’d never make a player, then,” remarked Hugh ruefully. “I don’t get angry very easily, you see.”

His regret was so evident that the others laughed, and Nick said: “Don’t worry about that, ’Ighness. You’ll get over it bravely when you come to play. Just let a couple of fellows sit on your head and another one twist your[113] ankle for you and you’ll be mad enough to eat dirt!”

Nothing came of Thursday night’s affair. Possibly faculty didn’t quite know where to begin, since fully two-thirds of the school was concerned. The fracas went down in history as the Junior Meeting Riot, and the Campus, the school monthly, managed to get a lot of sly fun out of it in its next issue. Leslie and several other more prominent members of the senior class were taken to task for allowing matters to go as far as they had, which, considering the fact that they had sustained various injuries in their efforts to promote peace, was rather unkind. In the end faculty prohibited future interference with junior meeting and, lest the temptation should prove too great for the lower middlers, provided that the meeting should take place in Manning common room.

Hugh took his punishment philosophically, although he really regretted having to give up trying for the football team. He had just begun to find something besides hard work in the daily practice, and, while he hadn’t for a moment counted on making the first, he had entertained hopes of finding a place on the second team. It was Tom Hanrihan who took the matter hardest. Tom, a big, raw-boned, good-hearted chap of[114] eighteen, took his commission of coaching the “rookies” very seriously, and Hugh’s defection grieved him sadly. The talk that Hugh had received from Jimmy, otherwise the assistant principal, Mr. Rumford, was nothing to what Hanrihan had to say to him Saturday morning. Hanrihan told Hugh quite explicitly how many kinds of an idiot he was and would listen to no excuses.

“You seem to think all we have to do is waste time on you fellows and then you can drop out whenever it pleases you. Making a football team isn’t any cinch, Ordway, when you’ve got only nine weeks to do it. You haven’t any right to take up our time if you don’t mean to stick it out.”

“But I did mean to stick it out,” expostulated Hugh. “It wasn’t my fault if those beggars got me and——”

“You shouldn’t have given them the chance. You shouldn’t have had anything to do with that scrap, anyway. (This despite the fact that the speaker had a very puffy and discolored left eye!) When a fellow goes out for the team he’s supposed to look after himself. He’s trying for the—the biggest thing in school, and he ought to realize it. You had a good chance to make good. I as much as told you that a dozen times. (If[115] he had, Hugh didn’t recall it!) You showed some gumption, and you were quick and handled a ball nicely. Now you’ve gone and spoiled it all. Honest, Ordway, I’d like to punch your head for you!”

“Oh, very well, do it,” replied Hugh meekly. “I’m sorry. That’s all I can say, Hanrihan.”

“It’s only two weeks, Mr. Rumford said, and I thought that possibly I could get back again,” said Hugh wistfully.

“Get back! Lay off two weeks and get back! That’s likely! By that time we’ll be in the middle of the season. Who do you suppose is going to take time to coach you individually, Ordway?”

“Well,” and Hugh smiled ingratiatingly at Hanrihan, “you could, you know, if you cared to!”

“I could!” Hanrihan stared in amazement. “Well, you’re certainly a cheeky youngster, Ordway! What the dickens should I do it for? You don’t suppose the team’s going to pot just because you’re out, do you?”

“N-no, of course not. I didn’t mean that.” Hugh colored in his quick fashion. “Only, I thought that possibly—if I sort of watched practice and saw what was being done, why, after[116] I was off probation, you might sort of—sort of show me, if you know what I mean!”

“Huh! You’ll have to get Bonner to let you back first. And I don’t think he will.” Hanrihan paused. “He might, though, if I put it up to him. Confound you, Ordway, you seem to think you can do as you please and play hob all around and then—then get folks to square things for you! You are a cheeky youngster, and no mistake!”

“I dare say,” replied Hugh, “but you’ll speak to Mr. Bonner, eh? You know yourself it wasn’t my fault, old chap, now don’t you?”

“Well, no, I suppose it wasn’t—in a way,” acknowledged Hanrihan more graciously. “Well, I’ll see if we can do anything. But look here, now. You keep in shape, do you understand? And keep in right with faculty. No more nonsense, Ordway!”

“Don’t thank me until it happens—if it does,” grumbled the other. “I’ll let you know if—if anything comes up. So long.”

That conversation left Hugh hopeful again, but when he recounted it to Bert the latter threw cold water on the project. “Tom will do his part,” he said, “but there isn’t a chance that Bonner will let you back. I know him too well. I’m[117] sorry, Hugh. I wish he would. But I wouldn’t expect too much if I were you.”

“I shan’t,” replied Hugh untroubledly. “But there isn’t any harm in hoping, eh? Even if you don’t get what you want you’ve had the fun of wishing for it, if you know what I mean!”

Being on probation didn’t prevent Hugh from seeing the game that Saturday afternoon, and he and Guy and a lower middle youth named Stiles sat together through the best part of two hours and watched Grafton play two twelve-minute and two ten-minute periods with the Leeds High School team. It was unseasonably warm for the first week in October and the players felt the heat. The game dragged along uninterestingly until, in the final period, Coach Bonner put in a number of second-string players. That brought the two teams nearer equality and, although there was no more scoring, the last ten minutes contained several exciting incidents. Weston, at quarter-back in place of Nick, got away on a sixty-five-yard run and all but scored. A Leeds left end pulled down a forward pass for a twelve-yard gain that momentarily looked like a touchdown. Keyes, the only one of the back field to play the game through, fooled the enemy with a short punt that almost resulted in a[119] score when a Leeds player dropped the ball and it was pulled out of the air by Siedhof. But in the end the score remained as at the finish of the first half, 13 to 0, in favor of the home team, and Grafton dawdled back to the campus not greatly impressed.

Hugh parted from Guy and Stiles and went on up to his study. Bert was not yet back, and, after thoughtfully staring from the window at the passing groups below, he went out and down the corridor to Number 34. His rap on the half-opened door elicited a response and he entered to find the single occupant of the room minus coat and waistcoat, perched at the window and surrounded by books and papers. Cathcart was tall and thin, with a fair complexion and a good deal of unruly red-brown hair. Just now, a green shade over his eyes and a pair of black rubber spectacles on his nose, he presented an amusing vision as he glanced near-sightedly across. Cathcart was eighteen, a senior and an acknowledged “grind.” It was said of him that faculty had almost broken his heart in his lower middle year by refusing to let him take more than twenty-one hours a week. He got as much pleasure out of studying as Bert Winslow did from football or Guy Murtha from baseball, and was absolutely unable to get the point of view of the fellow who[120] considered study a disagreeable thing to be avoided as much as possible. It was not until Hugh was halfway across the room, which combined study and bedroom, that Cathcart recognized him. When he did he untangled himself slowly, distributing sheets of paper around the floor, and slid to his feet.

Then, without further remarks, they set to rescuing the scattered papers. This gave them time to consider the situation and when they faced each other again Cathcart said: “About the other night, Ordway: I hope you didn’t think there was anything personal in what I did?”

“Not for a moment, Cathcart. I’d have done just what you did, you know. That’s quite all right, I assure you.”

“Well, I’m glad you take it that way, really. You see, being proctor has its drawbacks. I wasn’t anxious for it, but it makes a big difference in my expenses for the year, you see. I get my room a good deal cheaper, and that’s rather nice in my case. I was glad faculty let you off as easily as they did, Ordway.”

“Thanks, yes, they were really very decent to me. Where I made my mistake, Cathcart, was in not coming up the other stairway.” Hugh[121] smiled. “You wouldn’t have heard me then, I fancy.”

“I don’t think I would,” agreed the other. “I—I wish you had. Someone said you got shut up in the gym, I believe?”

“But if you had shouted out the window someone would surely have heard you,” said Cathcart.

“Yes, but I didn’t want to give those lower middle beggars the satisfaction, if you know what I mean. And I rather funked having it get around that I’d been such a silly ass, too! I say, I’m keeping you from work, eh?”

“No, you’re not, really. Push those books aside and make yourself comfortable. I wish you’d tell me whether Bert has it in for me, Ordway.”

“Oh, I don’t think so! He was a bit crumby that night, but he soon gets over it.”

“I hope so. I like Bert. I suppose I’ll have to make up my mind to getting a few of the fellows down on me before the year’s over. Bound to, I guess. It’s hard to make them realize that it’s my duty to report things. They don’t think anything about it if it’s one of the masters, but they resent it if it’s a proctor. How do you like[122] the school, Ordway? I suppose it’s different from your schools in England.”

“I fancy so. I never went to an English school, though; never went to any school before I came here. Of course I’ve heard lots about the English schools; I know quite a few chaps at Rugby and Charterhouse and Winchester; and I rather fancy we’re a bit different here. But I like it very much. Fact is, Cathcart, I was in a regular blue funk about coming here. I rather thought the chaps would rag me a lot, you know, but they haven’t. Nick Blake does, but I don’t mind Nick a bit. Of course, I am different, I fancy; rather stupid about a lot of things; and I’m only just beginning to understand that you chaps don’t mean more than about half you say. It puzzled me a lot at first, you know. You have a way of poking fun at things, if you know what I mean, that sounds odd until you understand that it is fun. I didn’t; not at first. I’m learning, though.”

“I suppose we are different,” acknowledged Cathcart, “in some ways. Sometimes I think we don’t take things seriously enough, Ordway, we fellows here at Grafton. Not that Grafton is much different from other preparatory schools, though.”

“That’s what I like,” said Hugh eagerly. “I think your way of not taking things seriously is[123] awfully jolly. It isn’t that you really don’t—don’t know that they’re serious—when they are—but you simply don’t take them so. As I say, I’ve never been to an English school, but I’m sure you fellows over here get a lot more fun than we do on the other side. Just at first some of the fun seemed to me to be rather—I say, I hope you won’t mind it, old chap, but it seemed a bit silly, if you know what I mean.”

“I think a lot of our fun is,” replied Cathcart, “but it’s generally fairly harmless. Of course, the other night was different, but that was exceptional here. We aren’t in the habit of blacking each other’s eyes, you see.”

“But I liked that! That was—was so jolly spontaneous, eh? Some of the fun seems a bit—well, a bit studied, but that wasn’t. A lot of chaps have been awfully apologetic about that affair, and I don’t see why. On the other side we’d have thought nothing about it, and the masters wouldn’t have noticed it, I fancy. But we’re a bit more used to using our fists than you chaps, I think. I say, though, here I am talking like ‘a bloomin’ Britisher,’ as Nick says, when I’m really just as much American as I am English.”

“Are you really? That explains it, then. There’s something about you that doesn’t seem[124] entirely English, Ordway. You don’t look terribly English, for one thing.”

“My mother is American,” said Hugh. “Her family has lived in Maryland ever since the place was settled, I fancy. I’ve been over here off and on, you know, ever since I was a kid. It’s queer, Cathcart, but sometimes I feel as if I was all American and sometimes as if I was all English! Queer game, eh?”

“Jekyll and Hyde idea?” asked the other, with a smile. “But don’t ask me which is Jekyll!”

“I won’t,” laughed Hugh. “Don’t want to embarrass you. What’s that stuff you’re digging at?”

“Benson’s ‘Medieval History,’” replied Cathcart. “It’s very interesting.”

“No, I’m just taking it up as a reading course. I have a good deal of spare time this term and next, you see.”

“Fancy that! I dare say you’re a regular shark at study, eh? Honor Man and all that?”

“Well, yes, I was Honor Man three terms last year and two the year before and one in my junior year. It isn’t hard, you know.”

“N-no, not now. I play tennis a little, but I[125] haven’t done much at it since spring. There doesn’t seem to be much time.”

“Yes, but look here, old chap, tennis would do you a jolly sight more good than Whatshisname’s ‘Medieval History’!”

“I don’t feel the need of it, Ordway. You see I have gym work during the fall and winter terms and then in spring I go in for tennis a couple of times a week.”

“You need more than that. Look here, I’m out of football for a couple of weeks anyhow, Cathcart. What do you say we have a try at tennis some day? What hours do you have in the mornings?”

“I’m pretty full every morning but Thursday and Saturday,” replied the other doubtfully. “I wouldn’t be much of a fellow for you to play with, Ordway. I’m terribly stale. Fact is, I only do it in spring because I have to.”

“Oh, I’m no marvel, old chap! Anyway, that doesn’t matter, does it? We can have some sport. What time Thursday, now?”

“Why, come to think of it, I don’t believe I know where it is. Seems to me someone borrowed[126] it last term. I’ll have a look for it, though.”

“Don’t bother too much about it. I’ve got one you may use and welcome. I say, I hope you don’t think me awfully cheeky to come in and take up your time, eh?”

“I don’t, indeed, Ordway! I think it mighty nice of you. I was rather afraid you held it in for me, you see.”

“Oh, rot! As though I would! Thursday at eleven, then? I’ll stop here for you, eh?”

“Yes, do, for I might forget it. Thursday’s a good way off, though, and if you find time you might drop in again. It’s good to talk with a fellow who doesn’t spout football every minute!”

“Right-o! And come across to 29, Cathcart, will you? There are heaps of things I’d like to talk about.”

Hugh usually had his last recitation at one, and that left him a long afternoon to get through with. One could always study, but when the weather was fair, and it held fair that autumn well into November, staying indoors was not what he wanted. He had one or two set-to’s at tennis with various acquaintances but by three o’clock he was always on hand at the first team gridiron, following the play and trying his best to profit by[127] what he saw. There was no cheering news from Hanrihan, however, that week, nor had Hugh taken Guy’s advice and spoken to Ted Trafford about his reinstatement. He didn’t feel up to doing that, but would have been highly pleased had Bert or Nick done it for him. Neither did, though, so far as he learned. They seemed to accept his termination with football as final for that fall. The only incidents of importance that week were the tennis with Wallace Cathcart on Thursday and the football game with St. James’ Academy on Saturday.

The tennis was something of a surprise to Hugh. He secretly thought rather well of himself as a player, although he never boasted, and had expected to have the rather awkward appearing Cathcart at his mercy. But things turned out differently and Hugh had to work hard for the two sets they played. In spite of the fact that his opponent didn’t take the game seriously and had not, according to his statement, played since the preceding spring, he was able to give Hugh a hard tussle. Cathcart had a bewildering serve when, towards the middle of the first set, he began to get command of it, and he possessed a remarkably clever way of getting about the court. Weak on backhand strokes, he wisely avoided them whenever possible and spun the[128] ball across low and hard from the face of his racket in a way that made Hugh admire and marvel.

When, at the end of the first set, won by Hugh, 6–4, they rested a minute, Hugh took Cathcart to task. “I say, old chap, it’s a crying shame for you not to play more. Why, you’re a natural tennis player, ’pon my word you are! Look here, why don’t you, eh?”

“I don’t know.” Cathcart, breathing hard from his exertions, thought a moment. “I really believe I could play fairly decently if I put my mind on it and practiced. And it is good fun. I’d forgotten what fun it was, Ordway. Do you think you could show me how to get those backhand returns? Or wouldn’t you care to?”

“I’m afraid of them. If I can’t get into position to take them on the right I let them go. I’m awfully weak on backhand work.”

“Practice is all you need, then. That’s a perfectly spif—a perfectly corking serve of yours! I have to take it almost at the backline, do you know? Shall we go on?”

In the second set Cathcart won the second and fourth on his service and then, losing the sixth to Hugh, took advantage of the latter’s momentary[129] let-down and made the set four-all. After that, though, he tired and Hugh had no difficulty in winning the ninth and tenth games and capturing the set by the previous score.

Cathcart agreed to play again Saturday morning, but begged off the next day, having discovered some work he ought to do. Hugh took Ned Stiles on instead, but had poor sport.

The St. James game in the afternoon was a rattling good one. For the first time that season Coach Bonner put his full strength into the field at the start. Dresser was at left end, Franklin at left tackle, Kinley at left guard, Musgrave at center, Driver at right guard, Trafford at right tackle, Tray at right end, Blake at quarter, Winslow at left half, Vail at right half, and Keyes at full. St. James was a heavy team, averaging a year more in age, perhaps, and surely ten pounds more in weight, and played close-formation football in a very clever manner. Grafton’s game this year, so far as one could determine at this stage, was to be a combination of wide-open and old-style football. She had an experienced trio in Musgrave, Driver and Trafford, a fair guard in Kinley and a good tackle in Franklin. Roy Dresser, at left end, was almost certain of his position, but Tray, on the other wing, was less satisfactory. In the back-field, Blake and Winslow[130] had seen two years of service on the first and second teams, Vail was a newcomer in football, although a senior, and Keyes had made the team at the end of the preceding season. The back-field was rather lighter than Mr. Bonner could have wished for, but it was fast and “scrappy.” So far it gave promise of being a good defensive eleven, with its offensive abilities still to be proved.

Today’s game showed up many weak points, for St. James was a hard enough proposition to cause Grafton to make use of everything she knew. It was St. James who scored first, shortly after the kick-off, when Nick misjudged a punt in front of his goal and a brown-stockinged player fell on the pigskin near the twenty-yard line. Grafton gave back slowly, but the visitors made it first down on the nine yards. Then two tries failed to gain more than as many feet and the St. James full-back booted the ball over very prettily.

Grafton came back hard and forced the playing for the remainder of the period but was unable to get a score. In the second quarter, Nick began a march from the middle of the field to the Brown’s goal that would not be denied and Keyes was eventually pushed over for a touchdown. Keyes failed at the goal. St. James gained on rushes against Kinley when she got the ball back,[131] but the half ended with the score 6 to 3 in the home team’s favor.

When the third period opened Trafford kicked off and St. James again started her smashing at tackle and guard on the left, but the gains grew shorter there and she switched to the other wing and finally got her left half around Tray for a twenty-yard sprint that laid the pigskin in dangerous proximity to the Scarlet-and-Gray goal. Some hard fighting followed, with St. James digging her cleats valiantly and smashing at everything in sight. Hugh got very excited at this period of the contest and squirmed about on his seat in a most un-English manner. Grafton took the ball away on her twelve yards and the stands cheered with joy and relief.

But the joy was short-lived, for Keyes punted miserably from behind his goal line and the ball was St. James’ again near the twenty-yards. She got five on the very first play between Kinley and Franklin and followed it with three more off Franklin. The latter was hurt in the play and Parker took his place. St. James lost slightly on a run around end, but gained her distance on the next down when a fake kick developed into a line-plunge through center.

Grafton, flocking along the edge of the field, implored her warriors to “Hold ’em!” But with[132] less than ten yards to go and four downs at her command the prospect looked extremely good for the visitor. A plunge at Kinley was stopped for no gain. Then a complicated crisscross play sent a half-back past Captain Trafford for three yards, Tray being boxed to the king’s taste. Grafton began to breathe easier then, but the third down added two yards more when the St. James full-back tore through Kinley. That brought the ball to the five-yard line, and the Brown team arranged itself for a try at goal. Ted Trafford diagnosed the play as a fake and Nick hustled his back-field close in. When the ball went back it was caught by a half who faked an end run and then, when the left wing of the Grafton line had been drawn in, threw across to his right end. That youth had only to drop across the line to score the touchdown. In fact drop was all he could do, for Bert tackled him the moment the ball settled into his hands. The punt-out landed the pigskin directly in front of the crossbar and St. James added another point, bringing her total to 10. The whistle sounded a moment later.

Grafton had now to score at least five points to win. A field goal and a safety would do it, or two field goals or a touchdown, but with only ten minutes left none of those seemed very likely.[133] When, however, Nick had sent Vail around the enemy’s right flank for some eighteen yards and followed it by breaking through the Brown’s center himself for six more, putting the ball on the St. James’ thirty-two yards just three minutes after the last period had begun, the Grafton supporters became more hopeful. Keyes smashed into the line twice for a total of five, and it was first down on the enemy’s twenty-seven yards. Then, when the Scarlet-and-Gray scented a touchdown or, at the least, a field-goal, Vail fumbled a pass and a St. James forward squirmed through and snuggled the pigskin beneath him.

St. James kicked on second down and Bert caught on his own forty-three yards and ran back five. Grafton opened her line wide and passed obliquely to Vail and the right half dodged past two white marks before he was stopped. Delayed passes brought short gains and the pigskin was on the Brown’s forty. Keyes got two off left tackle, Bert failed to gain at the center and Keyes punted to St. James’ five-yard line. Tray stopped the quarter for little gain and St. James kicked from behind her goal after one weak attempt at rushing. Nick caught near the sideline at about the thirty-two yards and started a run that wrought Grafton to a condition of frenzied excitement. He passed four of the enemy, running[134] straight along the white boundary, dodged a half-back near the fifteen yards and was only stopped when the St. James quarter forced him out at the eight yards.

Grafton cheered exultantly and shouted “Touchdown! Touchdown!” and Coach Bonner, thus far chary of substitutes, sped four into the line-up. Yetter went in for Kinley, Weston for Nick Blake, Milford for Tray, and Zanetti for Vail. It was Zanetti who made the first try and gained two yards on a wide end run. That brought the ball directly in front of goal. From a kick formation Bert plunged at left guard and when the resulting confusion of bodies had been untangled the pigskin lay almost on the three yards. With the crowd yelling like mad, Keyes again went back and held out his hands, Nick called his signals and Roy Dresser, on an end-around play, carried the ball across the line almost unmolested, the fake attack on the center fooling the defenders completely!

Just to prove that he could kick a goal, even if he had failed in his previous attempt, Keyes put it over from a wide angle, and Grafton’s score was 13. The period came to an end a minute or so later, the final score, 13 to 10, and St. James cheered a bit disgruntledly and Grafton quite contentedly.

Hugh, having passed through a succession of thrills that had left him rather limp, loitered back to the tennis courts and, finding a seat on a stone roller, watched a game of doubles without seeing much of it. The contest he had just witnessed had settled his conviction that he wouldn’t be at all happy unless he was allowed to return to the football field and try for a place on the scrubs. Just now he felt quite certain that, given the opportunity, he could prove his right to a position there, and, while the white balls darted to and fro across the nets unseen by him and the voices of the players fell on deaf ears, he drew beautiful mental pictures in all of which he, Hugh Oswald Brodwick Ordway, clad in canvas and leather, stood out very prominently.

After a while he discovered that the courts were almost deserted and that he was shivering, and so, plunging hands in pockets in Grafton fashion, he tramped thoughtfully back to Lothrop.

“What do you think about when you are running with the ball as you were yesterday?” asked Hugh.

“Think about?” repeated Nick. “Why, I don’t know. Nothing, I guess. There isn’t time. You just—just run like the dickens and watch for the opponents and get ready to straight-arm them or side-step them or something, you know, and keep on going until they nab you. Then you hold on to the ball hard and try to drop easy and get your head out of the way. I suppose you really do do a whole lot of thinking, ’Ighness, but it’s sort of like a dream. That is, you can’t remember afterwards. I’ve heard fellows who have made long runs, maybe the length of the field, or pretty near, tell afterwards just what they thought and planned, but I don’t believe them. They made that up afterwards. You don’t do much planning. You couldn’t, anyway. You get the ball and look for a place to turn in. Then a fellow smashes at you and you dodge[137] him if you can or you put your hand out and let him have it hard. And then two or three others are coming at you and you swing in, maybe, or you swing out, and you get by them somehow—you never know quite how—and you beat it as hard as you can for the goal line. And about that time the quarter or a half makes for you and you try to get past him, and you do or you don’t. Mostly you don’t!”

“It must be jolly exciting,” mused Hugh. “I thought they had you two or three times yesterday before they had.”

“So did I. I missed my guess with that quarter of theirs. I thought that if I kept near the side line he would think I meant to turn in and then I’d keep on straight. But he didn’t fall for it.”

Nick looked puzzled. “I guess I must have,” he acknowledged. “I guess you’d call it unconscious cerebration. Here we are!”

It was afternoon of Sunday, the day succeeding the St. James game, and Nick and Hugh were going canoeing. A backwater of the river formed a little cove in the southwest corner of the playing field and save when the water was very high there was a slope of coarse sand and[138] gravel there which was facetiously called the Beach, just as the cove was known as the Pool. It provided a fairly good place for swimming, since the water was not deep, although the mud was somewhat of a drawback; and it made a convenient haven for canoes. They were drawn up on the grass under the well-nigh leafless branches of a grove of maple and ash trees, a flotilla of some twenty brightly hued craft. Nick’s canoe, which he owned in partnership with Bert, was easily located, for it was the only white one in the lot. It had a neat stripe of gold along its side and the name in gilt letters at the bow: Omeomi. Hugh had been fooled by that name, to Nick’s delight, pronouncing it Om-e-om-e, believing the statement that it was an Indian word. Nick, however, pronounced it “O me! O my!”

Hugh took a paddle and seated himself in the bow and Nick pushed off and guided the gleaming craft out of the cove and around a point of alders to the river. There he headed up stream, against a barely perceptible current.

“Now dig if you like,” he called, and Hugh dipped his paddle very awkwardly and tried his best to perform as he had seen Nick and others perform. But this was his first attempt and he wasn’t very successful. Nick let him toil for several minutes. Then:

“’Ighness,” he said, “if you want to learn to paddle you’ll have to start right. Put your left hand further down and—— Hold on! Don’t lean over like that or we’ll have to walk home! Put your hand just above the end of the blade. That’s it. Now, instead of reaching out close to the bow, start your stroke farther off and sort of pull it in. If you don’t you’re pushing the bow to the right every stroke, don’t you see? Personally, I don’t mind, but the next chap might not like to have to keep straightening out every time. That’s better, but your stroke’s too long, ’Ighness. Shorten it up. Shorter still. That’s more like it. Don’t try to push when the blade’s behind you, because it doesn’t do any good. It rather slows the canoe up, in fact. Forces the stern down and makes it drag more water. Get your drive at the beginning of the stroke, then let up as the paddle passes you and finish the stroke quickly. Try it.”

Hugh tried it, at first with amusing results, and Nick had to dig hard at times to keep the craft in its course. But after a while the bow paddler became more adept. Then Nick tried to teach him to turn his blade as it left the water, but that trick was for the present beyond the novice. Once Hugh lost his paddle entirely and they had to float downstream after it. They went[140] some two miles in the direction of Needham Falls, by which time the neighboring town was in sight across the fields, and then pulled the nose of the canoe up on the bank and rested. The afternoon was still and the October sunlight warm, and Hugh, for one, was ready for the respite. They laid themselves full length on a bed of yellowing marsh grass, pillowing their heads in their clasped hands, and pulled their caps over their eyes.

“Paddling a canoe’s harder work than I fancied,” mused Hugh, conscious of lame muscles.

“A little. You’ve got to steer, too, you see. But it isn’t hard once you’ve got the hang of it. Funny you’ve never done any canoeing.”

“Yes, I dare say. I’ve punted a bit, and I’ve rowed some, but you don’t find many canoes on the other side except on the Thames. And mother was always rather shy about letting me go on the water.”

“It must be dandy on that Thames of yours,” said Nick. “I’ve read about the races, you know, and all that; houseboats lined up along the shore and Johnnies in flannels paddling about and colored lanterns and so on. Must be great!”

“I dare say. I never saw but one boat race. That was the time you—we—the American crew beat us—them.”

“You’re getting mixed, ’Ighness!” laughed Nick. “You don’t know whether you’re United States or English.”

“It’s a bit confusing,” agreed Hugh. “Of course, I really am English, because my father is English and I was born over there. But sometimes it seems awfully much as though I weren’t, you know! Since I’ve been here I feel as if I really belonged, if you know——”

“If I know what you mean; I do, old man. Just the same, Hugh, you’d be in an awful mess if we ever went to war with England, wouldn’t you? What would you do then?”

Hugh shook his head soberly. “I don’t know, really. I fancy, though, I’d stick with dad. I couldn’t do anything else, could I?”

“I don’t see how you could. Wouldn’t it be touching when you and I met on the trampled field of battle? ‘Why, hello, ’Ighness!’ I’d say. ‘How’s the boy? Take that!’ And I’d biff you one on the side of the head. And you’d say, smiling pleasantly: ‘Well, well, if it isn’t me old friend Nick! I’m chawmed to meet you, Nick. Pardon me, but I’ve got to hand you this!’ And then you’d stick a bayonet into my ribs. Or, no,[142] you wouldn’t, either, because you’d be an officer, I guess; maybe Field Marshal Ordway; and so you’d let me have it with a sword! And then you’d get the Victoria Cross for bravery.”

“Oh, I should! I’d be General Blake, Commander of the United States Expeditionary Forces; and so, instead of beating you over the bean with the butt end of my rusty trifle—er, trusty rifle, I’d slash off your head with my bejeweled sword. There’d be some style to that, eh?”

“Don’t see what good the V. C. would do me under the circumstances,” objected Hugh. “I’m not keen for that programme, Nick. I say, isn’t it getting late? Hadn’t we better nip it?”

“Almost half-past four, by ginger! Never mind, we’ve got the current with us going back, and you can rest up. How are the shoulders and sturdy biceps, Duke?”

“Don’t mention it. Chawmed, I’m sure. Tumble in and I’ll shove her off.”

The next day the second team became an official fact. Mr. Crowley, the assistant athletic director, took charge of the coaching and the squad of nineteen started in at training table in[143] Manning that noon. Ben Myatt was chosen captain. As usual, Hugh went over to the field after school in the afternoon and looked on. He had secretly hoped to make an end position on the second, but there were Bellows and Forbes in the coveted places, and no word had come from Hanrihan. He began to believe, with Bert, that his chances for this year were at an end.

The first was going through signal drill, Nick driving one squad and Weston the other. Behind each line-up a few sweatered substitutes followed. Neil Ayer was at quarter for the second, further down the field, and Mr. Crowley, familiarly known as “Dinny,” with a half-dozen unplaced candidates, looked on. There was just a suspicion of frost in the air today, and the fact told on the players. There was more vim in their movements as, in response to the voices of the quarter-backs, they trotted up and down with the balls. Coach Bonner and Jim Quinn, the manager, were conversing in front of the bench, and Davy Richards, the trainer, was mending a head-guard discarded by one of the players a few minutes before. Hugh wondered what Mr. Bonner would say if he broached the subject of reinstatement. At the worst he could only scowl and say no. And he might say yes! But—well, Coach Bonner wasn’t the sort of man one felt like making[144] suggestions to! Besides, Hanrihan had told Hugh to wait.

There were few onlookers about the first team gridiron today, for the upper and lower middlers were playing the first of the class games on the further field and the crowd was over there. Hugh was debating whether to follow or to remain here in the hope of getting some word from Hanrihan when that youth came to the bench. In front of him the second team squad, players and followers, came to a breathless pause after a forward pass and Mr. Crowley, short, square, red-faced, criticized gruffly. At that moment Hugh became conscious of someone at his shoulder and heard Mr. Smiley’s deep and pleasant voice.

“Smiles” was a fine, upstanding man well under forty, clean-shaven, tanned, gray-eyed. Although he lived in the master’s suite on the third floor of Lothrop, Hugh had never had more than a nod or a “Good morning” from him and was rather surprised that Smiles knew his name.

“Yes. I hope Mr. Crowley will turn us out a good second. A lot depends on the scrubs. I understand they’ve chosen Myatt for captain. A fine fellow and a good player. Too bad he’s[145] never made the varsity team. When he was a lower middler we all looked to see him captain this year. He lacks something, though.”

“I wonder! Meaning easy-going, I suppose. Perhaps. Well, he may be able to do more for us where he is than if he were on the first. Ah, we’re to have a scrimmage I see. I suppose you don’t play our kind of football, Ordway.”

“To be sure. I remember now. Too bad. Well, you’ll have your class team to try for when you get squared again.”

“Y-yes, sir,” agreed Hugh dubiously, “but—but I was hoping to get back with the second. Hanrihan said he thought I might. Do you—do you think so, sir?”

“Hm. I’m afraid the second will be rather far along then. When do you expect to get off?”

The master smiled. “I think I do, Ordway. But I don’t see how you expect to get back unless you ask.”

“But Tom Hanrihan hasn’t anything to do with the second team, I’m afraid, Ordway.”

“Mr. Bonner has no more to do with it than Hanrihan. See Mr. Crowley. He will hear what you have to say. You know him, I suppose.”

“Well, wait until he comes off and we’ll speak to him. He’s coming now, I think. We’ll take the bull by the horns.” Mr. Smiley chuckled, and Hugh had to smile, too, for the simile was unflatteringly apt. Mr. Crowley did remind one remarkably of a bull! “‘Audentes fortuna iuvat,’ Ordway, if you haven’t forgotten your Latin.”

Hugh followed the master to where the second team coach was approaching the bench in company with Ben Myatt. Hugh lagged a little, for, while it might be true that fortune favored the brave, it was equally true that Mr. Crowley didn’t know him from Adam and might think him decidedly fresh. There was a word or two of[147] greeting between the men, during which Myatt slipped away, and then Mr. Smiley turned to Hugh.

“This is Ordway, Mr. Crowley. He’s looking for a job and thinks you may have an opening for a bright young man.”

“Looking for a job?” said the coach, shaking hands. “What sort of a job, my boy?”

Hugh reddened. “I’d like to get back on the second, sir,” he explained embarrassedly. “You see, I was getting on fairly well until I went on probation, and——”

“Yes, sir. I thought maybe you might let me have another try, Mr. Crowley, if you know what——”

“But don’t come unless you can play. And if you do come”—and here Mr. Crowley scowled fearsomely—“see that you stay. We haven’t any room for cut-ups on the team, Ordway. You won’t be of any use to me unless you can stay[148] straight with the faculty.” Mr. Crowley dismissed Hugh and his affairs with a nod and turned back to Mr. Smiley. Hugh dropped out of hearing and presently the master rejoined him.

“Are you going to watch the scrimmage?” asked the latter. “If so, suppose we sit down over there. Your friend at court seems to have provided for you, after all. I’m glad you’re to get back.”

“Not at all, Ordway, but I shall expect you to make the most of your chance and become a distinguished member of the team.” The master smiled. “When you slam the ball across the line I shall proudly recall the slight assistance I rendered and partake of the credit. Now then, first kicks off to the second. ‘The trumpet hoarse rings out the bloody signal for the war!’ Well kicked, Trafford!”

Bert was as surprised as he was delighted when Hugh informed him after practice that Mr. Crowley had virtually promised him a place with the second team. At first Bert insisted that his chum had misunderstood, but, on having the conversation repeated, acknowledged that Hugh had good grounds for encouragement. “I never heard of its being done before, Hugh,” he said. “Tom Hanrihan must have a drag with Dinny, and no mistake. You’ll have to work like the dickens to stay on. Think you can do it?”

“I fancy I can do as well as some of those chaps there now,” answered Hugh placidly.

“Bellows isn’t bad at end, I guess,” mused Bert, “but Forbes oughtn’t to be hard to beat. You’re trying for end, aren’t you?”

“I wanted to play end, but I wasn’t there long enough to get placed more than once or twice. End’s about all I can play, I fancy. I’m not heavy enough for tackle or guard or back.”

“You’d make a good quarter if you had more experience,” said Bert thoughtfully. “And they might use you for a running back. You’re quick, I guess.”

“I’d be laid flat if I ran into Ted Trafford or Pop, though,” laughed Hugh. “Pop could take me up and throw me clear over the goal. I fancy end is my place, if I can get it.”

Nick was equally pleased and, like Bert, seemed to think that fortune had been unusually kind to Hugh. “But you’re a lucky guy, anyway, Duke. Some fellows are born to good fortune, I guess, and you’re one of them. That was nice of Smiles, though, wasn’t it? Don’t you like him, Hugh?”

“Very much. We had a topping time. And, I say, you chaps, he knows an awful lot of football!”

Bert and Nick laughed. “Why shouldn’t he?” asked Bert. “He played it for three or four years and came near making the all-America team, didn’t he, Nick?”

“So they say. Anyway, I’ll bet he was a dandy guard. When he first came here he used to help with the coaching. That was before Dinny came.”

“And after. Dinny didn’t coach the elevens until the first fall we were here.”

“No, they got him because Pete had too much to do. Dinny was supposed to give all his time to the track team and nine. Then they got Davy to look after the track fellows and so Dinny took hold of the second team.”

“I should think that Mr. Smiley would be a ripping football coach,” said Hugh.

“Yes,” agreed Nick. “He took hold of the upper middlers two years ago and they ran away with everything and even held the first team to no score once. Remember, Bert?”

“That was three years ago, though, because I was a junior then. That was some team, Nick, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. Remember how it beat Grammar School thirty-four to nothing, or something like that? And Grammar School made a big howl about it and wrote to the paper that we’d played a lot of first team fellows against them.”

“Has Mr. Smiley anything to do with athletics here?” asked Hugh. “He said something that——”

“Chairman of the Faculty Athletic Committee,” replied Nick. “He and Gring and Pete Sargent are the committee. You must have made a hit with him or he wouldn’t have gone to Dinny[152] with you. I like Smiles. Wish I was still taking Latin.”

“Nor much good. All a fellow needs is enough to pass his college exams. After that he forgets it as fast as he knows how. Well, meanwhile there’s a bunch of German waiting for me downstairs. You’re a lucky dog not to have the stuff, Bert.”

“‘Das Edel Blüt.’ It’s tough, if you ask me. When there was a perfectly good, gentlemanly language like Latin, why did someone have to go and invent German? Well, I’m off.”

Hugh was summoned to the office Thursday and listened to a brief homily by Mr. Rumford. When he emerged he was once more in good standing. Since, however, it was by that time almost five o’clock, it was too late to report to Mr. Crowley that day, and Hugh dropped in on Wallace Cathcart and spent the rest of the time until supper arguing whether a college education was essential to success in life. While Hugh could beat his host at tennis, and had done it twice since their first meeting, he was no match for him in the present controversy, and Cathcart[153] won the debate easily, proving conclusively that a high school education was all that was required by the average person. And this in the face of the fact that Cathcart had his plans all laid for a full college course and two years of graduate study!

Hugh reported to Mr. Crowley the next afternoon dressed for play. The second team coach viewed him with an unflattering lack of enthusiasm. “Are you square with the office?” he asked. Hugh assured him that he was. Mr. Crowley glanced doubtfully about the field and then grunted. “All right. Get in there and catch some of those punts.” That was all. Evidently, Hugh reflected, his advent was not a matter of as much importance to Mr. Crowley as it was to him.

His appearance with the squad aroused not a little surprise among his team-mates. In one or two cases, he thought, it aroused resentment as well. He knew few of the fellows save by sight. Neil Ayer, the first-choice quarter-back, was a speaking acquaintance, and so, to a lesser extent, was Hauser, who played left half. But the rest were practically strangers to him. He was relieved to find that his enforced idleness had not cost him what skill he had acquired, and he couldn’t see but that he caught, threw and handled[154] the pigskin generally as well as half the fellows in the squad. Mr. Crowley made him known to Captain Myatt later, and Myatt, who was a big, likable chap, won Hugh’s instant affection by being very nice to him. One would have thought from Myatt’s words that Hugh was doing him the biggest sort of a favor by joining the squad. Hugh didn’t get into signal work, for he didn’t know the code, but he trudged along behind and listened and watched and picked up a good deal of useful knowledge that afternoon. Later, when the second took the field to play two ten-minute periods with the first, Hugh and three others were sent off out of the way with a football and put in the time punting and catching. At supper time, armed with his napkin-ring and a bottle of marmalade, his private property, he joined the training table in Manning.

There were just twenty youths at the long table which was set up in a corner of the big dining hall in the junior dormitory, and Mr. Crowley presided at the head. Hugh felt a bit strange at supper that first evening and was conscious of the puzzled regard of some of his companions. Doubtless they wondered at his sudden advent with the team. There was no ill-feeling in evidence, however, and Hugh got through the meal without much conversation and felt somewhat relieved[155] when chairs were pushed back. At training table, in order that no one should hurry through his meal at the risk of indigestion, it was a rule that all must remain until the coach gave the word. Consequently, if one did bolt his food it profited him nothing since he was obliged to sit there and watch his neighbors finish, and fellows who had the “quick lunch” habit soon got over it. Mr. Crowley made occasional exceptions to the rule, but one had to put forward a pretty convincing plea.

Tonight the team left the table together and Hugh passed down the corridor in the rear of the group. When he reached the entrance several of the second team members had paused just outside the doorway and Hugh’s passage was blocked. After pausing an instant for the others to go on down the steps or move aside, he said: “I beg your pardon,” and edged through. A short, broad-bodied youth glanced around and instantly pulled a companion out of the way.

“Gangway, Charley!” he exclaimed. “Let the British Aristocracy pass. My word, we fawncy ourself a bit, eh, what?”

Hugh recognized the speaker as Brewster Longley, the team’s center. He was broad of shoulder and hip, short-necked and short-limbed, with a round face surmounted by very black hair[156] which, close-cropped, looked like the bristles of a blacking brush. He was called “Brew” Longley and was a very clever center. Hugh’s brief glance expressed surprise as he passed down the steps. He had never spoken to Longley and the latter’s unexpected “ragging” disconcerted him. As he went off along the path he heard an amused laugh from the occupants of the steps and resented it. He had half a mind to turn back. But the next instant his flash of anger left him and he mentally shrugged his shoulders and dismissed the incident.

Bert was not at home when Hugh reached the study, but he came in soon after looking cross and worried. Hugh’s efforts at conversation were not successful, for Bert answered in monosyllables and showed an evident disinclination to talk. Animated by good resolutions regarding study, for he meant to keep his present class standing if it was possible and so follow the earnest advice of Mr. Rumford, Hugh got his books together and seated himself at his table. But it was hard to get his mind on lessons when Bert was wandering aimlessly from bedroom to study and from study back to bedroom. Finally Hugh ventured a good-natured protest and to his bewilderment Bert turned on him angrily.

“Oh, dry up!” he snarled. “If you don’t like[157] my moving around you take your books in your room. I’ve got as much right here as you have.”

“I didn’t say you hadn’t,” replied Hugh, after the first moment of astonishment. “What are you so waxy about? I only asked you not to——”

“Well, I’ll walk around here just as much as I please,” growled the other. “You make me weary, anyhow, you and your airs! I didn’t ask to have a blooming Britisher wished on me, if you care to know it!”

“And I didn’t ask to be put in with a bear,” replied Hugh mildly. “What’s wrong with you, anyhow, old chap? Anything I’ve done?”

“There isn’t anything wrong,” responded Bert crossly, “except that a fellow likes a certain amount of freedom in his own rooms. You seem to think you own this place!”

“Piffle! Go ahead and walk if it does you any good.” Hugh smiled as he turned back to his book. Probably Bert was looking for grievances, for that smile instead of bringing peace produced a fresh outburst.

“You bet I’ll walk! And let me tell you another thing, Ordway. I had this room picked out long before you ever thought of coming here, and if another chap hadn’t quit school you[158] wouldn’t be here. Anyone would think from the airs you put on that this dormitory was built especially for you.”

“Then let me tell you something, Bert,” said Hugh, losing patience at last. “My mother wanted me to take this room by myself and she engaged it last spring. Later the secretary wrote that they had had another application for it and would I mind sharing the suite. And I said I wouldn’t, although the mater was dead against it. So if you think I’m here through any kindness of yours you’re all wrong.”

Bert stared in surprise. “I don’t believe it,” he said at last. “They wouldn’t rent this suite to one fellow. They never do.”

“They did, however. If you don’t believe me I can show you the paper. It’s in my dispatch-box in there. Mind you, I’m not fussing about it, but I’m hanged if you can tell me I got in here because you said so!”

“Oh, I suppose you’re such a swell they let down the rules for you,” sneered Bert. “I dare say they thought you were the Prince of Wales, with your silly valet and your coat-of-arms and all the rest of the piffle! You make me mighty tired, if you want to know.”

“Sorry,” said Hugh shortly. “But I don’t see what’s going to be done about it. I’m[159] plaguey sure I’m not going to get out of here to oblige you, old chap.”

“All right, but as long as you stay you can be mighty sure that I’m going to do as I please here, you pig-headed Britisher!”

Bert grumbled a bit and at last, with a good deal of noisy slamming of books, settled down to study. They didn’t speak again that evening. Later Bert took himself off to visit somewhere in the building and Hugh went to bed with a book. He didn’t read a great deal, though, for Bert’s remarks had stung. When you are making a hard try to be as American and democratic as you possibly can, it is discouraging to be accused of putting on side. In Hugh’s case it hurt. Looking back, he could see now that he had made a bad beginning by appearing on the scene with Bowles in attendance, but he had supposed that Bert and the others had forgotten that incident. As for the coat-of-arms—what Bert really meant was crest—that seemed a small matter. It was on his brushes and silver toilet things, and he had some writing paper that bore it. But he never used the paper and he certainly never paraded the toilet articles. After a while he got out of bed, pulled his bag from the closet and[160] ruthlessly dumped brushes and comb and shoehorn and buttonhook and three or four other articles into it and shoved the bag back in the closet. The next morning he combed his hair with his fingers, not very successfully, and after English he hurried off to the village and outfitted anew at the drug store, becoming the owner of two military brushes with imitation mahogany backs, a black rubber comb, a five-cent buttonhook made of nickel, and a papier-mâché shoehorn. He didn’t know what more he could do unless he gave up wearing his watch, which had the crest above his monogram, or left off a small seal-ring which offended in the same way.

Bert had apparently forgotten his ill-humor of the night before and was the same as usual, except that he seemed rather quiet and depressed. Hugh, however, found it hard to forget so readily, for he was fond of his roommate and the latter’s remarks still rankled. But Hugh tried to hide the fact and Bert never suspected it. That afternoon Hugh believed that he had discovered the reason for his chum’s ill-humor, for Bert didn’t get into the scrimmage with the second team until it was almost over, Zanetti and Siedhof playing at left half by turns. Hugh was again left out of the second team line-up, but he was able to follow the scrimmaging fairly closely from where he and[161] three other fellows were punting and catching beyond the west goal.

Later he walked back with Pop, and Pop, after a silence that lasted until they had crossed the green, asked: “What’s wrong with Bert, Duke? He’s as grouchy as a bear and is playing like a silly idiot. Bonner gave him an awful dressing-down after practice yesterday. And of course he had to go and lose his temper and sass Bonner back and there was the dickens to pay for a while. Bonner made him apologize. I was afraid at first that Bert wouldn’t do it. Did he tell you about it?”

“Not a word. He was beastly ugly last evening, though. I didn’t know what the dickens was up. We had a regular row.”

“He has a rotten temper. Gets over it quick, though. I thought at one time Bonner was going to fire him from the squad. He will have to brace up and get onto himself or he will find that Siedhof has his place. Bonner isn’t the sort you can fool with much.”

“I wish he wouldn’t flare up the way he does,” said Hugh. “He says perfectly rotten things when he’s waxy.”

Pop nodded. “He’s as mean as a little yellow pup when he gets started. Come on over a while, Duke, and tell me how you’re getting on. What’s[162] Crowley going to do with you, by the way? The end positions are settled, aren’t they?”

“Yes, but Bert thinks I might beat out that chap Forbes. I dare say I’ll sit on the bench a good deal, though. What sort of a team has Rotan College, Pop?”

“‘Rotten’ College? Oh, good enough to lay us out, I guess. They’ll win about twelve to nothing. Still, it’ll be a good game. There’s a big mucker named Lambert who plays left guard for them. Lambert and I had quite a merry little party last year and I’m honest enough to own up that he got the best of it. I’m looking forward with much pleasure to meeting him again on Saturday.” Pop smiled grimly. “If he tries what he tried last year he won’t play more than a couple of periods, I guess.”

Pop grinned. “I will. I’m not going to start anything, Duke, but if Lambert gets gay he will run against something hard this time. Last year I stood a lot of jolts from him, and Bonner saw it, and after the game—they beat us seven to three—he said, ‘If I had caught you slugging back at that fellow I’d have pulled you out, Pop.’ ‘Sure, I knew that,’ I told him. ‘That’s the only reason he got away with it.’ So the other day[163] Bonner said, ‘You’ll play against Lambert again next Saturday.’ And I said, yes, I was expecting to. And Bonner said, looking away off into the distance, ‘He used you sort of roughly last year, didn’t he?’ ‘He sure did,’ said I. ‘Well, we mustn’t have any rough stuff, Pop, you know. If I catch you at it you’ll come out.’ ‘All right,’ said I. ‘Are you likely to be looking?’ ‘Well, I’m not going to keep my eyes on you all the time,’ he said, ‘and my sight isn’t what it was when I was younger, but if the umpire should call my attention to anything you’d have to come out, Pop. So if I were you I’d be a bit careful!’ And I’m going to be.”

Hugh laughed as Pop pushed him through the doorway of Number 20. “I’m not going to miss that game, whatever happens,” he declared. “And if they send me out to carry you off, Pop, I’ll be very gentle with you.”

“Huh!” growled the other. “Carry me off, eh? If Lambert doesn’t act like a perfect gentleman he will be smiling in his sleep and listening to the birdies singing about the middle of the second quarter!”

Bert wasn’t very good company that week. In the evenings he made a great pretence of studying, but Hugh’s stolen glances showed that his friend’s thoughts were far from his books. At times Bert was as gay as you please, but the gayety didn’t last long and while it did last struck Hugh as being decidedly forced. For the most part Bert was silent and morose. There were no more bickerings, but it was more to Hugh’s credit than Bert’s, for the latter on more than one occasion showed himself ready to quarrel on any provocation. As a result Hugh was less at home than usual. He spent much time with Pop Driver and Roy Dresser, over in Trow, and often dropped down the corridor to hobnob with Cathcart before bedtime. There was one good thing about the proctor and that was that you could always depend on finding him in his room except when he had a recitation. Now and then Hugh visited Nick, but Nick, unlike Cathcart, was almost never in. A couple of evenings[165] Hugh went over to Lit for awhile, but he had a feeling that it was better taste to remain away from the society’s room until he was a full-fledged member. He very much wished that Bert would confide in him, so that whatever the trouble was they might talk it over like sensible beings. Somehow, he didn’t believe that gridiron difficulties quite explained his friend’s condition of mind. Instead, he shrewdly suspected that Bert’s poor performances in practice of late were the result of some secret worry and not the cause of it. All that Hugh could be certain of was that studies had nothing to do with it, for, while Bert was not a particularly studious fellow, he nevertheless managed to maintain an average standing and was seldom in trouble with the office.

Bert went back to left half on Wednesday and stayed there until the Rotan game. But even Hugh could see that he was having a hard time of it to keep Siedhof out, and there were times when no one could have criticized Coach Bonner had he pulled Bert back to the bench. Nick confided to Hugh one day that Bert was frightfully off his game, adding regretfully, “It’s got so I think twice before I give him the ball. And Bonner’s getting on to me, too. Bert’s got to brace up Saturday or Billy Siedhof will have his place. I’d like to know what the dickens is wrong with[166] him! The best thing for him would be to get Davy to lay him off for three or four days. I suggested it to him yesterday and he nearly bit my head off. Ted’s got his eye on him, too, and Ted’s so set on winning this year that he’d fire his grandmother if she didn’t play well! Look here, ’Ighness, why don’t you sort of drop a hint to Bert, eh? I’ve tried it and only escaped death by instant flight.”

“So you want me to die, eh? I’d do it, only—well, Bert gets mad so easily now that it wouldn’t be much good.”

“I guess it wouldn’t. Well, it’s his funeral and he will have to make his own arrangements. Still, I hate to see him making such a mess of things without any reason that anyone can see. What the dickens is the matter, Duke? Has he hinted anything to you?”

“No, he hasn’t. All I know is——” Hugh hesitated a moment. “I don’t know anything, but this morning when I got the mail and took it up there was a letter for Bert from his father—I know the postmark and the writing, you see—and one from Needham, and he didn’t like either of them.”

“That isn’t much of a clue. He doesn’t like anything just at present. He doesn’t even like his fodder; doesn’t eat enough to keep alive. Oh,[167] well, it will blow over, I guess. And I’ve got enough to worry about as it is, with a left side of the line that’s letting everything pile through it. Saturday’s game is going to be a slaughter of the innocents, Duke, you take it from me.”

Hugh, like Nick, had his own troubles during the next few days, for Coach Crowley tried him out at right end on the second, and as an end Hugh had much to learn. Just why, after the first ten-minute fiasco, Mr. Crowley sent him back again Hugh couldn’t understand. Hugh was boxed time after time, while the first team backs romped past, allowed himself to be drawn out of the play by the cunning Dresser until that youth laughed when he caught Hugh’s anxious regard, and twice overran the ball on kicks and felt like forty kinds of a fool. But Crowley yanked him hither and thither, bellowed things that he couldn’t more than half understand, threatened him with the bench regularly every second play—and kept him at it. Hugh told himself Thursday afternoon, as he made his way tiredly out of the field house and back to Lothrop, that he had forever settled his chances with the second and that he was not half sorry. But later, when he had eaten ravenously and rested, he decided that he was sorry, awfully sorry, and he neglected his next day’s Greek and mathematics while he frowningly[168] studied a chapter entitled “How to Play the End Positions” in a book on football. After a half-hour of it he sighed and closed the volume.

“The chap who wrote that may know all about it, but he doesn’t play Dinny’s kind of football,” he reflected. “What I want is a book that will tell me how to keep Roy and Franklin from making me look like a guy! Still, I fancy Crowley won’t try me there again unless both Forbes and Bellows and that other chap get killed.”

But Hugh was wrong. The next day he was again back at the right end of the line and again Ayer yelped at him and Coach Crowley bellowed and Captain Myatt barked. But he did a little better today, just enough, probably, to keep Mr. Crowley from having him instantly drawn and quartered or immersed in boiling oil. Roy Dresser, who played left end on the first, found it harder to entice his opponent away from the play, and Franklin, at left tackle, discovered that he couldn’t always fool him. Still, Hugh missed an easy tackle on one occasion and let Nick slip past for a long gain while he ruefully picked himself from the ground and scraped the mud from his face. Mr. Crowley almost ate him for that and Neil Ayer evinced every desire to officiate with the vinegar and salt. That was a bad day for the second, on the whole, for the first ran up five[169] scores in the twenty minutes of scrimmaging. What troubled Hugh quite as much as his own defects was the sorry performance put up by Bert on the enemy team. Bert fumbled miserably twice, and, while he usually gained when he had the ball, played in such a half-hearted manner that Coach Bonner was “on his neck” half the time. In the last of the second period, when substitutions on each team were numerous, Bert went out in favor of Siedhof. Hugh, too, severed his connection with the game then, and Forbes got back to his own.

On the bench, dragging the sleeves of his sweater across his chest, Hugh ventured a remark to Bert, but the result was not encouraging. Bert only growled. After that Hugh watched Forbes and earnestly tried not to indulge in uncharitable thoughts. But he couldn’t help feeling exultant when Vail and Bert swept around their left end, Vail carrying the pigskin, and spurned the recumbent form of Forbes underfoot. That was encouraging to Hugh. Even Forbes, it seemed, was by no means beyond the cunning wiles of the enemy. Then Davy Richards, the trainer, who had been up the field administering to a dislocated finger, hurried indignantly back to the bench and sent them scurrying to the showers.

That evening Hugh went back to the football[170] book and discovered a trifle more of sense in what he read. After all, he concluded, perhaps the writer might last five minutes at end under Crowley. There was no work for the first team regulars on Friday, but the second-string players were lined up against the second for one twelve-minute period and barely saved their bacon by slipping Derry across the field unnoticed for a forward pass that brought a touchdown. Hugh congratulated himself that that play took place on the other side and that it was Bellows and not he who had to face the irate Mr. Crowley. Three minutes later, on the second’s thirty-five, first team tried the same trick on the other side and Hugh was fortunate enough to knock the ball down before the opposing left end could get it. For that he got a slap on the back from Myatt, a grin from Quarterback Ayer, and a grunt from Coach Crowley. Not much in the way of reward, perhaps, after all the scoldings he had suffered, but quite sufficient in Hugh’s estimation. Even though he was informed a minute later that he was the worst end that had ever donned canvas he refused to be dejected. “That,” he told himself hearteningly as he watched the opposing tackle and waited for the signal, “isn’t so. If I were as bad as that I wouldn’t be here.” Then he was trying to block off a big tackle, while Ayer’s voice shrilled “In![171] In!” and everything was excitedly confused and glorious. After another moment Hauser yanked him to his feet at the risk of dislocating his arm and Myatt shoved him into position again, and Quinn was crying: “Third down! Four to go!” and Ayer was barking his signals: “Manson back! 47—35—16!”

The game ended when Manson’s punt had dropped into the arms of a first-team back, and, muddy and warm and panting, they trotted up to the field house. It was worth all the hard knocks and harder words to feel the tingling rain of the hissing shower on naked body, and afterwards, Hugh, deliciously weary, slowly pulled his clothes on and went half asleep in the task of tying a shoelace and heard the babel of voices as in a dream until Ben Myatt, scantily wrapped in a monstrous bath towel, sank to the bench beside him with a deep sigh and murmured: “They didn’t do much with our wing today, Ordway, did they?”

And Hugh, emerging from his luxurious drowse, shook his head proudly and answered: “Rather not!” After which, with a supreme effort of the will, he finished tying that lace and got to his feet. Encountering the eyes of Forbes he smiled kindly but pityingly. It was too bad that Forbes was out of it. He was sorry for[172] Forbes. But as events proved he need not have been.

He found Bert lying on the window-seat scribbling on a scratch-pad when he got back to Lothrop. Perhaps the afternoon’s rest had benefited the first-team player, for he was undeniably in better humor.

“What did they do to you, Hugh?” he asked as he tore a sheet from the pad and crumpled it in his hand. “Were they brutal?”

“Hardly! They scored once, but they wouldn’t have pulled that if we hadn’t been asleep. Derry took a pass about a foot from the side line and ran thirty yards.”

Bert laughed. “What were you fellows doing to let him get off like that? You must have been asleep!”

“I fancy we were,” acknowledged Hugh ruefully as he seated himself in the Morris chair and stretched tired legs across the rug. “I was awfully glad it wasn’t on my side.”

“Kinds was one. The other fellow I don’t know. Small and dark and awfully quick and squirmy.”

“Fearing. He’s going to make a bully half some day. He’s only a lower middler.” There[173] was a pause and then: “Say, Hugh,” Bert went on carelessly, “you don’t happen to have any money you don’t want to use for a while, I suppose?”

“Oh, a beast of a lot; thirty dollars. Twenty would do, I guess. It would do for a while, anyway.” Bert was much too casual to deceive the other and Hugh looked regretful.

“No, I haven’t more than six or seven, Bert. How soon would you have to have it?”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter. I only thought that if you did happen to have it——”

“I know, but I fancy I could get it in a few days. Only thing is the mater’s away just now.” He frowned thoughtfully. “What are you going to do, Bert? Buy something?”

“Sort of. It doesn’t matter a bit.” He yawned elaborately, tossed aside the block of paper and sat up. “I’d have to have it by Monday, anyway. Thanks just the same.”

“Yes, but—if you want it—I say, now, I might telegraph, eh? But I dare say you could get it from home as soon as I could.”

“Well, the fact is——” Bert hesitated. “My[174] dad’s shut down on me and won’t send me a cent beyond my allowance; and that’s only ten a month. Of course, he will come around in time; maybe in a month; but I’ve got to have—that is, I—I need twenty or thirty right now. I’ve sort of promised a man to let him have it Monday. It—it’s a debt. An old one. Things I bought last winter. Now he’s acting nasty and threatens to go to faculty if I don’t settle up.”

Bert shrugged. “We aren’t supposed to, except by special arrangement. But most every fellow has things charged here in the village or over in Needham. Of course you’re supposed to settle at the end of term, and I meant to, but I was hard up and couldn’t. This Shylock bothered me all summer with bills and letters and things and I told him I’d pay when I got back. Well, I tried to, but dad got angry and said I was spending too much money and I’d have to get along on my allowance. And he told mother not to let me have it. So it’s a rotten outlook. Of course, if I can’t pay him right now, I can’t, and that’s all there is to it. Only if he should go to Charlie I’d get fired as quick as a wink.”

“That’s too bad,” said Hugh sympathetically. “We’ll simply have to dig up the money somewhere.[175] Toss me that block, will you? And your pencil? Thanks. Now, let’s see. ‘Please send six pounds’—no, ‘thirty dollars——’” Hugh nibbled the pencil reflectively. “I’ve got about six dollars, though, so I’ll just ask for twenty-five. Thirty’s enough, old chap? You’re certain?”

“Yes, but I don’t believe you’d better, Hugh. I don’t know, after all, when I can pay it back. Maybe not until Christmas. I always get some extra money then. I guess Fallow and Turner will wait.”

“But there’d be no hurry about paying it back, Bert,” the other protested. “And my mother won’t mind sending it the least bit. I haven’t asked for any extra tin for a long time. You just sit tight, old dear, and leave it to me. ‘Please send twenty-five dollars at once. Important. Well. Love.’ That ought to do it. I say, though, maybe I’d better ask mother to telegraph it, eh? Then she’d surely get it here by Monday. Unless, that is, this doesn’t get to her in time. You see, she went away to make some visits the other day. She ought to be in Philadelphia tomorrow, but if she stayed over in New York—I fancy I’ll send a couple of these just to be on the safe side. Bound to fetch her that way, what?”

“It’s awfully decent of you,” said Bert gratefully.[176] “Hope I’ll be able to do as much for you some day.”

“I hope you won’t need to,” laughed Hugh. “How do I get these off? I can telephone, can’t I?”

“Yes, and they’ll charge it to the school and you can settle with the office. I ought to offer to pay them myself, Hugh, but I’m just about strapped. You could add it to the rest, though.”

“Oh, rot! I’ll nip down and get them off now. If mother gets one of these tomorrow morning we might hear by afternoon, eh?”

“They said they’d get them off right away,” Hugh announced from the doorway. “So that’s all right, eh?”

“Yes,” replied Bert. “And I hope—— Well, anyway, I’m awfully much obliged, Hugh. To tell the truth I’ve been scared to death for a week for fear Fallow would turn up here at school.”

“Well, it won’t matter if he does now,” responded Hugh cheerfully. “Is—is that what’s been bothering you lately, old chap?”

“Have I?” asked the other penitently. “I guess I have. I’m sorry, Hugh. I guess I was particularly nasty the other night, wasn’t I?”

“I didn’t mean”—Bert spoke from behind a towel—“what I said about rooming with you, Hugh. I—I’m sorry I was such a cad.”

“Oh, don’t talk so sick,” muttered Hugh, backing away from the door. “I didn’t pay any attention to it. Now shut up. I’ve got to wash.”

The second team were not exempted from work on Saturday, rather to their annoyance, and it wasn’t until the Rotan College game was nearly half over that they were dismissed and allowed to flock over to the first-team gridiron and crowd into seats at the end of the stand.

Rotan had already scored once and the board announced “Grafton 0—Visitors 7.”

Rotan was a small college, but it rather specialized in football and its teams were invariably clever. Naturally the eleven blue-stockinged youths averaged superior to Grafton in age, size, weight and experience, and a defeat for the home team was a foregone conclusion. Rotan had played a mid-season contest at Grafton regularly every fall for six years, and in that period Grafton’s best performance was a 0 to 0 game four years previous. Rotan was a light team, as college teams went, but it knew a lot of football and provided just the experience that Coach Bonner[179] desired for his charges at that period of development.

It was soon apparent to the second team members that their champions were in for a severe drubbing today. Rotan was using a wide-open formation and running her backs around the Grafton wings about as she pleased, varying this pastime by an occasional short punt and a quarter-back plunge at the center. The Rotan backs were tall and heavy and hard to stop even when the home-team players were fortunate enough to get to them. But it was the dazzling unexpectedness of the attack that was principally accountable for the helplessness of the Scarlet-and-Gray. Rotan’s forwards would string across the field almost from side line to side line, her backs would retreat ten and even twelve yards behind them, there would come a quick, short signal, the ball would go back, the back-field would start on the run to one side or the other, the ball would be caught by one or another of the moving backs, Grafton would come plunging through and then—well, then a blue-armed youth would be suddenly seen running blithely away with the pigskin tucked to his body and not a Graftonian nearer than five yards! How they did it not even the spectators could see. They seemed to possess an absolutely uncanny ability to guess where the openings were[180] to be. Hanser, who was Hugh’s neighbor on one side, muttered disgustedly when a Rotan half had taken the ball over three white lines and placed it twenty yards from the home team’s goal.

“Why doesn’t Ted play his ends deeper?” he asked. “What’s the idea of tearing through and not knowing where the ball is? They can’t stop ’em that way. What’s Bonner thinking of, I’d like to know.”

“It looks to me,” said Bellows, from further along, “as if those fellows started before the ball. You watch this time, Frank.”

“I have watched, and they don’t. They’ve got it down pretty fine, that’s all. That full-back does start before the ball, but he runs back a little and he’s all right. Then when the ball is snapped he straightens out again and half the time he doesn’t get into the play at all. If one of those chaps would only fumble once it would be a cinch!”

“They won’t, though. They’re wizards at it. Watch the way they put Kinley out every time. Musgrave too.”

“Yes, and look at our ends. Might as well be sitting on the bench for all the good they do. If I was Ted I’d close the line up and make them show their hand more. That was Neil Ayer. They’ll have to quit that foolishness now, though.[181] They won’t be able to run the ends inside the twenty.”

Rotan didn’t try to. She closed up and piled her backs at the left of the Grafton line and made three past Kinley and Franklin. She repeated the play for two more and then tried a skin-tackle play off Ted Trafford that worked for a scant yard. With four to go on fourth down her full-back dropped behind to the thirty yards and held his long arms out. But he didn’t kick when the ball came to him. Instead, there was a straight heave across the center and for a breathless instant it seemed that the visitors had again scored. But the end, who had managed to post himself behind the goal line, couldn’t hold the ball when it came to him and the pigskin changed hands.

Hugh watched interestedly then to see how Pop Driver and the redoubtable Lambert were getting on. But the play was at the far end of the field and details were beyond his vision. Two tries netted the Scarlet-and-Gray less than five yards and Keyes punted high and far. Roy Dresser nailed the Rotan quarter on the enemy’s thirty-eight and once more Rotan started her open game. Four yards, eight yards, six yards, and the linesmen scampered with the chain. So far Rotan had not once tried a forward pass in the middle of the field, but when two tries netted but seven[182] yards, she gave a remarkable exhibition of her ability in that department. The full-back went back to kicking position and the ball sped fast and true to him. Then, with two backs forming a tandem interference, he sped to the left. Tray, the Grafton right end, failed to get through and it was Ted Trafford who almost upset the runner well behind his line. But Ted’s tackle just failed and the full-back stopped short, turned and heaved the pigskin far down the field and to the right, where his own right end, quite uncovered, was waiting. Nick Blake brought down the runner on his thirty-six yards and won a salvo of applause. But after that there was no hope. Rotan snaked through the Grafton left side, ran both ends, faked two kicks, and finally, when the defenders fully expected a forward pass, massed on the center of the line and piled through Musgrave for the second touchdown. Rotan failed at goal and a moment later the half was at an end.

“Thirteen to nothing, eh?” muttered Hanser, his eyes on the scoreboard. “I guess I can pretty nearly predict the final score, Ordway. About thirty-two to a goose-egg, I reckon. Rotan ought to be able to score three more touchdowns and kick at least one goal.”

“We’ll have to do a lot of bucking,” grunted Hanser as he pulled himself from the seat. “I’m going down to look for a fellow. Keep my seat, will you?”

School and village had turned out well for the game, and Rotan had brought some half-hundred students with her, and so between halves there was a good deal of cheering from both sides of the field, and the visiting contingent sang a couple of songs and were politely applauded. Then Hanser ploughed his way back to his seat, the teams trotted around the corner of the stand and Rotan lined up for the kick-off.

Bert Winslow, playing back with Nick, caught the ball and ran it a good twelve yards before he was spilled. Then Grafton, evidently smarting under the coach’s remarks in the field house, went at it with a new vim. Unable in the first half to make much headway through the blue line, she began to bear down hard on the ends and tackles. The first attempt gained many yards, but it was across the field instead of down it, and the pigskin came to a pause on the same line from which it had started. But the next attempt proved more successful, for, with Keyes carrying, the pigskin slipped around the Rotan left end for a first down. Then Bert plowed through between center and right guard for four and Roy Dresser,[184] on an end-around play, added another five. Keyes plugged through on the left for enough to make the distance. By this time Grafton was shouting enthusiastically in the stand and the ball was past the center of the field and in Rotan territory.

Bert again made four on a delayed pass around the opponent’s right wing, and once more Keyes, from kick formation, ran wide for a scant gain. With four to go, Nick slipped straight ahead for two and then Keyes faked a kick and made it first down. The ball was near Rotan thirty-five yards now and visions of a touchdown floated before the Grafton supporters. But when two tries had failed to yield more than four yards and Keyes got a forward pass away to Roy Dresser and that youth failed even to touch it, a punt was in order. Rotan caught on her five yards but failed to gain. Then, since the play was now nearly opposite his end of the stand, Hugh could watch the doings of Pop and his adversary. And they were well worth noting.

Lambert was a big, rawboned fellow with a shock of yellow-brown hair which, since he had lost his head-guard, made a vivid note of color. It was evident to Hugh that both Pop and Lambert were engaged in a private and personal rivalry that was of absorbing interest to them.[185] And both youths looked as if they had had hard wear. Lambert sported a strip of plaster across his nose like a saddle and Pop had one very discolored eye. On offense Lambert played well outside of Pop Driver, for the Grafton line was no longer attempting to stretch as wide as the opponent’s, and, theoretically at least, it was Captain Trafford who should have engaged the shock-haired left guard. But Hugh noted with amusement that almost every time it was Pop who tried conclusions with Lambert, often, as it appeared, most impolitely ignoring the center’s efforts to interest him. Hugh couldn’t see anything that looked like slugging, however, in spite of the visible marks of combat. It was merely a very pretty struggle for supremacy, with the honors fairly even, Hugh concluded. But a few minutes later, when Rotan, having failed at a run around Roy Dresser’s end and lost three yards on a forward pass that went awry, finally punted to midfield and the two teams lined up close to the fifty-yard line, he began to have his doubts. With the ball in Grafton’s possession and the lines playing close and compact, Lambert and Pop faced each other at arm’s length. On the first play, a direct plunge at the guard position on the left, Hugh, watching Pop and his adversary rather than the runner, saw the rivals clash together and Lambert’s[186] fist, under cover of the confusion, jerk upwards to Pop’s chin. He almost, he thought, heard the thud of the blow. He saw Pop’s head go back and Pop reel for an instant. Then the Rotan line buckled and the whistle shrilled. Hugh turned to Hanser, but it was evident that the incident had escaped him just as it had apparently escaped everyone else, including the officials.

“Is he?” Hanser chuckled. “He’d better not try it on with Pop Driver, then. Pop’s sore with him, anyway, after last year’s game.”

“I fancy he’s sorer now,” replied Hugh dryly, “for Lambert just drove his fist under Pop’s chin.”

“Then it’s good-by, Lambert, all right, all right! Pop’ll get him before long.”

But the next play drew Pop further out and set him to boxing the opposing tackle, and he and Lambert didn’t get together. Grafton lost on an attempt at a skin-tackle play and Keyes went back to kicking position. When the ball was passed from center Pop met the onslaught of Lambert with all the weight of his body and bore him back[187] far behind his own line, to the annoyance of Lambert and the amusement of those who watched. When the ball was sailing down the field Lambert was still giving ground before Pop. Infuriated, he drew back his arm as they separated and aimed a blow. But Pop ducked inside his guard and Lambert’s fist shot harmlessly into air. For the space of two or three seconds the two players stood there, their faces close, and Hugh could see Pop’s lips move. Then, as a Rotan player shoved in between them, Pop drew off and trotted down the field. Hugh wondered what he had said to Lambert.

Rotan came back with a vengeance and eight plays put the pigskin back where it had been. Then another long forward pass was successful and once more Grafton was defending her last ditch. This time the enemy had harder work getting across that last line, but cross it she did eventually, her full-back dragging half the defending team with him as he won the final three yards on a plunge through Yetter, who had taken Kinley’s place at left guard. It was a fine mêlée, that play, a confused jumble of writhing, pushing, panting bodies, and when the whistle blew half the twenty-two contestants were heaped in a gorgeous pyramid above the ball. One by one they were pulled to their feet while the referee squirmed[188] under the pile and located the pigskin a good six inches past the line. But they didn’t all get up, either, for one player with blue-stockinged legs remained prone on the trampled sod, and when, a moment later, they raised his head and swashed the big sponge over his face Hugh caught sight of a mass of yellow-brown hair.

Hanser nodded. “I told you Pop would get him,” he replied. “You can’t put your fist in Pop’s face like that and get away with it—not unless you smile when you do it! I guess Lambert’s through. Yes, there he goes. Looks a bit groggy, doesn’t he? And unless I’m mistaken he’s wondering whether the goal post fell on him or he was trampled by a stone-crusher.” Hanser chuckled. “He just tried it once too often, that’s all.”

“Nor anyone else, I guess, except Lambert, and he saw stars. Pop waited until he could do it right and get away with it. If Pop handed him one you can bet he deserved it, for Pop Driver’s as clean a player as there is.”

Lambert, supported by a team-mate, was walking off the field, his legs decidedly wobbly and his head showing an inclination to fall over on his[189] chest, and a substitute was being sent in. Then Rotan punted out, caught neatly, and sent a clean kick over the bar for another point, and the scoreboard changed its figures to 20.

There was no more scoring in that period and none in the last until well toward the end. Coach Bonner had sprinkled substitutes liberally by that time, and Rotan, too, was represented by a number of second-string players. The visitor evidently concluded that she had piled up a sufficient score and was bent only on holding her adversary where she was. She punted on second down frequently and managed to keep the ball in Grafton territory until there were but six minutes left to play. Then a fumble by a substitute Rotan half-back changed the complexion of affairs, for Parker, who had taken Franklin’s place at left tackle, shot through and dropped on the pigskin and it was Grafton’s on the enemy’s thirty-two yards!

Weston, second-choice quarter, dashed on with instructions and Nick Blake yielded his head-guard and trotted off. In the stands, Grafton sympathizers demanded a touchdown. The Scarlet-and-Gray began an attack on the left of the Rotan center, where Lambert had yielded to a substitute, and first Keyes and then Bert and Vail tore through for short but substantial gains.[190] Down to the twenty yards went the ball, Rotan hurrying on two fresh players to bolster her line. A forward pass gained four yards and Bert got six past left tackle. Weston carried the ball on a delayed play straight through center for three more. But on her seven yards, under the shadow of her goal, Rotan stiffened. Two plunges at the left gained little, for the secondary defense stopped the runner in each case, and Keyes dropped back to kick. Everything favored a score then, but luck was against the home team, for Musgrave passed miserably and all Keyes could do was make the catch safe and try to gain a scant two or three yards before the enemy bowled him over.

It was fourth down now, with twelve to go, and, after a hurried conference, Weston again sent Keyes back. But although a try-at-goal was to be expected, Rotan was not to be caught napping, and she placed her back-field players to guard against a forward pass. But the ball never reached Keyes. Instead, it slanted off to Bert and, while the big full-back gave a clever exhibition of a youth kicking an imaginary pigskin, Bert circled wide to his right, Vail leading the way, and turned in sharply where Tray had cleared the hole. There was an instant of doubt, for a Rotan back dived for the runner and almost[191] stopped him, but Bert squirmed on, wrested himself free, crossed the five-yard line unchallenged, and plunged on in a confused medley of friends and foes. He was almost across when the Rotan quarter-back smashed into him. Bert faltered then and gave back, but the next instant the drive behind him carried him on again above the enemy and buried him from sight well over the goal line.

Grafton waved and shouted and exulted, and continued to shout until Weston was lying on the sod with the ball between his hands and Keyes was cautiously measuring the distance and studying the cant. And afterwards, when the ball had slanted off at a weird tangent, avoiding the goal widely, Grafton shouted again, for what mattered it if Keyes had missed? They had scored on Rotan, scored against a far bigger and more experienced team, and the figures on the score-board were 6 and 20!

Something that did matter, however, although few paid heed to it just then, was the fact that Bert had laid where he had fallen until Davy, beckoning two substitutes from the bench, had had him borne away to the field house.

On the whole, Grafton was satisfied with that game. She had made larger scores against Rotan in the past, to be sure, but on those occasions the college team had been undoubtedly weaker than she had been today. Even Coach Bonner, who was not easily satisfied, acknowledged to Ted Trafford that the Scarlet-and-Gray eleven had done well to hold Rotan to three scores. Ted wanted credit, too, for the six points his team had won, but Mr. Bonner shrugged his shoulders then. “There was too much luck in that touchdown, Traf,” he said. “Defensively the team did very well. Let it go at that!”

Hugh climbed the stairs to the infirmary on the second floor of Manning after supper that night to inquire about Bert, as to whose injury many and various rumors were afloat. Mrs. Prouty, the matron, gave him permission to see the patient and Hugh found the invalid[193] in the act of finishing a fairly substantial meal. Bert greeted the caller quite cheerfully.

“You needn’t tiptoe,” he laughed, “and you needn’t look like an undertaker. I’m not dead yet, Duke. It’s only a cracked rib. The Doc says I’ll be all right in a couple of weeks and can play before that if I’ll wear a pad. Still, it’s kind of tough luck.”

“I’m glad it’s no worse,” said Hugh. “They had all sorts of stories about you at table tonight. You played a ripping—a corking game, old chap.”

“Well, I played better than I’ve been playing, that’s sure. It was a dandy game and we did mighty well to hold them to twenty, Hugh, to say nothing of scoring on them. Have you heard yet?”

“Oh, I say, I forgot all about it! There wasn’t anything in the box, though. Would they put a telegram in the box?”

“They usually telephone it to you. Maybe your mother didn’t get your message in time, though. You think she’s at either one of those places, don’t you?”

“Why, yes. I ought to have received a letter[194] from her today. She almost always writes so that I get it Saturday. We’ll surely hear by Monday, Bert.”

“Well, I hope so. If that fellow wants to make trouble for me he can do it to the King’s taste.”

“He won’t, though, if he knows he’s going to get his money, eh? You sit tight, old chap, and don’t worry.”

“Oh, I’m tight, all right,” answered Bert, with a grin. “They’ve got me strapped and plastered and bandaged until I can hardly breathe! I’m coming back Monday; Doc said I might. This isn’t so bad, though, and Mother Prouty’s a corker.”

“You’ve got it all to yourself, haven’t you?” asked Hugh, viewing the two empty cots. “If you get lonesome I’ll develop a mysterious illness and get lugged over here. I dare say I’d better be toddling along now, though. Do they let you read?”

“Why not? I don’t have to use my ribs to read, do I? By the way, I wish you’d drop around tomorrow morning and bring my geometry and Greek reader. And you might fetch a paper, too. Good night.”

In the corridor below Hugh encountered Pop, a rather damaged looking Pop, with a puffy green[195] and purple left eye and a long scratch on his nose. When he learned that Hugh had just come from the infirmary he turned back.

“I guess I won’t go up then,” he said. “How is he? What’s the damage?”

Hugh told him as they left the building and turned their steps toward Trow, and Pop expressed relief. “Some fellow said he’d broken his collar-bone. A rib isn’t so bad. Davy’ll have him bundled up and playing in a few days. What did you think of the game?”

“A little bit of all right, Pop! And, I say, you certainly did for Lambert, what?”

Hugh laughed. “Oh, no; you didn’t wallop the beggar, not half! Served him jolly right, of course; I saw him give you that punch under the chin, you know. I wish, though, you’d tell me what you said to him that time you two had your heads together.”

“Do you? Well, I said, ‘Lambert, if you make me lose my temper you’ll go home in an ambulance. Now quit it!’ He did, too. We didn’t have any trouble after that.”

“You mean you didn’t! He looked jolly well troubled when they took him off. Hanser said you’d get him.”

“Sorry to disappoint Hanser,” replied Pop,[196] “but as a matter of fact I didn’t mix it up with Lambert once.”

“He told me afterwards—I saw him in the field house—that someone kicked him in the head. He had rather a bad bruise.”

“Yes, I know I did. But I got to thinking it over. You see, I wanted to play the game through, for one thing, and if I’d been caught slugging I wouldn’t have. And then, too, I—well, I sort of wanted to see if I could keep my temper. After all, I guess the rough-stuff doesn’t get you anything.”

“Rather looks as though Hanser and I misjudged you, Pop,” laughed Hugh. Then, soberly: “I say, though, I’m rather glad you didn’t. Of course he deserved something, but—somehow—if you know what I mean——”

“Thanks, no, not tonight. I’m rather keen on writing a letter to the governor. Good night, Pop.”

The letter wasn’t written until the next day, though, for Cathcart dropped in to inquire after Bert and remained to talk awhile, and before he[197] left Nick and Guy arrived on a similar mission. Nick was in extremely high spirits, in spite of the fact that two of his fingers were bound together with surgeon’s tape, and, after Cathcart had removed his restraining presence, became so hilarious and playful that Guy and Hugh were forced to improvise a straight-jacket from a pair of Bert’s discarded football pants. Subsequently, Nick reclined, neatly trussed, on the window-seat and proclaimed: “I am but mad north-northwest: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw!” Then he began on Hood’s “The Bridge of Sighs,” and, reaching the lines,

he rolled himself off the cushion and reached the floor with a most terrific bump. After that they gagged him and sat on him.

Sunday turned out frosty and clear, with a blue, blue sky overhead and scarlet and russet leaves rustling along the paths. In the afternoon Hugh and Pop ascended Mount Grafton to the observatory on top and held their caps while they climbed the winding stairway and looked for miles[198] over the world. Then they found a sunny crevice in the great pink granite ledge beneath and sat there for a long time, looking down on the roofs of the school buildings below them, and discussed many weighty matters. It was not until, comfortably tired and very hungry, they returned to school that Hugh got that letter written. When he had finished it, however, and it lay sealed and addressed on the table, instead of taking it downstairs and dropping it in the mail-box he slipped it between the leaves of a book and put the book in the table drawer. In the morning he would hand the letter directly to the postman, a custom that puzzled Bert and moved him to sarcasm.

There was no reply to his telegram the next forenoon and Hugh was troubled on Bert’s account. The latter moved back to Lothrop and attended classes as usual that morning, but, perhaps because he was uncomfortably bandaged and it hurt him when he took a deep breath, or perhaps because he was worried over the non-arrival of that money-order, he was in rather a cantankerous mood. Hugh dispatched another message to his mother before he went to the field in the afternoon, addressing it to his home on the chance that she had changed her plans and returned to Shorefields. Fortunately, no irate creditor put in an[199] appearance, and Bert took hope and accompanied Hugh to the field to watch practice.

Hugh found a surprise awaiting him. They had, it seemed, transferred Hanser to the first team and, since that left the second long on ends and short on half-backs, Hugh was informed that he was to substitute Brunswick or Peet behind the line. “Never played half, have you?” inquired Mr. Crowley brusquely. “Thought not. Well, keep your eyes open and study the signals. You’re likely to get a chance to show what you can do today or tomorrow.”

The chance came that afternoon, for Peet, who had taken Hanser’s place, failed to satisfy the coach and was pulled out five minutes after the game with the first team began. Hugh, watching Mr. Crowley anxiously, was half inclined to hope that his choice would fall on the other substitute, Boynton, for Hugh wasn’t at all convinced of his ability to play half-back. Possibly, however, the coach wanted to know just how bad Hugh would prove, for after a quick glance along the bench he motioned to him.

“Hi, Ordway! Get in there at right half. Use your head, now, and don’t ball up your signals. Tell Ayer to watch their guard-tackle hole on the left. Get it? On the left!”

Well, on the whole, or “taking it by and large,”[200] as Pop would have said, Hugh didn’t do so badly that afternoon. He did get his signals mixed once and he soon proved himself much too light for line-bucking. But on several occasions when the play was outside of tackle he made good gains, once reeling off fifteen yards before he was thumped to the ground by Vail. And on defense he rather did himself proud, working very smoothly with Forbes, who was back at right end, and Spalding, the right tackle, when the play came that way. He made the mistakes of ignorance and he once fumbled a two-yard pass from the quarter, saving the situation, however, by recovering the ball for a slight loss of ground. Mr. Crowley cornered him in the dressing room after practice and told him of a great many things that he had done wrong and advised him to brush up on the signals. And when the coach had taken himself off, growling, Captain Myatt salved his wounds with a smile and a “Good work, Ordway! Hang to it!”

There was one thing that that afternoon’s experience did for Hugh, in any event. It convinced him that he didn’t want to play end again and that he did want to play half-back. He would go on being an end this year, he told himself, but next fall he would go out for a half-back position and refuse anything else. Playing end wasn’t bad[201] fun, but there was something about having the ball in the crook of your elbow or snuggled to your stomach and pitting your wits and speed and strength against the enemy, that was ten times more exciting. Of course, as soon as Bert got into harness again Hanser would be returned to the second and Hugh would be back elbowing Forbes for the outpost position. But next year!

He said all this to Bert that evening, being far too full of the afternoon’s adventure to want to study, and Bert, while granting that there was no comparison in his mind between playing half-back and end, advised Hugh to stick to his trade. “You didn’t do half badly, Duke, for you’re certainly just about as quick as they make ’em. Sort of reminded me today of a cat, the way you jumped off and squirmed around there. But you’re not heavy enough to keep going, you see. It’s the foot or two feet or yard that a fellow makes after he’s tackled that counts. If it was all around-the-end work you’d be rather a star, but it isn’t. Down near goal you’d have to put your head down and buck the line, old man. And someone like Ted or Musgrave would stop you so soon you’d go backward. You stick to being a good end, at least until you’ve put on weight and grown a bit.”

“You’re twenty pounds lighter than I am, at least, and you’re fully two inches shorter. You—you’ve got to have punch when you go into the line, Hugh. See what I mean?”

“Oh, yes, I see what you mean,” responded the other slowly, “but that chap Zanetti isn’t awfully big and heavy, is he? And he played a mighty good game today when he was in.”

“Jack Zanetti’s been at it four years, and he knows how to use what weight he has got. So will you when you’ve been playing that long. Now dry up and let me bone this beastly French rot. You’re worse than a magpie!”

“All right, old dear. But, I say, Bert, do you think that by next year——”

“For the love of mud, shut up! I want to get this done and hit the hay. If you had a rib that hurt like the dickens every time you moved or took a breath——”

Again, on Tuesday morning, there was no telegram, and when Hugh, at Bert’s suggestion, called up the telegraph office in the village he was informed that no message addressed to him had been received. Hugh was by now at a loss to explain his mother’s silence and Bert was anxious and a little bit unpleasant, intimating that Hugh had promised more than he could perform.

“I’m sorry I put you to so much trouble,” he said stiffly. “If I’d known, I might have got hold of the money somewhere else, I suppose.”

“You haven’t put me to any trouble, Bert, and I don’t understand why my mother hasn’t answered. The only explanation I can think of is that she has sort of dodged those telegrams, if you know what I mean. She might have left New York before the one I sent there was delivered and gone back to Shorefields. Then she may have gone to Philadelphia Sunday——”

“I should think she’d stay in one place a minute,”[204] Bert complained. “Of course, if Fallow doesn’t come nosing around here before——”

“I say, I might send a message to Bowles, eh? Tell him to wire mother’s present address. I’ll do it at noon if we don’t hear before that. But it certainly does seem as if mother must have got one of my telegrams by this time!”

Bert couldn’t suggest anything better to do, and they went across to School Hall for English 4. It was a full morning for them both and neither had time to think a great deal about that telegram until they were through with Greek at twelve. Then Hugh again called up the telegraph office, received the same answer to his inquiry, and forthwith dispatched a message to Bowles at Shorefields, demanding an instant answer.

“That ought to be delivered by two o’clock,” said Hugh, “and if he answers right away we should hear by four.”

“That’s all right as long as Fallow doesn’t take it into his head to come over here and raise a row today. I promised I’d settle up with him yesterday, you see. Maybe he will give me another day or two, though. He would, don’t you think?”

“I’d say he should let you know before he went to faculty about it,” said Hugh. “If he sits tight until tomorrow I dare say we’ll have the coin for him.”

“That’s what we thought Saturday,” responded Bert morosely. “Well, we can’t do anything now but wait and see what happens, I guess. I’m going to dinner.”

Hugh had a conference with Mr. Rumford at two-thirty and when he got back to Lothrop it was nearly half-past three and Bert had gone down to the field. Hugh dumped his books, paused to scribble a memorandum, and then, changing coat and waistcoat for a sweater, started for the door. Simultaneously there was a knock on the half-opened portal and Hugh swung it open, revealing on the threshold a very stout man with very red cheeks and a very luxuriant mustache. That mustache so fascinated Hugh for a moment that he merely stood there and gazed. It was extremely black and it stuck out two or three inches on each side of a big, round face. Hugh wondered if it was real. Then the visitor spoke and Hugh realized that he had been rudely staring for several seconds.

“Mr. Winslow live here?” asked the caller in a voice that seemed to come from well down toward the lower button of the black-and-white plaid waistcoat.

“Yes, sir.” Hugh removed his gaze from the mustache with difficulty. The man moved forward and Hugh drew aside. By that time his[206] wits were at work and he closed the door behind the visitor. “Sit down, won’t you?”

“Thanks,” rumbled the man. “My name’s Fallow; Fallow and Turner, over to Needham. Guess you know me, eh? Or ain’t you Winslow?”

“Guess you have,” said Mr. Fallow dryly. “A good many times. Well, what’s the verdict?”

“Why—er—I say, take a seat, won’t you? Try the big chair there. Now, sir, what can I do for you?”

For answer Mr. Fallow, grunting, plunged a hand inside his coat and drew forth a folded paper which he waved slowly in front of him.

“Say, you’re a cool one,” remarked the visitor in unwilling admiration. “Bless me if you ain’t. Well, this is a bill for thirty-four dollars and sixty cents, son. I ought to add interest to it, too, I guess, but I ain’t aiming to be hard on you. You all ready to pay it?”

“No. You see, Mr. Fallow, I’ve been expecting[207] some money ever since Saturday and it hasn’t come. I’m awfully sorry. It’s sure to be here tomorrow and——”

“Now look here, you!” Mr. Fallow scowled darkly. “That’s the same song-and-dance you’ve been giving me ever since last spring, and I’m sick of it. I ain’t in business for my health!”

“Certainly not, sir. Not that you don’t look jolly healthy, of course, but——”

“Say, don’t get fresh,” growled the other. “Never you mind how I look. All you got to do is to hand over my money. If you can’t do that——”

“Yah! You promised it yesterday, didn’t you? Well, I expect folks to keep their word, see? Tomorrow won’t do, son. You’ve had time enough.” He looked about the room sarcastically. “Living in quarters like these, eh, and can’t pay your just debts! Well, we’ll see what Mr. Thingamabob, your principal, has got to say about it.” Mr. Fallow stood up and with difficulty thrust the bill back into his pocket.

“But, I say,” exclaimed Hugh in alarm, “you’re not really going to do that?”

“Well, but—I say, now, look here a sec! I[208] give you my word that bill will be paid this week, and——”

“I’m almost certain it will be tomorrow, but my—my mother is away from home and I fancy she hasn’t got my telegram, don’t you know.”

“Well, tomorrow ain’t going to do—don’t you know! I’ve given you time enough on this, Winslow. You ain’t—you ain’t square with me. That’s what I don’t like. You’ve promised and promised. You begged me not to send the bill to your folks, and I didn’t. But times are hard and we need the money. What’s more we intend to have it.” Mr. Fallow moved ponderously toward the door. “I’m square with folks that are square with me, son; no one can’t say I don’t treat ’em fair; but I ain’t no one’s fool.”

“No, indeed, sir; anyone could see that, Mr. Fallow.” Hugh was thinking hard. “I say, would—would six dollars be any use to you?”

Mr. Fallow snorted. “It would not! Nor sixteen dollars! Nor—nor twenty-six dollars! I want thirty-four dollars and sixty cents. That’s what I want and that’s what I intend to have. If you can pay me that now, all right. If you can’t, say so. I can’t waste any more time here.”

“Well, but, that’s a lot of money to get hold of on short notice,” said Hugh ingratiatingly.[209] “Suppose now I scrape up, say, twenty dollars, eh? And then pay the rest this week.”

Mr. Fallow hesitated and frowned deeply. “If you’ve got twenty why can’t you get hold of the rest?” he asked finally.

“I haven’t got twenty, sir. I’ve got only six. But I fancy I may be able to scrape up the rest if you’ll give me a few minutes.”

“Well—I—all right.” Mr. Fallow reseated himself. “But, mind you, I won’t take a cent less than twenty. And I ain’t going to stick around here all afternoon, either. You get a move on, son.”

“I’ll be as quick as I know how, sir. You’ll find some magazines on that table there. Just—just make yourself comfortable, sir.”

A minute later there was a sharp knock on Cathcart’s door and in response to his “Come in!” Hugh entered.

“Hello, Hugh,” greeted the occupant of the window-seat. “Why aren’t you——”

“Don’t ask any questions, Wal! I want some money. All you can spare, please. I’ll pay you back before the end of the week.”

“I know! You’re going to tell me you’ve got[210] only a couple of dollars. That’s all right, old chap. I’ll take it, and thank you.”

“I’ll tell you later. I’m in a beast of a hurry. Dig it up, will you? Better keep out fifty cents or so, because I might not be able to hand it back before Friday or Saturday.”

Cathcart’s countenance expressed bewilderment as he floundered to his feet and crossed to the dresser. But he obediently handed over the contents of a pigskin purse.

“Ripping!” said Hugh approvingly. “How much? Five and a quarter? That’s eleven. I say, keep a note of the amount, will you? Shall I take it all?”

Cathcart nodded. “I shan’t need any, I guess. Only,” he added plaintively, “I wish you’d tell me what it’s all about!”

“Later,” replied Hugh, making for the door. “Thanks awfully, old chap! So long.”

As he had feared, Guy Murtha was not at home, and, after making certain that Guy had not conveniently left any change lying around in sight, Hugh hurried out again. Ned Stiles roomed in Trow, and thither Hugh went. He didn’t know Stiles very intimately, but he wasn’t going to let that fact interfere if only he was so fortunate as[211] to find Stiles in. But it was a gorgeous afternoon and Stiles, like most everyone else, was out. Disappointed, Hugh paused in the silent corridor and tried to think of someone else to apply to. But since most of his acquaintances were engaged in some form of athletics and would consequently be away from their rooms the problem suddenly looked extremely difficult. Then he remembered the office. He had never attempted to get money there and didn’t know how his request would be received, but he clattered down the stairs and sought out the secretary, Mr. Pounder, a gentleman whom he had spoken to but once and then but briefly, the occasion being the payment of Hugh’s fall term tuition fee. Mr. Pounder was small, light-haired and blue-eyed, sharp-featured and dry of voice. He received Hugh’s request coldly.

“Without instructions from parent or guardian, Ordway, we do not advance sums of money to students, and in your case I believe that we have not been—ah—so instructed. I am correct, am I not?”

“Yes, sir, but I need some money very badly, and there isn’t time to get it from home, and I thought maybe you’d be willing to make a loan. I could pay it back by Saturday surely.”

“I have no authority, Ordway. You might[212] see Dr. Duncan or Mr. Rumford. Possibly——”

“I presume they will inform you at his house where he is to be seen, Ordway.”

“Oh, piffle! All right, sir.” Hugh vanished, leaving a surprised and somewhat shocked Mr. Pounder in possession of the room.

Turning into the main corridor Hugh very nearly collided with Mr. Crump, the janitor. Mr. Crump was a sharp-visaged man of some fifty years, with a leathery face, a pair of gimlet-like eyes behind old-fashioned steel-rimmed spectacles, and a thin, querulous voice. He was not popular with the fellows, nor can it be said that the fellows were popular with Mr. Crump. In Mr. Crump’s belief the students spent their waking hours devising ways to create dirt and dust in the School Hall. Hugh, however, knew little of the janitor. He had seen him about the building occasionally, had sometimes nodded to him, and had learned his name. Just now Mr. Crump was a possible friend in need, and Hugh, paying no heed to the man’s grumbles, cut off his advance.

Mr. Crump, suspecting that he was to be made[213] the butt of some silly joke, responded shortly and pithily.

“Haven’t you, honestly? I’m in a beastly fix, Mr. Crump. I’ve got to get hold of five dollars somewhere. I tried Mr. Pounder and he wouldn’t loosen up a bit. I’d pay it back by Saturday, cross my heart!”

Mr. Crump grasped his broom more firmly, straightened his bent back and observed the boy with pardonable amazement. As long as he had been with the school, and that was many years, no one had ever tried to borrow money from him. Perhaps it pleased his sense of importance or perhaps something of earnestness in Hugh’s voice appealed to him, for after a moment’s scrutiny he asked quite mildly:

“Oh, you’re the English boy, be you? And you’ve got to have five dollars, have you? Ain’t any of your friends got that much?”

“I dare say, but they’re all over at the field, and I’ve got to have the money right off, within a few minutes. I can’t explain, but that’s the way it is. I say, I’d be jolly glad to pay you six for the loan of five until Saturday.”

“Would you now? I want to know! How do[214] I know I’d get it, eh?” Mr. Crump chuckled. “Five dollars is a sight of money for a poor man to risk.”

Hugh flushed and turned away. “If you think my word isn’t good I don’t care to borrow, thanks,” he said offendedly.

“Well, hold on now! I ain’t said I wouldn’t, have I? What you so het up about?”

“I don’t like to have you insinuate that I don’t keep my word, that’s all.”

“Tut, tut! Goodness me, but you’re a queer one! Five dollars, you said? Four wouldn’t do you?”

“I’ve got to make up twenty, Mr. Crump, and I’ve got eleven. I’ll be glad of four, of course, but I don’t know where I’m to get the rest. I tell you!” Hugh pulled his gold watch from his pocket and placed it, with the attached fob, in Mr. Crump’s hand. “That’s worth over a hundred. Would you very much mind letting me have nine dollars on it? I’d redeem it Saturday at the latest. I say, do that for me, will you?”

Mr. Crump looked admiringly at the watch. “My land, but that is a nice watch, ain’t it now? And a coat-of-arms on it, too! Worth a hundred,[215] be it? I want to know! Well, I dare say it is. Here.”

He handed it back and Hugh accepted it disappointedly. “You won’t?” asked the boy. “If I shouldn’t come for it you could easily get fifty for it.”

“Could I now? Sakes alive, young man, I ain’t no pawnbroker! My folks has lived in this county for a hundred and seventy years. One of my ancestors fought with General Putnam; fought against you British he did. Here, you wait just where you be a minute. I’ll be back.”

Mr. Crump leaned his broom against the wall and shuffled away down the corridor until he came to the basement door. After that Hugh could hear his footsteps clap-clapping down the stairs. Then there was silence, save for the clatter of a typewriter in the office at the end of the hall. Hugh looked at his watch and made a grimace of despair. It was nearly four o’clock! He wondered whether Mr. Crowley would put him to a lingering death or would dispatch him quickly and mercifully! Then Mr. Crump came back.

“Here you be, young man,” he said importantly. “There’s nine dollars.” He counted them slowly into Hugh’s hand, two twos and five ones, all very soiled and creased. “I’m expecting you to pay it back to me like you said, because——[216] But I know you will,” he ended hurriedly. “I ain’t doubting your word, mind. I can see you ain’t like the rest of these scallywags here. Maybe it’s because you’re an Englishman and have more sense of decency.”

“I say, I can’t begin to tell you how—how grateful I am,” said Hugh. “It’s perfectly ripping of you, Mr. Crump, and I’m no end obliged! I’ll pay it back to you just as soon as ever I can, by Saturday surely. Thanks awfully!”

“You’re welcome, sir, you’re quite welcome. If it comes to that, I guess the losing of it wouldn’t cripple me none. There’s—hm—I got a bit more put away in the bank.”

Hugh found Mr. Fallow standing in front of the photograph of Lockley Manor, his derby hat clasped behind him and an unlighted cigar protruding from under one end of that enormous mustache.

“Yes.” Hugh pulled the money from his pocket and laid it on the table. Then he went into his room and returned with his own contribution of six dollars. “There it is, Mr. Fallow. Twenty dollars. You might count it, eh? And I dare say you’d better give me some sort of a receipt if you don’t mind.”

“Quite a business man, you are,” chuckled Mr. Fallow, seemingly restored to good humor by the money. “I’ll credit the amount on the bill here. There you are. Balance due, fourteen and sixty. Sorry to have to seem a bit pushing, Mr. Winslow, but in my business——”

Hugh shook his head. “I buy so much, you see,” he replied carelessly. “Boots, wasn’t it?”

“Clothes. A blue serge suit and a pair of flannel trousers. It’s set down there on the bill. Look here, you don’t mean that you’ve forgotten getting them, do you?”

“Quite.” Hugh yawned. “One buys a good many suits in the course of a year, you know.” He moved toward the door. “Sorry to hurry you, Mr. Fallow, but I’ve got an appointment.”

“Oh, that’s all right.” The man pocketed the money and buttoned his coat across that gaudy vest. “But, look here now, we don’t want any hard feelings over this—this little matter. We’d be sorry to lose your trade, Mr. Winslow, we would so. You don’t need to hurry none about that little balance. Just you take your time. And if you want anything in our line just you let us[218] know. Always glad to serve you. I guess now, that suit you’re wearing the trousers of didn’t come from us, did it?”

“Is that so?” Mr. Fallow bent and examined the trousers with vast interest. There was a trace of awe in his voice as he nodded and whispered: “Nice stuff, nice, nice!”

“You’ll get the rest of that this week, Mr. Fallow,” said Hugh, opening the door invitingly. “As I said before, I’m sorry to hurry you, but——”

“That’s all right, Mr. Winslow, quite all right. I understand.” Mr. Fallow moved ponderously but quickly to the door. On the threshold, however, he stopped and fumbled in a pocket. “Just so you won’t forget us, Mr. Winslow,” he said with a smirk. “Our card, sir. We’ve got a nice line of woolens just arrived. Glad to have you look ’em over any time.”

“Thanks awfully. Good day.” Then, with the door half-closed, Hugh added: “Oh, I say, Mr. Fallow!”

“I wish you’d tell me something if you don’t mind. It’s been bothering me a bit.”

“Why, that—that—” Hugh made a vague gesture—“that thing on your lip.”

“Oh! Ha, ha, very good!” Mr. Fallow laughed wanly. “Good—good afternoon.”

Afterwards, hurrying across the green, he said to himself: “It was a bit caddish, and no mistake, but after what he put me through he certainly owed me something!”

Hugh remembered his reception by Mr. Crowley for many days. Practice was just over when he reached the scene and the two teams were resting for a few minutes before the scrimmage. Mr. Crowley, looking fiercer and more disreputable than usual in the old gray trousers and faded green sweater he wore, was talking to Coach Bonner near the bench. Hugh had every desire in the world to avoid speech with him, but he disdained sneaking to the bench and so his appearance was quickly noted.

“Ordway!” Mr. Crowley left the first-team coach and walked to meet the culprit. “Let me see you a minute.”

“And you had to stay and serve afternoon tea? What a bore!” Mr. Crowley’s bantering tone ceased abruptly. “Look here, Ordway, practice is at three-thirty. I told you when I let you come back that you were to stick. You’re not keeping your part of the agreement. Unless you were detained by the faculty, in which case you should have notified me, you have no excuse whatsoever. I don’t want any fellows here who can’t be on time. Life’s too short to worry about them. Understand that?”

“It certainly won’t!” growled the coach. He held Hugh with a baleful gaze for a moment. Then: “What I ought to do with you is to tell you to clear your locker, Ordway. Got any good reason to advance why I shouldn’t?”

“Why, yes, sir. I didn’t intend to be late and I won’t be late again. There was no way of notifying you or I’d have done it. I—I’m no end sorry, sir.”

“Hm; regrets aren’t reasons, Ordway. Well, all right. But I’m hanged if I know why I’m bothering with you anyway. I don’t need you. What the dickens Hanrihan wished you on me for, I don’t know! Do you?”

“Well, I shan’t want you this afternoon. You take the bench and watch. See if you can get your signals straightened out. Try to forget your social interests for a while!”

Hugh walked to the bench very conscious of the amused expressions on the faces of his team-mates. He tried to look unruffled, but he knew that his cheeks were red, and when Brewster Longley, tossing a ball in his hands, met Hugh’s glance and drawled, “Hello, Royalty, old top! Was the blighter rude to you, what? My word, we’ll cut his bloomin’ acquaintance!” Hugh felt angry enough to fight. But he only squirmed in between Brunswick and Hersum and attentively studied his hands. Then the coaches called and the benches emptied, and Hugh, with a half-dozen other unfortunates, snuggled miserably into his sweater and philosophically tried to accept his fate.

But it was hard luck, he thought, and while he couldn’t conscientiously blame Mr. Crowley for being wroth, it did seem to him that the “calling down” was punishment enough without dooming him to sit there on the bench and lose a whole afternoon’s work. So absorbed was he in self-pity and a mild resentment that he quite forgot about Mr. Fallow and his recent activities and[223] was only reminded of them when someone took the seat beside him and a sympathetic voice inquired: “Isn’t he going to let you play, Hugh?” Hugh glanced up and shook his head. “Not today, Bert.”

“Yes, I do, old chap. He came to the room just as I was starting over here.”

“Great Scott! Did—did the money come? But of course it didn’t! Was he mad? What did he say? He didn’t—didn’t go to Charlie, did he?” Bert’s anxiety was so great that Hugh, although tempted, didn’t have the heart to prolong his suspense.

“It’s all right, Bert. I paid him twenty dollars and he’s gone home quite satisfied. In fact, he said I—that is, you needn’t hurry with the rest of it, and that if you want any more togs all you’ve got to do is let him know.”

Hugh laughed. “Borrowed it, of course. I had six myself, Cathcart loaned me five, and Mr. Crump nine.”

“Yes I do, old chap. I fancy it was rather a funny thing to do, but, you see, I didn’t know who else to ask. Everyone was out and Mr. Pounder turned me down and I happened to run into Mr. Crump in School Hall. He was very decent about it. I offered to let him have my watch and fob for security but he said his grandfather or grandmother or someone fought with General Putnam, and wouldn’t take it. I didn’t quite see what that had to do with it, though, do you?”

“Old Crump!” marveled Bert. “I didn’t suppose he had nine dollars to his name!”

“Oh, yes. And he rather hinted that he had a lot more. I dare say janiting is quite—quite profitable.”

“And Cathcart loaned you five? I sort of wish you hadn’t gone to him, Hugh.”

“There wasn’t much choice,” replied Hugh drily. “I dare say if you’d been there you’d have managed better, but——”

“I didn’t mean that,” said Bert quickly. “I think you did finely, and I’m awfully much obliged, Hugh. I only meant that—well, Wal and I aren’t awfully good friends and—did you tell him what it was for?”

“Well, don’t if you can help it. You see, he’s a proctor and if he heard I’d been running bills he might think he had to report me. He’s most frightfully conscientious nowadays.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” said Hugh, “but I don’t believe he would. I’ll keep you out of it, though, if you’d rather.”

Whereupon, while the first and second teams battered each other up and down the field, Hugh recounted the whole adventure for his friend’s benefit, and Bert, alternately amused and alarmed, listened with flattering attention. At the end he said, after a long breath of relief: “Hugh, you’re a corker! And a wonder! I couldn’t have got away with it like that to save my life! And I’m awfully much obliged, old man. I—I hope I’ll be able to do as much for you some time.”

“It wasn’t anything,” returned Hugh. “In fact, it was rather good fun; or it would have been if I hadn’t known all the time that I was getting in wrong with Mr. Crowley. Mr. Fallow was quite amusing. I say, Bert, have you seen his mustache? It—it’s perfectly weird. I was so fascinated by it that I just had to stand there and stare!”

“I don’t remember,” murmured Bert. Then, after a moment: “Look here, though, if that money doesn’t come from your folks we’ll be in a mess, won’t we? I don’t honestly believe I’ll be able to scrape it all up before Christmas. I’ve got about four dollars and, of course, I’ll have ten more the first of the month, but——”

“Oh, that money will come today or tomorrow,” comforted Hugh. “Then I’ll settle up with Mr. Crump and Wallace Cathcart.”

“But I’ll be owing it to you then,” said Bert in troubled voice. “I guess it was pretty cheeky to go to you for it, anyway, but I was so worried about that man Fallow that I didn’t know what to do. If he’d got to faculty I’d been fired like a shot.”

“You needn’t worry about owing it to me,” said Hugh with a shrug. “I don’t need it. Anyhow, it’s the mater’s and she won’t mind if she never gets it. How’s the rib?”

“All right, I suppose. Davy says I can’t get back before next week, though. Last year he fixed Musgrave’s broken collar bone up for him so he was playing inside of ten days. I don’t see why he needs to be so plaguy fussy about an old rib.”

“No, but I thought they’d let me play Saturday against Hollywood. I’m going with the team, though, anyway. You coming along?”

“Can’t say, old chap. If Crowley doesn’t forgive me I fancy I might as well be there as here. If he does I dare say we’ll have practice just the same. Ouch!”

“Nothing, only Hanser dropped the ball then and Nick’s got it. He’s clever at squirming through, isn’t he? It looked as if he got right between Longley’s legs! That gives first a ripping chance to score,” he added anxiously. “They must be on our twenty yards. I say, what sort of a chap is Longley, Bert?”

“Brew? Why, he’s pretty good. I thought Bonner would have him on the first this year. He would have, too, if Willard hadn’t showed up so well before school opened.”

“A gentleman?” Bert looked surprised. “Depends on what you mean, I guess, by gentleman, Hugh. I don’t suppose you’d call him that. I think his father’s a contractor or something in Springfield or somewhere.”

“Like Brew Longley? N-no, not particularly. I don’t know him very well. I guess he’s all right, though. Why?”

“Well, he seems to have it in for me, don’t you know. He’s made a couple of—what do you call them, now?—a couple of ‘cracks’ that I didn’t like. I wondered whether he did it because he didn’t know any better or because he was just naturally a cad.”

“Oh, he calls me ‘Royalty’ and things like that, and talks like a silly ass on the stage, if you know what I mean, and is really rather insolent. I fancy he tries to make fun of the way I talk, eh?”

“Oh, that’s nothing to get huffy about,” laughed Bert. “He probably thinks he’s being humorous. You see, Duke, you’re sort of a novelty to us. I guess Longley doesn’t know your sort.”

“That’s all right,” returned Hugh gravely. “But he mustn’t be too humorous or I’ll just have to punch his head.”

“Oh, well, I couldn’t help that. I’m not awfully thin-skinned, I fancy, but I don’t like Longley’s kind of humor. As the chap says in the[229] song, ‘It isn’t what he says, it’s the nasty way he says it!’”

“Oh, don’t mind Brew, kid; he’s harmless. I guess he doesn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“Well, that’s all right. I certainly don’t want trouble, but I might lose my temper some day. He can’t expect me to stick it forever. There they go! Keyes is over! That right side of our line is a bit sketchy. They didn’t half fool Bowen then.”

“Rather waxy. Talked a lot of sarcasm. Advised me to forget my social obligations or something like that.”

“I’m awfully sorry, chum. It was my fault. I wish Fallow would—would choke or——”

“Fall into his mustache and get lost,” suggested Hugh. “I wonder if I’ll ever be able to raise one like that. Sometime we’ll go over to Needham and pretend we want a suit. I’d like you to see that mustache, Bert.”

Hugh nodded soberly. “It did. It—it’s awe-inspiring, colossal, epochal—er——”

“That’ll be about all! Half’s over. I guess I’ll go back to the other bench. See you later,[230] Hugh. Hope Dinny will let you in this half.”

“He won’t. He doesn’t love me a bit today. As Mr. Smiley would say, ‘Non sum qualis eram.’”

Hugh’s prophecy proved correct. Mr. Crowley did not relent. Nor did he once appear even to recall Hugh’s existence. And after the game was over and first team had won by two touchdowns—no goals were attempted—Hugh followed the others up to the field house and changed, denying himself, however, a shower since he had certainly not earned it, and then proceeded rather disconsolately back to Lothrop to find three messages in the O-P pigeon-hole of the letter box in the first floor corridor. Some obliging person had written the telegrams down in his absence. The first was from his mother in Philadelphia explaining that an unexpected visit to friends in the country had delayed her reception of his message and saying that the money had been sent and that she hoped the delay had not mattered. Another was from the telegraph office requesting him to call and receipt for a sum of money, and the third, rather incoherent, was from an evidently greatly perturbed Bowles. Hugh showed them to Bert when the latter came in.

“Mother says she has sent thirty,” said Hugh, “instead of twenty-five, so we’ll be in funds again, eh? Poor old Bowles is all upset. It rather sounds as if he meant to come right up here and rescue me from something. I fancy I’d best send him a wire and calm him down. If Bowles ever tried to travel anywhere by himself he’d get lost as sure as shooting, poor old chap!”

Bert smiled as he read Bowles’ message. “My lady left Thursday for New York. We have no address. Expect back Wednesday. If anything we can do Master Hugh please telegraph immediate. Could leave on one hour notice. Bowles.”

“You’d better send him a wire, Hugh, or he will be walking in on us. Queer idea to call your mother ‘my lady.’ Mighty nice and respectful, though. At home the servants always call my mother ‘the missus’! You’ll have to beat it down to the village tomorrow and get the tin. I’ll go along, if you like. It’s mighty decent of her to send that extra five. I wish my folks had those pretty thoughts. It’s like pulling teeth to get a dollar more than my allowance from dad!”

“Tell you what we’ll do with that pound,” said Hugh, looking up from the telegram he was formulating for the troubled Bowles. “We’ll buy some tuck and have a feast up here tomorrow night. What do you say?”

Bert looked wistful, but shook his head. “You forget that we’re in training, old man,” he said regretfully.

“That’s so. We couldn’t, I fancy. Well, we’ll postpone the party until after the Mount Morris game. It’s a long old time to wait, though, what?”

“Rotten,” agreed Bert. “Besides, that fiver will be spent long before that.”

“No, it won’t. Or, if it is, there’ll be another. There, that ought to settle Bowles. ‘Mother heard from. Everything hunky here. Unpack your bag.’ That’s only nine words, though, and I can send ten, can’t I?”

“Great Scott, Bowles would come then! I know; I’ll just add ‘Boosh.’”

“Blessed if I know,” chuckled Hugh. “Neither will Bowles, and it’ll give him something to study on a bit.” Hugh added “Ordway” to his message and laid it aside until supper time. When one lived on the fourth floor of Lothrop one didn’t make unnecessary trips over the stairs!

The next morning the two boys hurried to the[233] village after their French recitation and secured the money, and later Hugh paid his debts to Cathcart and Mr. Crump, and Bert dispatched a money order to Fallon and Turner. Hugh managed to appease Cathcart’s curiosity without involving Bert’s name, although he had a suspicion that Cathcart remained rather puzzled. Mr. Crump seemed disappointed at being paid back so soon and almost insisted that Hugh should keep the money longer. But Hugh finally satisfied him with a solemn promise to come to him again should he ever find himself in similar financial difficulties, and Mr. Crump, after going into the history of his family at some length and with much detail, tucked the bills in the pocket of his overalls, shouldered his broom and wandered on.

That afternoon Mr. Crowley summoned Hugh into the line-up as though the late unpleasantness had never been and Hugh played through two twelve-minute periods with so much credit that he noticed afterwards a thoughtful and speculative look on the countenance of Hanser.

On Thursday Coach Bonner did what the members of the first squad had been expecting him to do for nearly a week. That is, he had what Nick called “his annual mid-season spasm.” Declaring that the fellows had apparently forgotten the very rudiments of football, he announced no scrimmage and prescribed an afternoon of “kindergarten stuff.” The words are again Nick’s. The tackling dummy, of late more or less neglected, spent the most strenuous afternoon of its fall career. It was banged and thumped and ground in the loam until had it possessed a head, which it didn’t, its countenance must have proclaimed tragic distress. Not satisfied with a full three-quarters of an hour of tackling, Mr. Bonner put his charges at other degrading labors; passing, starting, crawling, pushing the “tumbrel.” The “tumbrel” was a wooden platform with what looked like a section of fence erected along one side. The top rail of the “fence” was padded and covered with canvas.[235] The whole contrivance was some ten feet in length and under it were two wooden rollers. The linesmen, five at a time, alternately stood on the platform to weight the “tumbrel” down and pushed against the padded rail. The affair was officially known as the charging machine, but its operators, perhaps with the carts which bore victims to the guillotine during the French Revolution in mind, called it the “tumbrel.” Possibly it is unnecessary to add that it was just about as popular with them as the other vehicle was with its occupants.

Mr. Bonner gave an excellent imitation of a slave driver that Thursday afternoon, even looking the rôle as well as acting it. Simon Legree, cracking his whip in a performance of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” was a genial, mild-mannered gentleman by comparison. After the others were dismissed he exhibited an absolutely medieval cruelty by keeping the punters and drop-kickers at work until it was too dark to tell a ball from a head-guard.

The second team, with no scrimmage to take part in, was dismissed a half hour earlier than usual. Most of the members hurried from the scene, but a few heartless ones stood about and gloated over the sufferings of their antagonists. One of these was Brewster Longley, and he and Ned Musgrave, center on the first, and a natural[236] rival, almost came to blows on one occasion when Ned took exception to one of Longley’s humorous gibes. Davy thereupon “shooed” the idlers away from the side-lines in a fine flow of English strongly tinctured with Welsh brogue.

Perhaps Longley resented having his pleasure cut short and perhaps his resentment was accountable for what happened when he met Hugh and Peet in front of the field house. Peet, although engaged in remorseless rivalry with Hugh for a half-back position on the second, had taken rather a violent liking to him and was becoming somewhat of a nuisance, although Hugh didn’t let Peet suspect it. Peet was an upper middle fellow, a few months younger than Hugh and extremely uninteresting. He seldom ventured an original remark on any subject, confining his conversational contributions to frequent giggles which Hugh was beginning to find irritatingly monotonous. Today Hugh had lingered long over his shower and dressing in the hope that Peet would take his departure. But no such luck, for there was the other boy awaiting him when he was ready to go, and they passed out of the building together and almost into the arms of Longley and Bowen, the latter right guard on the second and rather a crony of Longley’s.

Hugh murmured an apology for his share in[237] the narrowly averted collision and Peet laughed his inane giggle. Bowen nodded and pushed past, but Brewster Longley seized Hugh’s arm and swung him round. “Hey there, my cockney friend!” he exclaimed. “Want the whole place to yourself?”

Hugh had a peculiar aversion to being “pawed,” as he termed it. Even if Bert, of whom he was really fond, laid a hand on his shoulder, Hugh was uncomfortable until it was removed. Longley’s unexpected and unwelcome familiarity exasperated him instantly, and it was that grasp of his arm and not the words accompanying it which sent the blood to his cheeks and made him wrench himself indignantly away.

“Hands off, please,” he said. Tone and manner were distinctly haughty, and Longley flared up at once.

“Oh, mama! Don’t touch me, I’m ticklish! Why, you blooming British ass, don’t you try any of your high-and-mighty airs on me or I’ll slap you on the wrist and break your watch!”

Peet giggled, and then, possibly realizing that appreciation of Longley’s joke savored of treachery to Hugh, passed into a fit of coughing. That giggle was the last straw to Hugh’s exasperation.

“I’ve had more than enough of your sort of humor, Longley,” he said hotly, “and I don’t propose[238] to stick it any longer. You steer clear of me after this or——”

“Or what?” demanded the other, thrusting his face close to Hugh’s. “What will you do, kid? Go on, tell me! What’ll you do? Prick me with a hatpin?”

“Oh, let him alone, Brew,” interposed Bowen, who had so far observed proceedings with amusement. “We don’t want any international complications.” He winked at Hugh. “Don’t want the British navy over here blowing us up!”

“The British navy couldn’t blow a bubble up,” jeered Longley. “Britishers are all bluff. Get that, Ordway? Just bluff and—and swank! You wouldn’t hurt a——”

“Take your face away from me,” interrupted Hugh. “I don’t like it. It’s beastly unattractive.”

“Unattractive!” sputtered Longley. “Unat—why, you poor cockney huckster, I’ve a good mind to punch your silly nose!”

Longley accepted the invitation, but Bowen jumped in and seized the back-drawn arm. “Cut it out, Brew! You can’t fight here! Come on along!”

“Can’t I?” demanded Longley, struggling to get his arm away. “I’ll show you whether I can[239] or not! He can’t call me names and get away with it! I’ll—I’ll——”

“I’m ready to fight you wherever you say,” declared Hugh eagerly. “And if you aren’t a coward you’ll fight, too.”

“Better not, Ordway,” cautioned Peet nervously, for once forgetting to giggle. “He—he can lick you, I guess.”

“Oh, I’ll fight you, all right,” Longley was saying. “And I’ll make you wish you’d stuck at home with the other English dubs. Come on down to the boathouse if you want to get what’s coming to you!”

“Right-o,” responded Hugh calmly. “I say, Peet, nip it, like a good chap, will you?”

“N-no, sir, I’m going with you, Ordway, but you’re a fool to fight Longley. Listen, won’t you? He can lick you easily. Why, he’s bigger than you and older and—and he knows how to fight, too! Let’s—let’s beat it!”

But Hugh was already stalking along behind Longley and Bowen, and Peet’s remonstrances fell on deaf ears. Bowen appeared to be rather half-heartedly trying to persuade Longley to turn back, but wasn’t meeting with success. Longley’s[240] big shoulders shrugged impatiently and Hugh heard him say: “Didn’t he call my face unattractive? Well, then!” And Bowen’s reply: “So it is, you silly chump, and what’s the good of scrapping about it?” Peet pegged along at Hugh’s elbow, at once excited and alarmed, hazarding an occasional remonstrance and giggling nervously between. Hugh wished him at the bottom of the river!

The quartette passed the end of the gridiron, on which the unfortunate first team members were still toiling monotonously, crossed the practice field and finally reached the boathouse. Fortunately for their undertaking, there was no one inside nor about the landing, and Bowen led the way around the corner of the old building to where a piece of fairly level sward sloped to the river almost in the shadow of the bridge.

“Now go to it, you idiots,” he said indifferently, “if you have to. But if I sing out, beat it! For I don’t intend to get yanked up before Charlie, even if you do.”

Longley tossed his cap to the ground and impatiently tore off coat and waistcoat, and Hugh, a bit more calmly, similarly divested himself. Then his opponent, scowling ferociously, advanced across the turf, and Hugh squared to meet him.

“Oh, cut out the comedy stuff,” growled Longley. “Now then, you Little Lord Fauntleroy, where’ll you have it?”

Some twenty minutes later, Bert, laboriously trying to get out of his coat-sweater without hurting the damaged rib, heard the study door open and close quietly.

“Yes,” was the quiet reply. But Hugh didn’t appear at the doorway. Instead he crossed to his own bedroom and Bert heard him pouring water into the bowl.

“What are you so select for?” Bert sang out. “Aren’t you speaking to your friends today?”

There was no audible reply from 29a, and having got rid of the sweater at the cost of a few twinges, Bert sauntered across the study to Hugh’s doorway. Then:

“For—the—love—of—Mike!” whispered Bert awedly. “Where’d you get it?”

Hugh, looking up from his task of applying a wet sponge to a disfigured countenance, smiled painfully.

“Longley! Do you mean that Brew Longley[242] battered you up like that? What was the row? Great Scott, Hugh, you’re an awful mess! What did you do to him?”

“Not much, I’m afraid,” replied Hugh dejectedly. “I got in a few, but he was too clever for me.” He turned to the mirror over the dresser and viewed his reflection judicially, the wet sponge trickling water on the rug. “He’s a ripping good fighter, Bert,” he added with what sounded like unwilling admiration.

Bert, hands in pockets, gazed fascinatedly at his room-mate’s countenance. He whistled tunelessly and under his breath. Hugh went back to the basin.

“Well,” said Bert, emerging from his trance, “I hope to thunder you did something to him! For he’s certainly just about ruined you! Here, turn around and let’s see the damage.”

Obediently, Hugh stopped laving his face and Bert took stock of the contusions and lacerations. “Your eye will be a wonder tomorrow,” he murmured admiringly. “And you won’t be able to talk very well for a day or two with that lip. Was he wearing brass-knuckles, for the love of Mike? That cut on your cheek isn’t much—when it stops bleeding. Wait till I get some peroxide. Keyes[243] has a bottle. Keep on sponging. I’ll be right back.”

When he returned Hugh, in spite of directions, had ceased using the sponge and was thoughtfully studying two pairs of bruised and swollen knuckles, wiggling his left thumb experimentally the while.

“Well,” exclaimed Bert, “you must have got in a few on him from the looks of those! Thumb hurt?”

“Not much, I fancy. I was afraid maybe it was sprained. I say, Bert, I can’t go to supper, eh?”

Bert, sousing peroxide on a corner of a towel and dabbing his friend’s face, considered a moment. “Well,” he said finally, “you could, but I wouldn’t advise it, Duke. Some of the faculty are horribly suspicious.”

“That’s what I thought.” Hugh sighed. “Well, I’m not awfully hungry.”

“I’ll fetch you something from downstairs,” said Bert cheerfully. “And I’d better get word to Crowley, I guess. I’ll say you’ve got a headache. That isn’t very far wrong, is it?”

Hugh smiled until it hurt his swollen lip. “It’s right as rain,” he mumbled. “You don’t need to bring me any chow, though. It hurts to move my mouth.”

“I’m not going to bring you chow, as you call it,” replied the other, stepping back to view the result of his administrations. “I’ll fetch you up a cup of cocoa and some toast. You can get that down. There now! Got any plaster?”

“Hello, what have you done with your silver brushes? And where the dickens did you get those awful things?”

“Put them away a week ago. Here it is. Use the flesh-colored. It won’t show so much. I say, what about classes tomorrow?”

Bert shrugged. “You ought to have thought of that,” he answered severely, “before you went and did such a fool trick. Look here, what was it all about, anyway? Didn’t you know that Longley could beat you to a pulp? What did I tell you the other day? Didn’t I say——”

“He started on me again after practice and got nasty and I was beastly tired of it. So—so we went down to the boathouse.”

“And young Peet. He’s a silly little ass. I tried to get rid of him, but he would come. He—he giggles.”

“Well, you see, I was getting rather the worst of it; sort of groggy, I fancy; my eye was bad and I dare say I wasn’t putting up much of a fight by that time. So Peet, the silly duffer, thought we ought to stop and he jumped in and Longley hit him by mistake and Peet hung on to Longley and Bowen dragged me back and—well, that sort of stopped the scrap, if you know what I mean.”

“I think you ought to be grateful to Peet,” said Bert drily. “It was evidently time someone interfered! I hope you managed to smash Longley some, Duke. He had no business picking a row with you, a fellow two years younger and half a head smaller, and I mean to tell him so the first time I see him.”

“Oh, dear,” sighed Hugh, “don’t you go and get your face all beaten up, too! One of us must keep looking decent, Bert.” He chuckled.[246] “Rather a joke on me, by the way. I told Longley I didn’t like his face, you know; said it was unattractive; I fancy that was what got under his skin; but he certainly got even, eh? You couldn’t call my face attractive, could you, old chap?”

“Not without smiling,” said Bert. “Well, I must beat it to supper. You take a nap if you can. When I come back I’ll get some witch-hazel and wrap up your hands. They’ll be as stiff as pokers if I don’t. How do you feel?”

“Perfectly rotten, thanks,” replied Hugh cheerfully. “Nip along. But, I say, I wish you’d sort of keep quiet about it, eh? And don’t say anything to Longley, like a good chap. I’m satisfied and I fancy he is.”

“I’m not,” said Bert grimly. “Go to sleep, you dunder-headed Englishman, and see if you can keep out of trouble until I get back!”

Somewhat less than an hour later Hugh awoke from a nap and found Bert lighting up. “Come on out here,” called the latter. “I’ve brought you some cocoa, and some dipped toast and a beautiful hunk of chocolate cake. Hungry?”

“Rather!” mumbled Hugh, getting stiffly off his bed and blinking his way to the study. “I say, that looks awfully jolly. Thanks, old chap.”

“Well, eat it, while I go and dig up some witch-hazel. Got some old handkerchiefs I can use?”

“I’ve got some new ones that are good enough. But don’t bother. I’ll be all right. Feeling quite cocky already.”

“Well, you don’t look it!” laughed Bert. “And, say, I got a glimpse of your friend Longley, Hugh, and if it’s any comfort to you, he’s a sight!”

“Well, he isn’t disfigured for life, as you are, of course, but he’s got a swollen nose that makes him look horribly silly and he’s got the skin off his cheek-bone. He’s no prize beauty, any way you look at him!”

“Oh, we passed the time of day,” replied Bert carelessly. “I’ll get that witch-hazel.”

Hugh cut chapel the next morning, but there was French at ten and Greek at eleven and mathematics at one, and so it wasn’t possible to remain in retirement. Bert consoled him with the assurance that except for a badly discolored eye he would pass muster anywhere as an ardent pacifist. Hugh couldn’t quite credit that, but he had no course but to attend classes. His appearance created interest and aroused curiosity among his classmates, while Mr. Teschner observed him speculatively but asked no questions. Plenty of questions were asked, however, and Hugh’s ingenuity was sorely taxed in accounting for his contusions without involving Longley. By the afternoon, though, the facts were pretty widely known, probably due to the communicativeness of Peet, and Hugh was no longer required to invent.

He and Longley had their first face-to-face encounter in the field house before practice. If either experienced sensations of embarrassment[249] they failed to show it. Longley nodded to Hugh and Hugh nodded back, and that was all there was to it except that each took surreptitious views of the other’s countenance and, possibly, derived a certain satisfaction from what he saw. To be sure, Bert had slightly exaggerated the damage to Longley, but his nose was noticeably enlarged and there was a generous-sized place on the left cheek where the skin was missing. Peet, perhaps conscious of having talked too much, admired Hugh from a discreet distance that day.

Although the first was due for a stiff contest on the morrow, Mr. Bonner had no pity on them today and they were put through a long siege of elementary work and two fifteen-minute periods with the second during which, with the head coach driving them mercilessly, they managed to score three touchdowns and would have held their opponents safe had not Neil Ayer fortunately dropped a goal from the first team’s eighteen yards after a well-managed forward pass that caught their enemies napping. After practice Coach Crowley announced that there would be no work for the second the next day and that all who wished to accompany the first team to Leeds to see the game with Hollywood would be taken along free of charge, since the morrow’s contest was the only one played away from home[250] that season. Needless to say, the second team to a fellow declared their intention of profiting by the generosity of the Athletic Association. However, when the train left the next forenoon the entire roster was not present. A few were so unfortunate as to have morning recitations which, for reasons that we will not inquire into too closely, they dared not cut. Still, most of them did make the trip, Hugh among them, and were well repaid by witnessing a close and hotly contested game.

Hollywood School was a pretty big institution, with a registration of close to four hundred students, and that the visitors held the home team to one touchdown and scored a like number of points spoke well for them. Oddly enough, both the Hollywood left half-back and the Grafton full-back failed at an easy goal and the final score was 6 to 6, a result more satisfactory to Grafton than to Hollywood. All things considered, Grafton had a right to and did consider the tie a virtual victory, while the home team and its friends probably looked on it as closely akin to a defeat. At all events, Grafton went home well contented and a bit vociferous, the only fly in the ointment represented by the fact that Mount Morris had overwhelmingly defeated the St. James Academy team from which Grafton had barely won[251] two weeks before. Still, as Nick declared to Bert and Hugh on the way back to the Junction, St. James had presented a make-shift eleven because of injuries the Saturday previous and Mount Morris had probably had a much easier task than Grafton had experienced. But Nick had to acknowledge that 26 to 3 was a heap different from 12 to 10, by which score Grafton had taken the measure of St. James.

Mount Morris had been having an unusually successful season. She had met one more team than Grafton and had so far not only escaped defeat but had won each contest decisively. On the other hand, the Scarlet-and-Gray had been once beaten and once tied; and there was a strong probability of its being defeated again next Saturday when it played Lawrence Textile School. Mount Morris had a big, heavy team, although its back-field had shown itself capable of speed, and was playing this fall almost the same line-up as last; a couple of new linesmen and a new quarter were the only changes in the eleven. But today’s showing against Hollywood was distinctly encouraging to Graftonians, and there were plenty of fellows among players and supporters who refused even to consider the possibility of a win for the green-and-white cohorts of Mount Morris. Captain Ted Trafford was one of them,[252] but Ted had the convenient faculty of being able to believe what he wanted to, and his views had not very much weight with his friends.

Bert was disappointed on Monday when Coach Bonner and Trainer Richards refused to allow him to go back to work. Bert declared emphatically that his rib was perfectly all right and that if he felt any better he’d scream, but Davy wouldn’t sanction his return to work and without that sanction Coach Bonner would have none of him. Bert watched practice that day from the bench and scowled ferociously on friend and foe alike. Many of the first-string players were excused and in the scrimmage the first team was made up largely of substitutes. Derry was in Dresser’s position at left end, Parker played left tackle instead of Franklin, Hanrihan was in Ted Trafford’s place, Milford substituted for Tray at right end, and the back-field, with the exception of Nick, who played through the first period, was composed entirely of second-string fellows. In the second period more changes were made, so that when Hugh, playing right half on the scrub team, leaped into fame in the middle of the last period of the game, he doubtless had the wholesale substitution to thank for his performance.

First and second battled through fifteen minutes without a score, both elevens booting the ball[253] frequently in the hope that the strong wind blowing across the field would result in a fumble. There were fumbles, for that matter, but neither side profited much from them, and after a five-minute rest they went back to work with the contest still to be won or lost. The wind was noticeably less and first team took advantage of the fact to try out her forward passing game. Substitutes are somewhat like those persons who rush in where angels fear to tread, and Gus Weston, who had taken Nick’s place at quarter-back, had all the rashness of his kind. One pass went nicely to Derry and that youth managed to outwit Forbes very neatly and reeled off twenty-seven yards and put the pigskin on the second’s nineteen before he was brought down by Spalding, after Hugh had made an ineffectual effort to reach him. But where Weston made his mistake was in trying the same play a minute later when a line attack would have probably secured him ground, and at all events been far safer against a team smarting from the degradation of that twenty-seven-yard gain. But Weston called for the same play on first down and the ball went back to Leddy, at full, and Leddy heaved to a supposedly waiting Derry. Forbes, though, was not fooled this time and Derry had no chance of getting into position for the catch. Someone else had, however, and[254] the someone else was the second team’s right half-back, who, sensing the play from the moment the ball was snapped, had sprinted across the field as soon as Leddy had caught, avoided the engaged ends and, raising an eager hand aloft in signal to Leddy, had joyfully watched the approach of the arching ball. Whether the full-back had been fooled by Hugh’s signal or whether he had trusted to Derry to get free from his antagonist in time to make the catch is a matter of conjecture. At all events, Leddy made an excellent throw and Hugh made a correspondingly good catch, and the fat was in the fire.

What ensued occupied so little time that to the watchers, at least, it seemed all over almost as soon as it had begun. Hugh had a practically clear field for the first twenty yards and he made the most of it. Then the pursuit moved to cut him off from behind and the race began in earnest.

Hugh had captured the ball near his own fifteen yards, for the pass had been more vertical than forward, and he was approaching the middle of the field, running like a rabbit, as Bert told him afterwards, before he was really challenged. Then it was Jack Zanetti who threw down the gauntlet. Zanetti was a swift runner, with a commendable Track Team record for the two-twenty, and had he and Hugh started even the latter[255] would never have had a chance of victory. But Zanetti was well behind when the danger had been discovered and by the time he was close to Hugh’s flying heels he had already run a punishing race. Behind Zanetti streamed others; Gus Weston, Milford and Hanser possible contenders, Leddy hopelessly out of it, and then a mingling of friends and foes. Forbes, seeing the way the play was turning out, had left Derry to his own devices and was making an earnest effort to catch up with his team-mate and act as interference, but the handicap of distance was too great and although Forbes did actually manage to be in at the death he never got close enough to render any aid.

Nick had told Hugh that when one was making a long run with the ball one didn’t do much thinking. But Hugh couldn’t agree with him, for it seemed to him that he thought of about everything in the world! Only, and this was a peculiar thing to his mind, he couldn’t remember any of his thoughts afterwards! Near the first team’s forty-five yards Zanetti made a heroic effort to reach the quarry. Calling on every last ounce of strength, he sprinted and lunged forward with groping hands. Perhaps Hugh guessed his danger, for he swerved at the right instant and Zanetti’s arms, although they nearly reached what[256] they sought and even threw Hugh out of his stride, closed on empty air and he rolled over twice and lay quite quiet until the rest of the pursuit had labored past.

Milford found his second wind and gave Hugh a very pretty tussle all the rest of the way, but the latter crossed the goal line with dragging feet a good three yards ahead, touched the ball to earth and then carefully snuggled it beneath him and ducked his head as the exhausted Milford dropped down on him.

It was a spectacular performance, as all such long runs are, but it is doubtful if Hugh deserved all the praise he received. Granted that he had displayed football acumen in diagnosing the play and getting into it as he had, the subsequent task had required little ability beyond that of running as hard as he knew how. He had not been forced to worm his way through a scattered defence or dodge a hungry quarter-back on his way to the goal. He had merely made the most of a fortunate opportunity. Probably if he had been playing against the full strength of the first team he would never have been able to catch the pass, or, having caught it, to get away with it. Much of this he explained subsequently to Bert and Nick and Pop and others, for he refused to view himself as a hero, but they all scoffed and reminded[257] him that he had made the longest run of the season on Lothrop Field. Just now, having been released from the oppressive attentions of Milford, he was being ecstatically thumped and beaten by his mates of the second team as, ball under arm, he walked it out for the try at goal. Coach Crowley even expressed mild commendation, and in Hugh’s belief every chap on the team took an enthusiastic whack at his tired shoulders except Longley; and Longley grinned at him in a most friendly and approving manner.

Ayer insisted that Hugh should hold the ball for him, and Hugh was very glad that he had watched that operation often enough and carefully enough to be able to perform it. Ayer had mercy on his breathlessness and gave him plenty of time before he said “Right!” and stepped forward. Then Hugh carefully withdrew his fingers from under the end, heard the thud of leather on leather and, prone on the turf—and very willing to remain so, if the truth were known!—watched the pigskin rise, turning lazily over end on end, up and away and—yes, over the cross-bar!

Second team celebrated the advent of that seventh point by again lavishing blows on his back and playfully maltreating Neil Ayer. Then they scattered to take the kick-off and Peet tugged at Hugh’s elbow, looking very, very admiring and[258] very, very apologetic, and said: “You’re off, Ordway. I’m sorry. Give me your head-guard, will you? Say, that was a peach of a run!”

Hugh yielded his guard and place, acknowledging Peet’s compliment with a nod, and walked off a trifle incensed with Mr. Crowley. Of course he hadn’t done enough to have the fellows make such a fuss, he thought, but he had scored a touchdown and it did seem that the coach might reward him by letting him play the time out. Mr. Crowley, however, only waved to him in the direction of the field house and Hugh got his sweater and weariedly trotted off, turning deaf ears to the approving remarks of those on the benches. If he had done anything, he asked himself impatiently, why didn’t they let him keep on playing?

But he hadn’t missed much, as he soon realized, for he was still tugging at his sticky togs when the released players burst in at the doors. The second team fellows were jubilant indeed. They had for once beaten the first in a straight practice game! Hugh was speedily discovered and made the recipient of further boisterous honors, and even Longley, grinning like a catfish, got in a slap on a bare shoulder this time and told him he was “the pride of the noble Scrubs!” Hugh made his escape finally and took refuge in the shower bath.

That day Hugh came into what might be termed official possession of his nickname. One may pass uneventfully through four years of school life and be known as plain Jack Jones, but once let him achieve a modicum of fame and he is suddenly “Buster” Jones or something equally euphonious. So it was with Hugh Oswald Brodwick. By supper time the school was discussing, explaining and praising the eighty-five yard run of “Hobo” Ordway.

Events took place so fast that week that even Hugh’s composure was affected. On Tuesday Coach Bonner began preparations for the Lawrence Textile game and every effort was made to develop the team’s offence. To this end, following a more than ordinarily lengthy and severe signal drill, during which three new plays were tried out, the scrimmage with the second was changed from two fifteen-minute to three twelve-minute periods. The second had to wait nearly twenty minutes for the first team, and, since the weather had turned cold with a vengeance, they wrapped themselves in blankets and huddled together out of the teeth of a brisk east wind. By the time Coach Bonner sent his charges on the field the second team were pretty well chilled through and let-down. The fact showed in their playing and the first ran away with the period and scored a touchdown and a field-goal. In the second twelve minutes the scrubs found themselves and put up a good defensive game,[261] with the result that the first failed to get nearer to the goal line than the thirty yards. From there, in the last minute or two, Captain Trafford tried a place-goal. But the wind was too much for him and the ball went wide.

In the last period Hugh found himself in constant demand. So far Brunswick and Manson, the left half and the full-back, had done the brunt of the work, save when an end had run behind the line. Hugh had been used but three times in the attack, each time taking the ball for wide end runs and only once gaining. But now, Derry having replaced Roy Dresser at left end, Captain Myatt changed his tactics. Second received the ball on a punt a few minutes after the period started and it was Neil Ayer who began the trouble. On the first play, faking a pass to full-back, he plunged straight through the center of the first team’s line for a down. Then came a fake end-around play, Bellows leaving his place at left end and dashing behind Ayer and, followed by the left half, plunging around the right wing of the line. Then, hugging the ball a moment, Ayer shot it to Hugh, and Hugh, with full-back interfering, went the other way. The play was good for nearly twenty yards, for Hugh displayed an almost uncanny elusiveness, slipping between tacklers, dodging, twisting and always[262] going ahead. Manson was soon upset, but Hugh feinted and fought on to the forty-eight yards before he was finally stopped. The second laughed and taunted as they lined up again. Manson shot into left tackle but was stopped for a yard. Ayer tried a quarter-back run and made three. Then Hugh heard the signals again summon him. This time it was a straight run around his own left end. Derry was pulled out and Franklin was neatly boxed and only the first team’s secondary defence kept Hugh from again getting safely away. As it was he added six yards and made first down once more. Brunswick fumbled on the next play and Manson recovered for a five-yard loss. Hugh failed on a wide run around his own left end, being thrown by Ted Trafford, and Ayer kicked from position.

The first came back hard then and tested the second’s defence pretty severely. Siedhof gave place to Hanser on the first and Boynton took Brunswick’s place on the second. The second also put in a new left tackle and a new left guard. First was using straight line-plunges and getting away with them. On the second’s fifteen yards Vail, right half on the first, was hurt in a tackle and Zanetti went in. Twice the second held the besiegers under the shadow of their goal and then[263] Ted Trafford tried another goal from placement and barely made it.

Second kicked off and Nick ran back to the forty-five yards, through most of the second team. Then two line plays were stopped for small gains and Keyes threw forward to Tray near the second’s thirty-five and the right end made a clever running catch and added another five yards of territory before Myatt downed him. With time almost up and the ball on the second’s thirty, Nick again called for a forward, but this time the ball grounded. A skin-tackle around Spalding netted four yards and Keyes plunged through Longley for two more. Keyes then went back to drop-kick and when the ball shot to him the first team’s left side crumbled badly and Bowen hurled himself through and blocked. The ball trickled up the field to the twenty yards before Zanetti fell on it. Two wide sweeps by Keyes around the left end gained but four and once more he tried for a field goal. But the angle was extreme and the ball went astray.

Longley kicked off to Zanetti, who caught on his fifteen, fumbled, recovered and was thrown by Forbes and promptly sat on by Hugh. The first got to the twenty yards on two plunges and Keyes punted. Hugh, playing back with Ayer, caught near his forty and ran across the field,[264] avoiding the first team’s left end, and Ayer and Forbes formed into interference and disposed of two of the enemy. Hugh was still running toward the other side line, zig-zagging miraculously between his foes. Thrice he was almost caught and thrice he managed to escape. Then his interference went to pieces and he was speeding down the field some five yards from the side line with not one chance in ten of getting away. A first team tackle dived and missed, Hanser loomed in his path and Hugh went around him like a frightened rabbit and suddenly only Nick was left to contend against, Nick running fast a few yards behind and gaining a little at every stride.

Near the twenty-five yards Hugh shot a quick glance behind him and then, with an unexpected increase of speed, cut across in front of Nick just out of reach and headed straight for the goal. Zanetti and others were trailing along some ten yards back and this change of direction brought them nearer their prey, and Zanetti took courage and sprinted. But it was Nick who was destined to save the day for the first. Try as he might, Hugh couldn’t shake him off, and just short of the twelve yards it was all over. Nick’s arms slipped around Hugh’s knees and all the latter could do was hug the ball very tightly and go[265] down. And as he did so he heard Nick’s voice.

Although second lined up quickly and shot Manson at the center, it was not destined that they were to score. Manson got a scant yard, whistle and horn sounded together, and the game was done.

“We’d have gone over in two more plays,” panted Neil Ayer as he walked off beside Hugh. “I don’t believe time was up. They were afraid we’d score on them! That was a pretty run of yours, Hobo. I thought you were gone a dozen times. You sure can dodge like a rabbit. Where’d you learn it?”

Hugh shook his head and Neil viewed him appraisingly. “You’re built for it, I suppose. If you had another twenty pounds on you you’d be a wonder.”

The school seemed much inclined to consider him a wonder as he was, and his fame grew mightily. Hugh made the discovery that evening that his circle of acquaintances was much wider than he had supposed. Fellows who had previously never noticed his existence spoke to him[266] almost eagerly and seemed quite pleased if Hugh, disguising his surprise, murmured a response. Juniors gazed upon him with bated breath, only daring to nod, but upper-class fellows called him “Hobo” to his face and grinned in friendly manner. Of course he liked it; no fellow could fail to; but it made him feel, as he confided to Bert, “a bit of an ass, if you know what I mean.”

He went to bed that Tuesday night a star half-back on the second team. He awoke on Wednesday morning a substitute on the first, but he didn’t know it because he hadn’t overheard part of a conversation which had taken place the evening before in the front room of a little white house in the village. The front room, used by Coach Bonner as a sitting-room, held two persons beside the head coach. These were Assistant Athletic Director Crowley and Trainer Richards. It was no uncommon thing for them to meet there after supper and go over the day’s work together, and now that the season was nearing its end these conferences took place almost every night. The portion of the conversation which would have interested Hugh had he heard it was this:

“That lays Vail off for most of the week, then,” mused Mr. Bonner. Davy Richards nodded.

“He might play Saturday if you need him. I’ve got a pad fixed up for him.”

“He will have to play Saturday, that’s certain. Half the game, anyway. That leaves me short in the back-field. That fellow Hanser doesn’t work very well, Dan.”

“He may be now, but he won’t be if Ordway keeps coming. That kid’s a wonder in a broken field. If you built up a game around him, Dan, you’d have a mighty good attack for the middle of the field.”

“He’s clever,” acknowledged Mr. Crowley, “but he’s light. Next year——”

“Tell you what, Dan, you take Hanser and let me have Ordway. Look here. Mount Morris has a heavy, slow line and her ends aren’t remarkable when you come right down to brass tacks. They haven’t shown anything against any team they’ve met yet. Did you read the Mount Morris—St. James game? Well, Mount Morris’ ends were never under the punts. St. James ran the ball back five to fifteen yards every time. With ends like those, why couldn’t this Ordway fellow[268] get away? Wait a bit. Suppose we worked up a shift formation that brought their tackle over to the long side of their line. Then suppose we send a fake attack on that side, pull Trafford out and send him and Ordway around the short end? Why wouldn’t that make a good get-away play around the twenty-five-yard line? I believe we could work up a play that could score for us. That rascal is a marvel at squeezing through the tight places. All he needs is a lot of work to give him experience.”

“Sure, they would if they caught him. But he’s something like an eel, as I figure it. No, you take Hanser and give me Ordway, Dan, and I’ll make a regular back of that kid. Or I will if he doesn’t get hurt. That’s one trouble; he’s likely to bust something, I guess.”

“Not him, Coach,” said Davy. “He’s the supple kind.” (Davy pronounced it “soople,” though.) “There ain’t a stiff bone in his body, sir.”

“Well, you can have him, of course,” said Mr. Crowley. “Maybe you’re right, too. He is clever, and he—he’s neat; handles the ball nice, travels nice; sort of clean-cut in his style.”

And that is why Hugh, or, as he was popularly known now, Hobo Ordway, again transferred his ketchup bottle and marmalade jar, this time back to Lothrop and the first-team training table, and also why he came to find himself at four-fifteen on Wednesday afternoon sitting beside Bert on the first-team bench, very much surprised and a little bit frightened at what was before him!

Bert got back to light practice the next afternoon but not into the game with the scrubs. Siedhof and Zanetti were the halves that day, with Hugh substituting for Zanetti toward the end of the last period. If the truth must be told, Hugh did not cover himself with glory, for he fumbled once at a critical moment and lost his team a chance to score and never made a gain worth recording. But it was perhaps more due to stage fright than anything else, and Coach Bonner realized the fact and dealt out no criticism. Oddly enough, it was the released Hanser who performed the only spectacular feat of a slow and listless game when he squirmed through the left of the first team’s line, threw off Siedhof’s tackle and romped straight down the field for twenty-five or -six yards before Nick stopped him. That incident spelled the end of Kinley as regular left guard. Yetter succeeded him before the next play and held the position the balance of the season. Kinley had been a[271] troublesome problem all the fall and with his retirement the left side of the line stiffened considerably. Mr. Crowley had his joke with Coach Bonner on the performances of the exchanged half-backs, but the latter only smiled and said “Wait.”

There was only signal work on Friday for the first-team members and most of the school attended the final class game over on the practice gridiron and saw lower middle triumph over upper middle by the score of 7 to 0.

Lawrence Textile School presented a strong team the next afternoon and started the proceedings by dropping a kick over Grafton’s goal six minutes after play began. Grafton put on her strongest line-up, Vail, whose injury had proved more stubborn than expected, being the only regular member absent. Bert showed the results of his idleness and was off his game. Hugh did not get in.

Grafton’s only score came in the second period when two forward passes took the ball from her forty yards to Textile’s eighteen and Zanetti gained around the left end and Keyes gathered enough to make it first down by a plunge on the Textile right guard. From the seven-yard line the ball went over in three plays, one a delayed pass to full-back, who got three yards through[272] center, another a skin-tackle play by Bert that put the pigskin on the two yards, and the third a straight plunge by Keyes with the whole team behind him. Keyes kicked an easy goal.

But that was the only time Grafton was dangerous. In the last half it was all Textile, and the visitors secured a touchdown in each period and kicked a goal each time. The final score was 17 to 7.

The game proved one thing long suspected, which was that the Scarlet-and-Gray line was far from a perfect machine on defence. Time and again Textile opened holes wide enough to drive a wagon through. The power was there and the knowledge, but the fellows didn’t work together. It was the secondary defence alone that kept the opponent’s score down to anything like what it was. On the left, Yetter, while showing up superior to Kinley, was constantly fooled on plays inside his position. He worked at odds with his center and was, besides, slow at getting into plays. On his left, Franklin was another weak defender, although a brilliant tackle on offence. Pop Driver was steady and dependable, a trifle slow, perhaps, but a hard man to fool. He and Musgrave, at center, and Ted Trafford at his other shoulder, made that side of the line fairly impregnable, although Ted, like the other tackle, was a better[273] offensive than defensive player. The ends had showed up satisfactorily, with the honors, if any, belonging to Roy Dresser. As to the back-field, it was hard to judge, since it was a patched-up affair, with Bert playing only a part of the game and Vail not getting in at all. Neither Siedhof nor Zanetti were better than average backs. Nick, at quarter, had played as he always did, hard and cleverly, handling punts in the back-field faultlessly, running back well and choosing his plays wisely. Keyes had gained as consistently as usual with the ball, had been a tower of strength on defence and had punted excellently. Leddy had proved himself a good substitute for Keyes. On the whole, there was no fault to be found with the material. Grafton possessed eleven good players and was well off for second-string men. The team simply hadn’t developed as it should have.

The Lawrence Textile School game was played just a fortnight before the date of the Mount Morris contest, and there were those a-plenty who declared that two weeks was all too short a time in which to bring the Grafton team to championship form. What Coach Bonner thought, no one knew, but on Monday it was evident that the first team was in for strenuous work and that if it was humanly possible to lick it into shape Mr. Bonner meant to do it. The second team was[274] given the ball at the start of the scrimmage and told to put it over by line-plays. When she lost it, as she frequently did, it was promptly handed back to her. Both coaches were on the field and the playing was often stopped while they corrected and explained, scolded or commended. The second, driven to a sort of berserker rage, hammered every position in the opposing line desperately, Mr. Crowley barking and growling and urging them on.

Hugh got into it in the second ten-minute period and played through that and most of the third, until a blow on the head turned him so dizzy that Davy Richards, hovering about the scene like an anxious mother hen, called him out. He did good work on the defence, too, considering his lack of weight. He seemed gifted with the faculty of anticipating the play and getting into it almost before it reached the line, although it was really less a gift than it appeared. What Hugh did was to watch the ball, instead of the players, and more than once Nick’s shouted warning proved wrong and Hugh’s diagnosis correct. He was pretty roughly used, for the second was in no mood to deal gently with objects in its way, and frequently he fumed in secret at his lack of weight.

In the final period—the second had so far failed to cross the defender’s line—the second was given[275] the ball four times in succession on the first team’s ten yards and urged to take it over. But it was not until they had been allowed an extra down, with the ball on the two yards, that Manson piled through between Musgrave and Yetter and scored the single tally. It was in that mix-up that Hugh got his knock-out and Vail went in to finish the game.

Monday’s practice was a fair example of every day’s proceedings until Thursday. On Thursday the lower middle team, champions of the school, trotted over and faced the first. They proved an easy prey, and the first had little difficulty in running up twenty-seven points while the lower middlers were earning a scant six by the air route. Coach Bonner tried out two new plays which the first had been learning, and was able to gain with each several times. The best for all-round purposes was a split play in which an end shifted to the other side of the line and played some two yards back. The backs arranged themselves in oblique tandem, the ball went to full-back, quarter and the back-field end swung around one wing, the two half-backs around the other and the full-back plunged straight ahead, usually finding his passage clear. It was rather a difficult play for the opponent to diagnose, for it had all the earmarks of a forward-pass to either side of the[276] field. The lower middlers never did solve it, although that by no means guaranteed that it would succeed more than once against Mount Morris.

The other new play, although he didn’t know it, was designed to make use of Hugh’s running ability. It was a tackle-over shift, with the back-field in square formation and the ball going to right half—in this case Hugh—on a direct pass. The attack was faked at the long side, and right half, with left interfering, went around the short side, the runner turning in sharply when the way was clear. The same formation was used for a variation in which left half ran wide beyond the short side and took a forward pass from full-back. The variation proved less certain of success, however, and was abandoned after a few subsequent try-outs against the second. But the play in which Hugh figured was tried four times in that Thursday game and gained each time. Once Hugh got clean away and covered half the field before he met his Nemesis in the shape of the opposing quarter, who, in spite of Hugh’s attempt to elude him, stopped further progress with a neat and decisive tackle. Another time Hugh gained twelve yards before he was brought down from behind, again he almost got clear and reeled off the better part of twenty, and, on the[277] last attempt, with the ball under the shadow of the enemy’s goal near the eighteen yards, he dodged his way through at least a half-dozen opponents and scored the first’s fourth touchdown.

All that sounds as though Hugh played most of the game himself, but it is needless to say that he didn’t or that his part was only a small part after all. He held his own well on defence and several times made short gains on the wings, but lack of weight told against him. One thing he did not do, however, was fumble. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of either Bert or Vail. Bert played three periods at left half and Vail one period at right, going out in favor of Hugh. Vail’s fumble was not costly, but Bert’s was, for he dropped the ball when tackled in the line and a lower middler fell on it and three minutes later the pigskin was floating over the cross-bar for lower middle’s first field goal. The whole truth is that Bert played poorly that day. His sins were not only of commission, like that fumble on the twenty-yard line, but of omission, as when, time after time, he was stopped short in his tracks before he had penetrated the enemy’s first line of defense. Siedhof, who replaced him, while not especially effective, at least gained occasionally through a not very strong line.

Bert was ill-tempered and depressed that evening,[278] and when Hugh, feeling very happy over his showing, tried to cheer him up, Bert sneered at him. “You think you know a whole lot, don’t you?” he asked. “Think you’re a regular fellow now, I guess. You’ve got a whole lot to learn yet about playing half, let me tell you. When George Vail gets back you’ll last about ten seconds and then you’ll find yourself ‘chewing the blanket’ again.”

“I dare say,” responded Hugh good-naturedly. “Don’t know just why Mr. Bonner has been so decent to me, anyway. Of course, I know I can’t play like you and Vail, old chap. Never thought so for a minute.”

“You act so,” growled Bert. “Coming around and patting my head! I’ll be playing half when you’re shouting ‘Rah! Rah!’ on the stand.”

“You kids,” continued Bert, “have a lucky day and make a couple of runs and then think you’re the whole shooting match! You make me tired!”

Hugh made no reply, and presently went off down the corridor to visit Cathcart, who was nowadays voicing regret that the other had gone over, apparently body and soul, to what Cathcart called “the muscle-worshippers.” But Cathcart was entertaining three professed “grinds,” and the conversation soon bored Hugh and he left. On[279] the way over to Trow he wondered whether football was as Cathcart predicted, really lessening his interest in what that same youth would probably have termed, “more vital matters.” Certainly, a month ago the conversation he had listened to almost in silence would have engrossed him far more. He confided his doubts to Pop, whom he found quite alone for once, and Pop replied that he thought it didn’t much matter.

“Of course, a fellow gets his mind pretty well filled with football about this time of year. It’s natural, Duke. But I don’t see that it does him any harm. After the Mount Morris game he comes back to earth, sometimes with a bit of a thump, and has time to think of other things. Cathcart’s an awful high-brow, anyway. He will have brain fever some day or go to the funny-house. If I did all the worrying over the whichness of the what that he does I’d be food for the squirrels. Forget it.”

Being in an unusually confidential frame of mind this evening, Hugh told of Bert’s ill-temper, and Pop smiled. “You really mean,” he asked, “that you don’t know what’s troubling Bert?”

“Well, you would if you stopped to think a minute. Look here. George Vail’s not fit to play much yet, and won’t be, I guess, before next Saturday.[280] Siedhof and Jack Zanetti aren’t first-team caliber yet, although Billy may be by next year. That leaves Bonner in a hole, doesn’t it? He knows that he’s got to make up his backs from Bert and George and, if you keep on coming, you. Well, Vail isn’t in shape yet, and Bert isn’t doing much either, and there you are.”

“Why, Bonner is looking to start the Mount Morris game with two of you three fellows, don’t you savvy? Now the question is, which two? Bert and George? Bert and you? George and you? He can’t tell yet, and you can see that he’s doing a lot of thinking. Well, Bert sees that and he’s thinking too. Just at present you and he are about an even choice. Vail will probably come around all right and be sure of his position, but you and Bert will have to fight it out for the other place. That’s the way it looks to me, Duke. And that, I guess, is what’s worrying Bert. When the season began he was the only possibility for left half. Then he got up in the air about something, played like the dickens, got a busted rib because he was thinking of something else instead of playing the game, went off on his work—natural enough after a week or ten days’ lay-off—and now doesn’t seem able to come back. It’s got on his nerves, I suppose. And he’s taking it out on you.[281] He has a punk temper, anyway. And then, too, you’ve suddenly sprung up as a rival. And Bert resents it. Hasn’t any right to, but I guess he does, because I know Bert pretty well.”

“I wish I’d never gone in for football,” sighed Hugh after a moment’s silence. “I never thought for a minute, you know, that—that anything like this would come up. What’s to be done?”

“Done? Nothing’s to be done. Don’t be a chump. Bert will get over his grouch tomorrow and then you and he will fight it out, just as lots of other fellows have, and the best man will win. Or, anyway, the one who promises to be the more useful a week from Saturday will win. It’s up to Bonner, you know.”

Pop shrugged his big shoulders. “So he was until a while back. He started off finely. There isn’t a better half-back on a prep school team today than Bert Winslow when he’s playing right. But he hasn’t been playing right for nearly a month. Well, three weeks, anyway. What a fellow has done doesn’t count much. It’s what he’s doing and can do. Frankly, Duke, if you keep on getting a little better every day, as you’ve been doing, you’ll play against Mount Morris as sure as I’m a foot high; perhaps not all through, but[282] half the game, anyway. You take my advice and quit worrying about things. Just put everything out of your mind but playing half and try like the dickens!”

“I don’t know that I want to do that, though, if I’m crowding Bert out and——”

“Piffle! If you don’t crowd him out Jack Zanetti will, or Billy Siedhof, unless he gets a move on and fights for his place. Nick and I were talking about it last night and Nick wanted me to give Bert a hint. But what’s the use? He knows it as well as I do. He’d only tell me to mind my own business. Quite right, too. So I’m going to.”

“Of course. What else? We’re here to lick Mount Morris, aren’t we? If you can help, it’s up to you to do it. Be as sorry for Bert as you like, but don’t let it interfere with your game, Hugh. It’s up to him.”

The entrance of Roy Dresser put an end to the topic, and presently Hugh went back to Lothrop. Bert was not there, for which Hugh was glad. He got ready for bed, found a magazine to read and crawled in. But the magazine lay face-down on the spread, for the talk with Pop Driver had provided him with material for much perplexed meditation.

The next morning Bert had apparently forgotten his grievance, although he looked as if he had spent an unrestful night and was fidgety and troubled. Hugh saw little of him until practice time. That afternoon there was only light work for the players and the scrimmage with the second team was short, if lively. Bert and Zanetti started the game and later Bert went out in favor of Hugh, and Zanetti gave way to Vail. The latter seemed as good as ever today and went to work with a will. Hugh, during the time he was in the game, had few opportunities for offensive work but made one good rush of some ten yards when he was let loose outside left tackle. Siedhof played a few minutes in Hugh’s place at the end of the scrimmage.

The first showed the effect of the week’s work and undoubtedly displayed a better defence than theretofore. During the fifteen minutes of actual playing time it scored twice on the second and held its opponent safe.

Football enthusiasm had been rampant for over a week and already two mass-meetings had been held. The third came off that Friday evening and everyone piled into the assembly hall and cheered and sang and whooped things up generally. The Mandolin and Banjo Club occupied the stage and supplied music for the songs. Hugh secretly thought the enthusiasm a bit “made-to-order” as he expressed it. But Hugh had not yet accustomed himself to the idea of organized cheering, which he still considered a trifle ridiculous. But he liked the singing and got into the songs with a will. Captain Trafford predicted victory for the Scarlet-and-Gray; Coach Bonner warned them against overconfidence, and Mr. Smiley quoted much Latin and made them laugh frequently. As a demonstration of loyalty and faith in the team the meeting was a great big success, but it didn’t affect the result of next week’s game the least particle, and so, in Hugh’s mind, was rather a waste of energy. Even Wallace Cathcart attended, and Hugh, to his surprise, caught him with his mouth very wide open and his face very red, cheering like mad. The first and second team players sat together in front and Hugh found himself beside Tom Hanrihan. Hanrihan had displayed a kindly interest in Hugh’s career from the first, and tonight, in a lull between[285] a cheer for Coach Bonner and a song, he said confidentially:

“You’re doing fine, Hobo. Just you keep it up, son, and you’ll have your letter. If you do you’ll be one of the youngest fellows to get it. Bonner can’t keep you out of that game if he wants to, by gum! I sized you up right the first day I saw you; remember? Yes, sir, I liked your style right then, and I told Bonner so, too. I sort of discovered you, Hobo, and if you don’t play a regular star game next week I’ll beat you up!”

Then the mandolins and guitars and banjos struck up “Here We Go!” and Hanrihan and Hugh, the latter referring to the printed slip in his hand, joined in the rollicking refrain:

Finally, “Nine long ‘Graftons,’ fellows, and put some pep into it!” and then the exodus, with much scraping of settees and laughing and whistling. And afterwards, for Nick and Guy Murtha and Harry Keyes and Hugh, a Welsh rarebit in Nick’s[286] room, made over an alcohol lamp and extremely hot with cayenne pepper!

Southlake Academy was the visitor the next afternoon. Southlake had played Mount Morris earlier in the season and had been soundly drubbed by the score of 19 to 0. But Grafton did not hope to make so good a showing. Nor did she. Southlake was a better team that day than she had been when the Green-and-White had vanquished her, and she soon proved the fact. Coach Bonner started with two substitutes in the line, Hanrihan for Captain Trafford and Willard for Musgrave at center. But Musgrave was hurried in before the game was five minutes old and, although Captain Ted stayed out of the conflict until the third period began, he, too, had to be sent to the relief. The back-field was Blake, Winslow, Vail and Keyes during the first half. Then Weston took Nick’s place, Siedhof went in for Vail, and Leddy played full. Hugh was half sorry and half glad that he was being kept out. He wanted to play hard enough, but he feared that if he did go in it would be in place of Bert, and their relations were strained enough as it was. Bert had hardly spoken a word, civil or otherwise, to his roommate since yesterday’s practice!

There was no scoring on either side until the second period was ten minutes along. Then a[287] lucky fluke gave Grafton the ball on Southlake’s twenty-two yards and she took it over in seven smashing attacks on the center. Keyes missed goal. After that Southlake sprang some open plays which, if they didn’t gain very much ground, considerably worried and exasperated the enemy, who, for a while, didn’t know how to meet them. Still, the nearest Southlake came to a score was getting down to Grafton’s seventeen yards, where she was held for downs, and Keyes kicked out of danger.

Hugh watched the work of the half-backs attentively. Vail was covering himself with glory and Bert was doing considerably better on attack than he had been doing of late, but was frightfully weak on defence. Time after time he was outside the play entirely, while, when he did get into it, he was quite as likely to miss his tackle as make it. Even Hugh, who was desperately anxious to make the best of Bert’s performance, could not fail to see that he was trying the patience of his team-mates and, probably, of Mr. Bonner as well.

Southlake tried two forward passes in the third period and again got within scoring distance. She faked a drop-kick and sent a back on a wide run around Roy Dresser’s end and Roy, for once, was neatly boxed. Bert was the man to stop the[288] runner and Bert made a miserable failure of the attempt, getting his man and then losing him again. Just how Yetter got into the affair was a mystery, but it was the left guard who pulled the Southlake runner down just short of the goal line.

Franklin had been showing distress for some time and now Parker was sent in to play left tackle. At the same time Keyes was put back again, and it was perhaps the big full-back’s presence which stopped the enemy’s advance. Two tries lost her a yard and then she tried a drop-kick and it was Keyes who leaped into the path of the ball and beat it down. Southlake recovered on the fifteen, but she fumbled a minute or two later and the pigskin was Grafton’s.

It was then that the Scarlet-and-Gray showed real form. From her own fifteen-yard line to the middle of the field she went in five plays, Keyes and Roy Dresser bringing off a forward pass that covered more than half the distance, and Vail and Siedhof, and once Keyes, plunging through the line for the balance. A second attempt at a forward pass grounded, but Vail got away outside the Southlake right tackle and reeled off fifteen yards, and from there down to the sixteen Grafton plugged relentlessly. There was a mistake in signals then and some four yards was lost, and Weston elected to try a goal from the field and Captain[289] Trafford went back. But the line weakened somewhere and Ted had no chance to kick and Weston, holding the ball for him near the thirty-yard line, could only snuggle it beneath him and yell, “Down!”

It was then that Coach Bonner beckoned Hugh from the bench. “Go ahead,” he said, “and see what you can do. Tell Weston to use Number 17, Ordway.”

Hugh pulled off his sweater and legged it across with upraised hand, and the stand cheered him. Bert saw him coming and began to tug at his head harness. Then he stopped and waited.

Bert handed over the leather guard silently, but his expression wasn’t pleasant and Hugh heartily wished that the coach had chosen Zanetti instead of him. But there was no time for regrets then. He whispered his instructions to the quarter-back, repeated them in reply to Captain Ted’s anxious question, pulled the head guard on and sprang into place.

It was third down and about fifteen to go. Weston called the signals, Trafford crossed to the other side of Parker, and Keyes stepped farther back and held his hands out, the halves crouched wide apart, and Weston, stooping behind Musgrave,[290] repeated the signals. Then the ball came back, straight and fast, and Hugh snuggled it in the crook of his arm, started quickly, and, running low and hard, swept past his line on the heels of Siedhof, while Weston and Keyes sped toward the other end. For a moment, a critical length of time just then, Southlake lost sight of the ball. When she had solved the play Siedhof had spun a Southlake tackle from the path, and Hugh had responded to the frantic cry of “In! In!” and was through. Siedhof met the charge of a half, but went down in the encounter, and Hugh, twisting aside, circled out, passed the twenty-yard line, dodged another back and, with the hue and cry close behind, raced over the remaining four trampled white marks and was only stopped when a despairing quarter, wrapping tenacious arms about his legs, brought him to earth well back of the goal line!

Grafton shouted herself hoarse, only letting up for a minute while Keyes directed the ball and subsequently booted it deftly over the bar. After that Grafton played on the defensive for the rest of that period and the next, and, although there were some anxious moments, kept what she had earned. While 13 to 0 didn’t sound as well as 19 to 0, it perhaps stood for quite as much if we consider the fact that Southlake was a stronger[291] team today than when she had met Mount Morris.

Being a hero is a trying business, as Hugh soon discovered. Naturally somewhat retiring, he disliked the sudden publicity that enveloped him, and, being modest, he felt uncomfortable under the praise bestowed on him. Fellows took, he thought, a ridiculous amount of pains to go out of their way to shake his hand or even slap him familiarly on the shoulder and tell him what a wonder he was. He knew very well that he wasn’t a wonder and he didn’t like being called one. He belonged, in part at least, to a people who abhor being conspicuous and who view askance anything savoring of hysteria, and, in spite of his American experiences, he had not lost those feelings. No, on the whole the succeeding week was not a very comfortable one for Hugh. He hoped that after a day or two the school would cease its “bally nonsense,” but he was reckoning without the fact that it was wrought up to a fine state of tension and that the tension increased every hour as the Mount Morris game approached. Consequently the “bally nonsense” continued and Hobo Ordway was never allowed to get out of the lime-light for a minute.

But what troubled Hugh far more than fame and its consequences was Bert’s attitude. After the Southlake game no one, and surely not Bert,[292] doubted for an instant that Hugh had won his position. Another fellow might have swallowed the lump in his throat and smiled, or, being resentful, might have hidden the fact. But not so Bert. He made no secret to Hugh or anyone else that he thought he had been badly treated. Or perhaps, which is more likely, he pretended to think so. At all events, life in Number 29 was difficult and increasingly unpleasant. Bert seldom spoke unless addressed by Hugh and then answered coldly and sneeringly. By the middle of the next week Hugh kept away from the study as much as he could and gave up trying to bridge the chasm. On one occasion, driven out of his usual patience by a surly response, he got thoroughly angry and wanted to fight on the spot. Bert, though, refused to afford him that much satisfaction, telling him sarcastically that if he (Hugh) got hurt and couldn’t play they’d surely lose the game!

Nick and Pop each told Bert that he was making an utter ass of himself, but beyond such satisfaction as they got from airing their opinion, nothing came of it.

There was light work on Monday for the regulars, although those who had not participated strenuously in Saturday’s contest were given the usual medicine. On Tuesday there was a hard[293] practice, and, in the evening, an hour’s signal drill in the gymnasium. The program was the same the next day. That afternoon, Bert, if he still entertained hopes, must have seen the futility of them. For he spent the whole period of scrimmaging on the bench and saw Hugh occupying the place he had looked on as his. Although no official statement to the effect was made by the coaches, it was generally understood that the line-up that day was the one which would face Mount Morris on Saturday. Of course Bert would get into the game for a while beyond the shadow of a doubt, but that brought no satisfaction to him. What increased his sense of injury was the fact that the day before, playing two of the four ten-minute periods against the scrubs, he had held his own with any of them. And he knew now that if he could only get in on Saturday he could play the game of his life!

Perhaps it was a final realization of his defeat that changed his attitude toward Hugh that evening. When both boys were back in the study after the signal work in the gymnasium Bert volunteered a remark in a very casual but surprisingly inoffensive voice. Hugh answered in kind, and, rather embarrassedly, they fell into a discussion of the plays they had rehearsed, of the team’s chances, and of kindred subjects. Then, when[294] Hugh had gone to bed and his light was out, Bert’s voice reached him from his doorway.

“Yes, but——” Another silence, and finally: “It isn’t all right at all! I—oh, well, what’s the use? I’m sorry. I guess that’s the whole yarn. It isn’t your fault, you know, and I—I hope you do fine, old man! Just rip ’em right up the back!”

“Thanks,” replied Hugh in the darkness, “but I wish it were going to be you, Bert, honest! I don’t want to play a mite. I’m beastly sorry I—I——”

“But I am, though! I feel an awful ass, if you know what I mean; butting in like this and doing you out of your place on the team when I can’t begin to play the way you do, old chap! It—it’s piffling poppycock! That’s what it is! Piffling poppycock!”

He appeared to derive a lot of satisfaction from the phrase, and Bert heard him mutter it over again to himself as he felt his way into the room and sat on the foot of Hugh’s bed.

“No,” he said, tucking his feet up out of the[295] draft from the open window, “no, that’s not true. You play just as good a game as I ever did, Hugh. You can’t get around that. And what’s a heap more, you’re steady. I never was. I’d play good enough one day and then be perfectly rotten the next, maybe. What gets me, though, is how the dickens you ever learned in only about eight weeks!”

“Oh, I don’t know. And, anyhow, that’s got nothing to do with it. I never imagined that I’d get in your way, Bert. If I had I’d never have gone in for the silly game. Now look what’s happened!”

“Well, what has happened? I’m out and you’re in because you deserve to be. Besides, there’s another year coming, isn’t there? Football doesn’t stop after Saturday, you know.”

“That’s taking it mighty well,” said Hugh warmly. “But—just the same I don’t like it. It makes me feel an awful rotter, an out-and-out rotter, old chap! If there was any way to—to—to back out——”

“Don’t be a chump! There isn’t, and if there was you’d have no right——”

“Why not? I know there isn’t, of course, but I don’t see why I shouldn’t have the say about playing. Of course I can’t go to Mr. Bonner and say ‘Look here, you know, I’ve changed my silly[296] mind and don’t think I’ll play Saturday.’ That wouldn’t do, of course. But, just the same, it’s tommyrot to say I haven’t the right, you know.”

“You haven’t,” declared Bert decidedly. “The team needs you and it’s up to you to do your level best.”

“My level best is no better than yours, though; not so good, in fact. How do you know that I won’t have stage-fright Saturday and drop the ball or—or try to swallow it? You can’t make me believe that if something happened so I couldn’t play you wouldn’t do just as well and probably better than I would!”

“I don’t know what I’d do,” answered Bert thoughtfully. “Yes, I do, though, old man. I’ve got a perfectly magnificent hunch that I’d play good ball if I got a chance. But that’s got nothing to do with it. I shan’t have the chance unless Bonner puts me in for a little while at the end. He probably will, you know; after we’ve got the thing cinched or we’re so far behind that nothing matters!”

“Well, there it is, then!” said Hugh triumphantly. “You know what you can do and I don’t! What I say is——”

Bert laughed. “Oh, you dry up and go to sleep, Hugh. It’s all right, old man. I did act like a beast, and I’m sorry, and I beg your pardon.[297] And that’s all of that, I guess. For the rest of it, I hope you’ll play a rattling good game, Hugh, and if I’m to substitute you I hope I won’t get in at all. Good night!”

Hugh grunted as he heard the bed creak in the other room. Then he thumped his pillow and settled down again.

“Just the same,” he murmured, “it’s piffling poppycock! That’s just what it is, piffling poppycock!”

There was the lightest sort of practice on Thursday for the regular, but the third-string players, reinforced by three or four first subs, among them Bert, gave the second a hard tussle for two fifteen-minute halves. Hugh didn’t see that game, for with the other first-choice players he was dispatched to the showers the minute practice was done, but he heard about it afterwards from Peet, who, at least according to his own story, was the one particular bright spot in the second team’s back-field. Peet wasn’t a very eloquent conversationalist and his report was vague and jerky, but Hugh gathered that Bert had more than distinguished himself that afternoon. There had, said Peet, been one burst through the whole second team that had netted forty-odd yards. And he had frequently piled through Myatt and Bowen for three and four at a whack. You just couldn’t stop him! He’d gained two once with both Hanser and Ayer hanging around his neck! And, in the end, he[299] had crashed his way through the second team’s center from the six yards for the only touchdown scored by the substitutes. Hugh was very glad and hoped that Coach Bonner, who, according to Peet, had watched the game through, would change his mind and let Bert start on Saturday.

That was the second team’s final game of the season and they won it 10 to 6. When it was over they cheered the first team, the coaches, the school, themselves and whatever else they could think of, and joyfully—and perhaps a little regretfully—disbanded.

Bert was in good spirits that evening. He had had a fine time in the game and told Hugh all about it while they sat on the steps of Lothrop after supper and waited until it was time to go over to the mass meeting. But when Hugh suggested that perhaps, because of the good showing he had made, Mr. Bonner might put him into the line-up instead of one Hobo Ordway, Bert shrugged.

“He won’t. I know Bonner pretty well. Anyway, I don’t care so much now. I had a bully time knocking around this afternoon and I’ll get a whack at Mount Morris if only for five minutes or so, I guess, and that’ll do. What time is it? We’ve got to sit on the stage tonight like a lot of wax figures. That’s what I always feel like[300] when I’m on exhibition. Joe Leslie’s going to talk tonight. Have you heard him? Oh, yes, he jawed at Lit one time you were there, didn’t he? Well, he’s a dandy at it and no mistake. Joe always calls the turn, too. Last year he said we’d lose and we did. Year before he said neither team would score more than once, and, by Jove, he was right then, too. We played a nothing-to-nothing tie! Joe knows football from A to Izzard, and he would have been a peach of a player if he could have gone in for it.”

Sitting on the stage to be admired was a little uncomfortable, Hugh thought, even though he and Bert secured chairs in the third row and were not much in evidence from the floor. As on previous occasions of the kind, the Mandolin and Banjo Club did its best—and sometimes it sounded like its worst!—speeches were made, cheers were given and songs were sung. To the delight of everyone, the prophetic Joe Leslie, senior class president, predicted a Grafton victory, although he warned his hearers that the team would have to work for it and that its margin of points would be scanty. Joe could talk to the fellows in what[301] Vail, who sat at Hugh’s other side, called “words of one syllabub,” and he was always a big success as a speaker. Tonight he had his audience with him from the first moment and before he was through had worked them up to such a stage of enthusiasm that they threatened to lift the roof off the building.

When the meeting was over the football players disappeared quickly, for tonight and tomorrow night they were supposed to be in bed by ten o’clock, and, lest they be disturbed, all noise in rooms or corridors after that hour was taboo. Hugh, who had been noticeably distrait all the evening save when Joe Leslie’s eloquence had absorbed him, piled promptly into bed, beating the clock by ten minutes. Bert was disposed toward conversation, but found scant encouragement from his chum, and at ten all lights were out in Number 29. Bert was just falling into a delicious state of drowsiness when a sound from the opposite bedroom brought him back to consciousness and he sat up suddenly. It seemed to him that Hugh had said “That’s it!” very loudly. However, as all was silent, he concluded that he had dreamed it, and so sank back again and went to sleep.

The next forenoon, clad in a yellow slicker, since it was drizzling, Hugh inconspicuously let himself out the service door on the basement floor[302] of Lothrop, climbed two fences, cut across a corner of a meadow, and finally, a bit wet as to lower extremities, reached the village road and trudged off into the mist. He was back a half-hour later, in time for French, and, so far as he knew, his absence was passed unnoticed.

It drizzled all day, and toward evening grew colder. The gridiron, covered with a sprinkling of marsh hay, remained deserted. At four o’clock the team met in the gymnasium and had a half-hour’s drill on signals, and then again, at half-past eight, there was a blackboard talk. But the day went slowly to most of the fellows and the weather affected tight-strung nerves, and everyone from Coach Bonner down to the least important third-string substitute was heartily glad when bedtime came. The school held an impromptu celebration—if you can call it a celebration when the thing to be celebrated hasn’t occurred—on the campus and did a good deal of singing and cheering and shouting while it marched around the buildings. But the drizzle soon discouraged it and long before ten o’clock Grafton School was as quiet as the proverbial mouse. Hugh had a good deal of trouble getting to sleep that night. He could hear Bert’s hearty and regular snores from the opposite room and envied him. Probably, he reflected, Bert had a clear conscience,[303] while his own—well, he didn’t quite know whether it was clear or not. He only knew that he had done something that morning which might or might not prove to have been for the best. Sometimes, he concluded, as he thumped his pillow into a new shape, life was most beastly complicated.

When he awoke after a none too refreshing night it was still dull and foggy outside, although the drizzle had ceased. There was a light glaze of ice over everything and the limbs of the trees outside the windows crackled when a slight puff of wind blew the gray mist across the campus. It was a dispiriting scene, Hugh thought, but Bert, who came yawning in a moment later, appeared to find it quite to his liking.

“Ugh! Put that window down! Say, this is a bully day for the game, isn’t it? Just snappy enough!”

“Not to mention. The sun will be out before noon, and that hay will keep it pretty dry, anyway. Had your bath—pardon me, tub?”

“All right, your ’Ighness, I’ll do that very thing. Say, what’s wrong with you? Got the pip or anything? You look like a last summer’s straw!”

Bert chuckled and playfully shied a pillow at him. “Nerves, me dear boy, nerves! You’ll feel better after you’ve got some food—that is, chow, inside you. I’ll yell if there’s a tub not working.”

Bert’s prediction was verified. Hugh did feel better after his breakfast. Possibly the discovery that he was not the only fellow at the training table that morning who resembled a last summer’s straw helped as much as the food. As has been said before, Hugh had a horror of being “different.”

There was no school that day. Experience had proved to the faculty that holding recitations on the morning of the Big Game was about as useless a thing as could be imagined. Many fellows headed for the village shortly after breakfast, but the players were not allowed that means of working off any superabundance of spirits. Instead, being instructed to remain out of doors as much as possible, they dawdled around from one set of steps to another and tried to be very jovial and carefree. The sun came through about ten and the trees glittered as though strung with diamonds. Then the diamonds turned into very wet water and dripped down fellows’ necks.

Bert and Hugh and Nick and several others[305] were seated on the steps of Trow at about ten-thirty. Talk had been desultory and fragmentary for some time, and Nick, the only one of the group apparently unaffected by nerves, had just informed the rest candidly but for their own good that they were a “bunch of nuts,” when Mr. Bonner came into view down the steps of School Hall, looked this way and that and then walked briskly along to Trow. He had the appearance of one who, having completed a home-run, is informed by the umpire that he is out for not having touched second. Every fellow in the group there knew that something had greatly disturbed the coach’s equanimity, and when, pausing a dozen yards away, he called to Hugh, his tone confirmed the look on his face.

Hugh arose and wormed his way between the others. Probably they all glanced curiously at him as he passed down the steps, but I doubt if any save Bert read the expression on his face aright. To Bert it was one of relief.

Hugh joined Coach Bonner and together they walked toward School Hall and disappeared through the entrance. Speculation was rife in front of Trow. Nick shook his head dubiously.

“Faculty’s jumped on Hobo, probably,” suggested another. “Thought, though, he was rather a shark for study.”

But Bert only shook his head. If it was what he really thought, it wasn’t a thing for him to talk about.

Five minutes later Hugh came out of School Hall and walked toward them again. Seeing his face, Nick breathed easier. If it was anything bad the Duke wouldn’t smile like that. When he reached the steps Hugh stopped. By that time the smile didn’t look so good to Nick. There was something not quite regular about it!

“Rather, in a way,” answered Hugh. Bert noticed that his friend avoided looking at him as he made the announcement. “My folks—that is, my mother doesn’t want me to play. She telegraphed the faculty. Bonner—Bonner’s a bit—peevish.”

Hugh nodded, smiled, and turned away in the direction of Lothrop. A chorus of regrets, of protests, of questions went after him, but he kept[307] on. Bert watched him disappear into the building before he jumped up and hurried after.

“What,” demanded Bert, as he closed the door behind him, “what is this—this”—unconsciously he adopted Hugh’s phrase of the other evening—“this piffling poppycock?”

Hugh, standing at the window, one knee on the cushion, turned and smiled conciliatingly. “Mother telegraphed to faculty. She doesn’t want me to play. She—she’s afraid I’d get hurt, don’t you know. Of course, it’s bally nonsense, but there you are, what?”

Bert advanced into the room and shied his cap to the table. Then he plunged his hands in his pockets and observed sweetly:

“Most breaks your heart, doesn’t it?” continued Bert with suspicious sympathy.

“Oh, well, now, old chap, of course a fellow’s disappointed, and all that, but——”

Then Bert let loose. I’m not going to try to say what he did, partly because it was all dreadfully incoherent and partly because he used expressions and called names that barely escaped being in shocking bad taste. One of the nicest things he called Hugh was a “dunder-headed ass”! And Hugh took it all quite good-naturedly and[308] very calmly, even seating himself as though in order to listen more attentively. And when, at last, Bert petered out for lack of breath or language, Hugh only grinned at him!

“You can’t prove anything you’ve said,” he remarked finally, just when Bert showed a disposition to go on again. “And, anyway——”

“I don’t have to prove it; I know it!” bellowed the other. “I’m not a complete fool!” He glared at Hugh a space longer and then subsided in the Morris chair. “What—what did you do it for, Hugh?” he asked almost pathetically.

Hugh blustered weakly. “I haven’t said I’d done anything, have I? That’s your story. If you don’t believe me when I tell you that—that——”

But Hugh didn’t. “Anyway, it’s done and that’s all there is to it. What’s the good of cutting up rough?”

Hugh smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “I say, you know, you’ve told me that before a number of times.”

“And I tell it to you again, you—you chump! If this ever gets out Bonner will scalp you and the school will chase you from here to the Junction!”

“Why should it get out, as you say? And—and what is there to get out, anyway?”

“There’s this. You wrote home and got your mother to send that telegram, and if that isn’t——”

“You didn’t! Look here, can you look me in the eyes and say you didn’t put your mother up to it?”

“Oh, that’s it! You telegraphed! Of course you did! And that’s what you were thinking of when you said ‘Oh!’ or something when we were talking about Joe Leslie. That put the silly stunt into your head, didn’t it?”

“I say, what’s the good of getting all excited about it?” said Hugh soothingly. “It’s quite all right, old dear. All you’ve got to do, you know, is calm down and go in this afternoon and give ’em ballywhack!”

Hugh laughed. “Change it, old dear! Bonner’s fit to be tied now. If you tried anything like that on he’d just simply blow up—Bing! Just like that! Don’t be a silly ass, please.”

“But, Hugh, I wish you hadn’t! I feel so mean, don’t you see? And suppose Bonner doesn’t put me in, after all! Suppose he plays Siedhof or Zanetti! Suppose, even if he does put me in, I don’t play decently, or——”

“Suppose you’re a piffling idiot, and shut up! Bonner’s got to put you in. And you’ve got to play the way you did Thursday and you’re going to! Now come on out and get some air.”

Bert didn’t stir at once, though. Instead, he studied his knuckles a long moment, leaning forward in his chair. Then, rather huskily: “Hugh, you’re a mighty good sort,” he faltered. “And I’ve been such a rotter that I don’t see why you want to—to——”

At a little before three that afternoon a carriage, drawn by a weary-looking gray horse, turned into the campus from River Street and finally stopped in front of School Hall. The single occupant alighted, paid the driver and ascended the steps with a suggestion of dignified haste. Some three minutes later, by which time the carriage which had brought him from the Junction was out of sight around a corner, the passenger reappeared and crossed the campus in the direction of a large open plot of ground from which loud and at times quite appalling sounds broke upon the afternoon air.

He was a neatly attired man of about thirty-five, clean-shaven, and of a serious cast of countenance. He was quite evidently English, and self-respecting to a degree. That was apparent in his carriage, his expression, and his attire. He crossed the green, entered the gate of Lothrop Field, and paused inquiringly in front of a youth[312] with a scarlet ribbon on his coat who guarded the entrance to the stands.

The latecomer put a well-gloved hand in a pocket, drew forth a pigskin purse and selected the required amount. Then he passed around a corner of a grandstand and found himself confronted on one side by sloping tiers of seats crowded with onlookers and on the other by an expanse of yellowing turf over which a number of persons were hurrying about in an apparently purposeless way. A second ribbon-badged youth arose from the steps of the stand and said:

“Ordway?” The youth shrugged. “I can’t tell you where he’s sitting. He was to have played, but something happened. I’m afraid you can’t stand here, sir. You’re obstructing the view of people in the lower seats.”

Already requests to “Move on, please!” were being made, and the man, still searching the crowd as he went, proceeded in the direction indicated. But finding anyone in that throng was like looking for a needle in a haystack, and he began to realize the futility of his task. Half-way along[313] he stopped very suddenly and clutched at his very respectable derby hat. Someone had almost knocked it from his head with a waving flag, while a most barbaric and disconcerting shouting caused him to gaze about, startled. He could, however, see nothing to account for such an outburst, and, prompted by cries of “Down front!” and “Keep moving, please!” he went on and was finally taken pity on by a third ribbon-adorned usher and conducted up a number of steps and placed precariously on the last eight inches of a narrow seat.

He looked about him carefully. There seemed to be hundreds of persons there, old, middle-aged and young, and many were waving flags of vivid scarlet bearing white G’s, and all, or so it seemed to him, were shouting. Beside him was a boy of possibly sixteen years, a rather nice-appearing youth, but one who continually jumped half out of his seat or prodded the man’s ribs with a sharp elbow. The newcomer made a careful and systematic survey of as much of the audience as was within his range of vision, but without finding Mr. Ordway, after which he philosophically settled down, if such a thing is possible when your neighbors’ knees and elbows are continually being poked into you, and did his best to understand what was going on.

Before him, on a white-barred field, two groups of young gentlemen were facing each other. Those of one group were bright red as to arms and legs and those of the other dark green. Besides the number engaged in the contest—the man placed that number as between twenty and thirty; possibly because several of them kept moving about all the time—there were two older persons on hand, one of whom was an extremely active gentleman, judging from the manner in which he ran back and forth. While he looked someone blew a whistle and the two groups of players suddenly became inextricably confused. Some ran one way and some another and each seemed mainly bent on getting into the next fellow’s way! And then, quite from nowhere, a green-stockinged youth shot into prominence and ran very fast across the field in the observer’s direction. He had a football in one arm and held the other stiffly before him. The reason for this was presently made plain when a scarlet-legged youth tried to interfere with him. That extended hand came into contact with the scarlet-legged youth’s face and the latter swerved quickly aside. But the lad with the green stockings didn’t get much farther, for two other scarlet-legged players literally hurled themselves on him and he was sent headlong across the white line and into a windrow of[315] hay. The man, rather startled by such violence, understood at once that the hay had been placed there for humanitarian purposes.

Everyone shouted things then, while, to the surprise of the man, the assaulted youth arose nonchalantly, shook himself, and trotted further into the field, where, presently, the whole performance was gone through with again. The man was perplexed. Football he had heard of but never witnessed, and it was very difficult to understand. On a board at one end of the inclosure was the legend:

That, of course, meant that neither side had as yet succeeded in making a tally. The man wondered what they did to make a tally, and while he was still wondering a gentleman wearing a white sweater ran frantically onto the field and tooted an automobile horn. Whereupon, with one accord, the players of both sides drew apart and then trotted diagonally down the field and disappeared from sight.

The man started to get up, saw that only a very few were following his example, hesitated, and resumed his seat.

“Oh, yes, that’s only the first half,” replied the boy, a note of surprise in his voice. “You got here late, didn’t you?”

“Yes, sir. The train I reached Needham Junction on did not connect with any train for this place and I was obliged to take a fly—er, carriage, that is to say. It took some time.”

“I guess it did!” The boy observed his neighbor interestedly, a bit puzzled. “Too bad to miss a whole quarter after coming so far, sir.”

“I beg pardon, but I’m not—that is, you——” But he gave it up. He wanted to tell the boy that he preferred not to be called “sir,” but he couldn’t think of a way to do it.

“Yes, sir, but from Baltimore before that. I left there last night. I came to see Mr. Ordway; Mr. Hugh Ordway. You might know him, sir?”

“I know; that’s him. The fellows call him Hobo on account of his initials; H. O. B. O. don’t you see? Friend of yours, sir?”

“I’m Master Hugh’s man, sir. We were a bit worried about him and my lady sent me up to see if everything was all right.”

“Oh, then you’re the valet chap he brought along with him when he got here?”

“Well, then, Bowles, you don’t need to worry your bean about Hobo. He’s as right as a trivet, or tight as a rivet or whatever you say. Only thing that’s bothering him, I guess, is that his folks butted in at the last moment and told him he couldn’t play. But I guess you know all about that?”

“Oh, yes, sir. You see he telegraphed——” Bowles stopped and coughed discreetly. “That is to say, we telegraphed——”

“Fine piece of business, I don’t think, Bowles! What’s the big idea? Think he’d get killed?”

“Can’t say, sir. It was her Ladyship’s idea. It’s an extremely rough game, this football.”

Bowles again coughed behind his hand. “Mrs. Ordway, sir, Master Hugh’s mother. We—we always call her that. It’s a habit, sir.”

“Well, say, if you want to find Hobo you’d better beat it right now. He’s on this side somewhere, I suppose. Say, Jennings, seen Hobo Ordway lately?”

“Sure! He was on the bench with the subs during the first half,” responded the next boy.

“Then you go down there where you see those benches and he will be back again pretty soon.”

“Thank you, sir, but possibly I’d better wait now until the football is over. That is to say, if you’re quite certain he is all right.”

“Was this morning, anyway. I talked to him coming out of dining hall. There they come! Grafton! Grafton!”

There had been a good deal of singing and cheering during the absence of the teams, but now the uproar became positively deafening. Everyone stood up and shouted long and loudly and, if they had pennants, waved them. Bowles stood up too, but he didn’t shout, although he almost wanted to! Then a quick, sharp cheer broke forth from one side of the field, and a long, growly cheer floated back from the other, and the players came into sight again around the corner and went to their benches. And Bowles, watching eagerly,[319] saw Master Hugh! But what a disreputable looking Master Hugh! Bowles almost dropped in his tracks! No wonder, indeed, that they called him “Hobo”! A pair of old gray summer trousers, a faded blue sweater, a diminutive cloth cap on the back of his head, and a pair of kicked-out tan shoes on his feet! Bowles groaned and was, oh, so thankful that her Ladyship was not there to witness the disturbing sight! And then others cut off his view and somewhere a whistle blew and the cheering began again and—

“Come on, Grafton! Let’s score now!” yelled a voice in Bowles’ ear, and an elbow dug sharply into his side and someone behind him sent his respectable derby over onto the bridge of his respectable nose. Bowles rescued his hat and gave his attention to the field. The ball was floating lazily aloft in the sunlight and under it the players were running together. Then it came down, a boy got under it and clasped it to his stomach, dodged this way, feinted that, was caught, escaped, ran a few yards and was pulled down. Bowles thought he could almost hear the thud of that body!

But after that he gazed, at first interested and then fascinated, and soon forgot whether football was rough or otherwise! His neighbor, supplying[320] the unsought-for information that his name was Stiles, threw light on the endeavors of the conflicting groups briefly, succinctly, and Bowles began to fathom the philosophy of the game. Minutes passed. The play surged this way and that, the ball, however, straying never very far from the center of the gridiron. The teams were evenly matched, it seemed. Toward the end of the third period Mount Morris tried a difficult field-goal from the enemy’s thirty-eight yards, but the ball fell far short of the goal and came speeding back in the arms of Nick Blake. They seemed now to be doing more kicking, for the pigskin was frequently in air. Once Vail, playing back with Nick, fumbled a punt and a groan of horror arose from around Bowles, but the next instant Vail had shouldered a Mount Morris end aside and himself fallen on the bouncing ball.

Beside Bowles, his neighbor sat on the edge of the seat and squirmed and yelped and shouted: “Get him, Ted! Get him, you chump!... Here we go, fellows! Oh, look at that! Forty-five yards if an inch! Keyes can’t punt a bit, can he? He’s no good at all, is he? Forty-five yards! That’s all! Just forty—— ... Oh, bully, Winslow! Oh, great stuff! Right through! Three yards easy! How many downs is that? What? It can’t be! Oh, all right. We’ll do it, just the[321] same! They can’t stop us now! We’re on our way to a touchdown! Get into ’em, Keyes! That’s the stuff! Rip ’em up! What’d I tell you? Four more! Oh, there’s nothing to it, I tell you, nothing to it at all!”

Down on the Green-and-White’s twenty-yard line now. Mount Morris weakening a little. Two subs going into her line. Grafton as fresh as ever, barring Trafford, perhaps. Trafford had a fierce jolt that time in the third quarter. Enough to put most fellows out of the game. All right now! Second down and eight to go! No gain? Well, Vail can’t do it every time. Besides, they were looking for him. Two downs left. Seven to go? Then he did gain a little. Here we go! Right through—— Nothing doing! Who had the ball? Keyes? Too bad! Bully chance to score! Have to kick now. Well, three points is better than nothing, let me tell you! Who’s going to—— What’s the matter? Oh, quarter over? Gee, but that was short! All right, everyone up now! Let ’em have it! “Rah, rah, rah, Grafton! Rah, rah, rah, Grafton! Grafton! Grafton! Grafton!”

Bowles found he was clutching his knees tightly, doing no possible good to his respectable trousers, and straining his respectable gloves. Odd how excited one got about football! Extremely rough,[322] football, but—er—most interesting and—er—manly, of course. Oh, rather! Ah, they were starting again at the other end of the field! A scarlet-legged youth was standing well behind his fellows with outstretched arms. Hello, he’d kicked it! Why didn’t the people applaud? What was wrong? Oh, it had to go over that stick, eh, and it hadn’t gone over? Oh, yes, of course. Most regrettable!

Back to the kicking game again now. Long punts, thrilling catches and wonderful runs nipped in the bud by desperate tackles. Now and then an attempted forward pass by Grafton, but never successful. Mount Morris playing as if she’d be satisfied with an 0 to 0 tie, taking no chances with the ball in her possession, playing it safe always. Grafton growing more desperate every minute as the time shortens. Sending Vail and Keyes banging into the left of the Green-and-White line for short gains, whisking Blake and Winslow past tackle or outside end for slightly longer ones, until again the ball is near the twenty-five yards. Now the gains are shorter. Mount Morris plays doggedly, hurling back attack. Three downs and only five yards gained. Back to the thirty-two stalks Keyes. A hush settles over the field and stand. The quarter’s signals are heard plainly. A brown streak into Keyes’ hands, a[323] swinging foot, a moment of suspense, and a groan of disappointment. Again he has failed!

Across the field Mount Morris is cheering slowly over and over and over. Only six minutes now. Here and there people are already leaving their seats, to the discomfort of others. Mount Morris’s ball on her forty-six yards. Rush—rush—rush—punt! That’s her game now. Hold them off! No score for either side! Back comes Grafton. Four yards—that was Winslow through tackle-guard on the left. Three yards more—that was Vail outside tackle. Third down and only three needed. Nick makes it on a delayed run, gets it by an inch only, but gets it! First down again on Grafton’s twenty. Hello, what’s this? A punt on first down? Not likely! A forward pass then. Yes! And made it, too!

Near the forty now and still going. But she’ll never get to the goal that way. There isn’t time enough. Three minutes left? Is that all? Why don’t they try another forward pass or run the ends? It’s the only way. Plugging the line will never—There he goes! He’s off! It’s Winslow! No, it’s Vail! Ten yards—fifteen—! Oh, bully tackle, Mount Morris! First down again, though, and on their thirty or thereabouts. Here’s where we score! Bust ’em up, Grafton!

Time out for someone. A Grafton player?[324] No, he’s got green legs. It’s Milton, their right half. No, it isn’t, it’s that big left guard of theirs. Looks groggy, doesn’t he? Pretty near all in, if you ask me. Here comes a Grafton sub; Zanetti, isn’t it? Wonder who they’ll take out. Winslow, by thunder! That’s wrong! Winslow’s playing a dandy game. What? I don’t care if Zanetti does want his letter. Let him wait until next year. He’s only an Upper Middler, anyway. Yah! Ted Trafford’s sent him off again! Now go ahead, Winslow, and show them we don’t need any subs!

The Mount Morris chap’s up. He’s going off. No, he isn’t! That’s right, give him a hand. Here we go! Put it over, Grafton! Touchdown! Touchdown! Touchdown!

Vail fails to gain on a crisscross and Dresser, running from position, takes the ball from Nick and makes two around the other end. Grafton’s trying to work over in front of goal. Once more, and Vail gets another two yards through center. Hard luck! Fourth down now and we’ll have to kick. Unless—— No, it’s a kick. You can tell from the formation. Wait a bit, though. Blake’s edging over. It’s a forward pass! If it only works! Watch ’em now! Who’s got it? What’s wrong? Hi! There he goes! There he goes! Around this end! It’s Bert Winslow! Oh, go it, [325] you Winslow! Oh, go—They’ve got him! No! He’ll do it, he’ll do it! Ten yards more! Look out for that man! Dodge him! That’s it! Oh, bully! He’s past! He’s—he’s over! HE’S OVER! Touchdown! Touchdown! Grafton! Grafton! WO-A-OW!... I beg pardon, sir, did I break your hat?

That she had done so only by the slimmest of chances and in the last moments of time, that Mount Morris had held her helpless through fifty-eight minutes of that long-drawn sixty, that the Green-and-White had actually gained more ground by rushing, and had, all in all, shown more football skill, was of no moment now. Tomorrow, in a calmer frame of mind, Grafton might realize all this, but today the fact of victory was all she heeded!

She captured the scarlet-legged players, who, wearied and panting, begged for mercy, and carried them shoulder-high about the field. She snake-danced and tossed hats and caps over the crossbars. She cheered and sang and cavorted and laughed and triumphed. And finally she crowded in front of the field house and, Joe Leslie waving his scarlet megaphone and leading, cheered every member of the eleven and Coach[327] Bonner and Coach Crowley and Trainer Richards and Manager Quinn, and then cheered the Team and the School! And, at last, as twilight settled down, she dispersed across the green and back to the buildings, still laughing, still singing, still shouting.

The final score was 7 to 0, for Captain Ted Trafford, with Nick holding the ball for him, had finished his football career at Grafton by sending the pigskin straight and high over the crossbar and registering the last point for the Scarlet-and-Gray.

But where all had played well and some more than well, it was Left Half Winslow who had emerged the hero of the game and of the season. It was Bert who had torn off that last thirty yards on a brilliant, zig-zag rush around the unsuspecting Mount Morris left end and past a half-dozen desperate defenders, and one cannot perform a feat like that and escape the consequences. As Mr. Smiley said when he stopped to shake hands with Bert at the entrance of Lothrop later, “Sic itur ad astra,” very freely translated by Nick into “Thus one becomes a star”!

Hugh, who had patiently waited for Bert to emerge from the field house and had walked back through the dusk with him and Nick and Pop and several others, was still bubbling praise and congratulations[328] as, having left the rest, they toiled up the last flight.

“It was simply corking, Bert!” he declared for the tenth time. “I don’t see yet how you ever got through! Why, there were at least five fellows between you and the goal line! Twice I was sure you were done for and closed my eyes, and each time, when I looked again, you were still nipping it! It was perfectly ripping!”

“Just the same it ought to have been you, old man. I don’t forget that, you bet!”

“I’d never have done it,” replied Hugh with conviction. “They’d have nailed me sure as shooting.” He swung open the door of the study and, followed by Bert, groped his way toward the switch. As he did so a discreet cough sounded in the gloom. “Hello,” exclaimed Hugh. “Who’s there?”

“Bowles!” The light flared and Hugh faced the occupant of the study in amazement. Then he sprang forward and seized the embarrassed Bowles by the hand. “Bowles! I say, wherever did you drop from? What are you doing here, eh?”

“Oh, yes,” replied Bert, shaking hands rather, as it seemed, to Bowles’ horror. “How are you, Bowles?”

“No, sir. Her Ladyship—Ouch! Beg pardon, sir!” Bowles discreetly stepped out of the reach of Hugh’s toes. “I mean to say, Master Hugh, that your mother was worried when she received your——”

“Shut up, Bowles! Don’t be a babbling ass! You mean my mother sent you up to see what was going on, eh? Well, that’s all right, only it wasn’t necessary, you know. I’m quite O. K. Glad to see you, though. You might sit down and stop fidgeting. When did you get here?”

“About a quarter to three, sir. There was—h’m—a misunderstanding about trains, sir, and I was obliged to engage a fly at the Junction.”

Hugh chuckled. “You’d get the trains balled up if it was anyway possible, wouldn’t you, Bowles? Well, never mind that now you’re here. You’re going to stick around until tomorrow,[330] I take it. I say, Bert, can he get any supper here?”

“Surest thing you know! We’ll tell Jimmy and he’ll fix Bowles up downstairs. And he can sleep on the window-seat, if you like.”

“Oh, no, sir, thanking you, sir! I wouldn’t think of it, sir. I’m informed there’s a very comfortable inn in the village, sir.”

“Yes, that’s better,” agreed Hugh. “You can have your supper here and then stick around while the fun lasts. You see, Bowles, we’re due for a bit of a jolly rumpus tonight. This is the day we celebrate, if you know what I mean.”

“Oh, you did? And you saw Mr. Winslow make his touchdown? Well, say, Bowles, wasn’t that a little bit of all right?”

“Quite remarkable, sir! Yes, indeed, sir. A most clever bit of work, Mr. Winslow, if you’ll pardon my saying it.”

“Thanks, Bowles. I’m going to get into some clean togs, Hugh. It must be—Hello! Come in!”

Nick and Pop and Ted Trafford crowded through the door and for a minute confusion ruled. Then, while Pop and Ted held Bert captive in the[331] Morris chair and playfully pummeled him, Nick’s voice arose above the tumult.

“Well, if it isn’t my old friend Bowler!” shouted Nick. “Bowler, old top, how’s everything at dear old Glyndestoke?” Nick was ringing Bowles’ hand enthusiastically and Bowles’ face was a study. “When did you leave the Manor, Bowler? Fellows, meet Mr. Bowler!”

“Begging your pardon, sir,” stammered the man, “Bowles, if you please, sir!”

“Cut it out, Nick,” begged Hugh. “Bowles ran up to see how things were getting on, don’t you know. Got here for the game and had the time of his life, didn’t you, Bowles?”

“Good for Bowles!” cried the incorrigible Nick. “He’s a true sport! You’ve only to look at him to know that!” Nick threw himself on the window-seat, only to arise as quickly and lift from the cushion the battered remains of what had once been a most respectable derby hat. Nick viewed it with surprise and awe, and—I fear—delight! “Bowles, is this yours?” he asked tremulously.

A silence fell over the room. Then someone chuckled and a burst of laughter arose as Bowles meekly assented.

“I’m awfully sorry,” declared Nick, looking[332] quite otherwise. “I’ll buy you another, Bowles.”

“It’s of no consequence, sir,” said Bowles. “In fact, sir, it was already—er—a bit damaged. A young gentleman at the football game, sir, used it—er—quite roughly, sir!”

The laughter redoubled and into it, having knocked without receiving any answer, came a half-dozen fellows; Keyes and Roy Dresser and Tom Hanrihan, of the first, and Brewster Longley and Neil Ayer, of the second, and Wallace Cathcart, non-combatant.

“Hello, Wal!” greeted the irrepressible Nick. “Just in time, old top!” He flourished the squashed and mutilated hat. “We’re celebrating the finish of the Derby!”

Cathcart shook his head. “I guess a little noise is to be expected today, Bert,” he answered. “I saw the crowd and just came over to congratulate you.”

“Good old Wal!” shouted Nick. “Speech! Speech! Shut up, fellows, Cathcart’s going to speech!”

“Short and to the point,” applauded Roy Dresser.[333] “Brevity, young gentlemen, is the soul of wit. Say, Hobo, what happened to you, anyway? I’ve heard forty-eleven yarns. Why didn’t you play?”

“Bowles’ll know,” declared Nick. “Speak up, Bowles, old top! Gentlemen, we have with us this evening ’is ’Ighness’s tried and trusted retainer, Mr. Bowles. A short cheer for Bowles, fellows!”

“Rah, rah, rah! Bowles!” was the instant and enthusiastic response. Bowles looked distinctly uncomfortable, although he tried hard to smile a respectful smile.

“Now, then, Bowles, out with it!” demanded Nick. “What was this vile conspiracy to——”

He wasn’t muzzled, but several fellows so engaged his attention for a minute that speech was impossible.

“I beg your pardon, sir, but I’m not at liberty to speak, sir. His Lordship——”

“Wait a minute,” exclaimed Bert, pushing forward. “You said something about ‘his Lordship,’ Bowles. Who did you mean?”

Bowles cast an anguished look across the table toward Hugh, but no help came to him for the reason that Hugh was very, very busy.

“Well, all right, Bowles. Proceed. Tell us your sweet, sad story,” prompted Nick.

“Hold on,” interrupted Bert. “Let’s get this straight. There’s something queer here.”

At that instant Hugh threw off the enemy and bounded to his feet. “Bowles!” he cried. “Shut up! Get out of here!”

“Fellows,” interrupted Wallace Cathcart mildly, “we’re making it very difficult for Mr. Bowles. Besides, he’s not going to tell you anything, and I will, if you’ll be quiet a minute.”

“Well, I suppose Hugh will want my life blood,” went on Cathcart, smiling at Hugh’s frowning and anxious countenance, “but I’ll trust to you fellows to save me.”

“I know he doesn’t want it known, fellows, but I don’t see why it shouldn’t be. Besides, it’s bound to get out some time, isn’t it?”

“It was something Hugh let drop in my room one day that made me—well, suspicious. There’s a book in the library that tells all about the English nobility and titled families and all that, you know, and so I had a look at it. Hugh had told me that he lived at a place called Glyndestoke, and so the rest was easy.”

“Don’t intimidate the witness,” said Pop. “Go ahead, Cathcart. What did you discover?”

“I discovered,” continued Cathcart after an apologetic glance at Hugh, “that the owner of Lockely Manor in Glyndestoke, Hampshire—or Hants, as Hugh calls it—England, is the Marquis of Lockely, who is some sort of a secretary in the Ministry; I’ve forgotten what.”

“Political Secretary, Colonial Office, sir, begging your pardon,” said Bowles proudly.

“Also,” continued Cathcart, with a twinkle in his eye, “I discovered that the aforementioned Marquis of Lockely has one son, Hugh Oswald Brodwick, Earl of Ordway!”

Number 29 was so still for an instant that you could have heard a pin drop! Then someone said, “Gee!” very fervently, and a dozen fellows all began to talk at once. But it was Bert’s voice which dominated the others.

“Oh, dry up,” answered Hugh. “I—I’d like to punch your head, Cathcart!”

“The Earl of Ordway!” gasped Nick. “What—do—you—know—about—that?”

“I’m not an earl,” declared Hugh uncomfortably. “It—it’s only a courtesy-title. And,[337] anyhow, I don’t see what difference it makes!”

“It doesn’t, Hobo! Not a bit!” said Pop soothingly. “We’ll all try to forget it and let you live it down. After all, it isn’t your fault, is it, fellows?”

“Of course not!” laughed Hanrihan. “He couldn’t help it! Buck up, Hobo! No one’s going to hold it against you!”

“Bowles, shut up! I’m not your Lordship. I’m——” Hugh’s puckered brow smoothed and he laughed—“I’m just Hobo Ordway. Now forget it, fellows, won’t you? It’s all piffling poppycock, anyway! That’s just what it is, by Jove, piffling poppycock, if you know what I mean!”

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Rivals for the Team: A Story of School Life and Football

RIVALS FOR
THE TEAM

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

CHAPTER I
AFTER PRACTICE

CHAPTER II
PLAYERS AND COACH

CHAPTER III
A MOONLIGHT PLUNGE

CHAPTER IV
“I’M ORDWAY”

CHAPTER V
HUGH FINDS A WORD

CHAPTER VI
THE AWKWARD SQUAD

CHAPTER VII
“HIS GRACE, THE DUKE”

CHAPTER VIII
BATTLE!

CHAPTER IX
CATHCART, PROCTOR

CHAPTER X
HANRIHAN PROMISES

CHAPTER XI
THIRTEEN TO TEN

CHAPTER XII
TWO IN A CANOE

CHAPTER XIII
BACK TO THE FOLD

CHAPTER XIV
BERT CONFIDES

CHAPTER XV
GRAFTON SCORES

CHAPTER XVI
A BROKEN RIB

CHAPTER XVII
FRIENDS IN NEED

CHAPTER XVIII
BENCHED

CHAPTER XIX
BEHIND THE BOATHOUSE

CHAPTER XX
“HOBO” WINS FAME

CHAPTER XXI
HUGH MOVES AGAIN

CHAPTER XXII
POP ELUCIDATES

CHAPTER XXIII
IN THE LIME-LIGHT

CHAPTER XXIV
HUGH GOES TO THE VILLAGE

CHAPTER XXV
BOWLES ATTENDS A FOOTBALL GAME

CHAPTER XXVI
HUGH IS UNMASKED!

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Rivals for the Team: A Story of School Life and Football

RIVALS FOR THE TEAM

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

CHAPTER I AFTER PRACTICE

CHAPTER II PLAYERS AND COACH

CHAPTER III A MOONLIGHT PLUNGE

CHAPTER IV “I’M ORDWAY”

CHAPTER V HUGH FINDS A WORD

CHAPTER VI THE AWKWARD SQUAD

CHAPTER VII “HIS GRACE, THE DUKE”

CHAPTER VIII BATTLE!

CHAPTER IX CATHCART, PROCTOR

CHAPTER X HANRIHAN PROMISES

CHAPTER XI THIRTEEN TO TEN

CHAPTER XII TWO IN A CANOE

CHAPTER XIII BACK TO THE FOLD

CHAPTER XIV BERT CONFIDES

CHAPTER XV GRAFTON SCORES

CHAPTER XVI A BROKEN RIB

CHAPTER XVII FRIENDS IN NEED

CHAPTER XVIII BENCHED

CHAPTER XIX BEHIND THE BOATHOUSE

CHAPTER XX “HOBO” WINS FAME

CHAPTER XXI HUGH MOVES AGAIN

CHAPTER XXII POP ELUCIDATES

CHAPTER XXIII IN THE LIME-LIGHT

CHAPTER XXIV HUGH GOES TO THE VILLAGE

CHAPTER XXV BOWLES ATTENDS A FOOTBALL GAME

CHAPTER XXVI HUGH IS UNMASKED!