Part One. You will find my name on the fly-leaf. I should dislike

having anything happen to it, so please guard it tenderly. Don’t let it out of your sight, Lovell. Take it with you to recitations and reflections, let it accompany you wherever you go, Lovell, especially to the football field. At night place it beside you while you slumber. Constant companionship, continued proximity, Lovell, will, I sincerely trust, cure you of your lamentable habit of fumbling the facts of Greek History. Class dismissed.”

Bus remained behind for a minute after his convulsed class-mates had hurried forth, but it was no use. Mr. Kincaid meant just what he had said, as absolutely ridiculous as it all was! Bus departed with the football bobbing from his neck and West’s Ancient World clutched desperately in one hand. He tried putting it into a pocket, but it was just too large for that. In the corridor the news was already circulating, and Bus was made to pause and exhibit his latest incubus until, patience exhausted, he tore himself from detaining hands and fled. In his room he flung the book distastefully away from him, only to rescue it in a panic, fearful that he had harmed it. Then he put it on the table and glowered at it until, presently, a sense of humor came to his aid and he gave a chuckle. Somewhere, he recollected, his room-mate had a canvas haversack, and he searched until he unearthed it. In it he placed Mr. West’s masterpiece and adjusted the straps to his shoulders. Finally he surveyed himself in the mirror. Just what he resembled, with the haversack on his back and the football against his stomach, he couldn’t decide, but, at least, he looked different! Fortunately, perhaps, he had but one more recitation before dinner and one after, and at neither of them was he asked to explain his singular likeness to a peddler, for the story had reached even to the ears of the faculty. At dinner his arrival in hall was even a greater personal triumph than last evening, but he didn’t mind the razzing a bit. Being the sensation of the hour was compensation enough!

To Mr. Cade, who dwelt outside the campus, the tidings had not reached, and so at three-thirty, when Bus paraded onto the field, trailed by a throng of expectant team-mates, the coach was not prepared for the spectacle. Bus was appropriately attired in gray canvas pants, gray jersey, gray-and-gold striped stockings, scuffed shoes and hip pads, and he swung a black leather head guard. But he also wore a battered football in front and a mildewed canvas bag at his back, a bag on which appeared in faded black characters the inscription “Troop II, B.S.A.” Bus invited notice and won it instantly.

“Lovell, you might rid yourself of that football during practice,” said Mr. Cade, laughing a little.

“Yes, sir.” Bus moved toward the wheelbarrow, where the balls awaited distribution in a big canvas sack, thereby presenting a rear view to the coach. Mr. Cade stared. Wide grins overspread the faces of the players.

“What’s he got on his back?” the coach demanded in puzzled tones of Coles Wistar. Coles choked and turned aside. The coach looked more puzzled, and then suspicious. “Lovell!” he called.

“Yes, sir?” Bus returned, freed of the football.

“What”--Mr. Cade pointed--“is that contraption?”

“Haversack, sir. The Ancient World is inside.”

“The ancient--_what_?”

“World, sir,” answered Bus gravely. Every one else was shouting with laughter by now. Mr. Cade laughed, too, suspecting that Bus had contrived a joke to turn the tables.

“The ancient world, eh? So you’re Atlas. Is that it? Come clean, Lovell. What’s the point?”

“I didn’t do very well in Greek History class this morning, Mr. Cade, and Mr. Kincaid said I was to carry West’s Ancient World around with me, sir. Just like the football, you know. He said I fumbled too many questions.” Bus was grinning now. Mr. Cade’s face was a study for a moment. Then he chuckled, and then he laughed, and laughed until the tears came.

“He wins, Lovell,” he gasped finally. “Take it off. That’s a good one!”

“Think I’d better, sir?” asked Bus doubtfully. “He said--”

Mr. Cade wiped his eyes. “I think it’s safe,” he answered. “I--I’ll assume responsibility, Lovell. And, Lovell.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Just so that Mr. Peghorn doesn’t follow suit and hang a glass retort about your neck, we’ll say no more about the football. I--I know when I’m beaten, Lovell!”

Bus removed the haversack with a sigh of relief. “I guess the football’s done its bit, anyway, sir,” he said earnestly. “If I fumble again, Mr. Cade, I--I’ll eat the fool thing!”

They set about preparing for the Kenly game that afternoon. Only one contest intervened, that with Alton High School next Saturday, and that was frankly only a practice engagement. From now on every minute of the daily sessions on the gridiron and of the nightly “skull-drills” in the gymnasium would be devoted to the laudable ambition of defeating Kenly Hall. There was a twenty-minute encounter with the long-suffering tackling dummy and much punting and running back of punts before the formation drill began. Bert found himself opposite Storer on the squad that followed Ted Ball up and down the field. Walsh was on Bus Lovell’s squad, where, too, at his old position at the tip of the right wing, Chick was holding forth. Chick and Shelfer were dividing that honor of late, with Chick showing far more of finished playing and Shelfer impressing the coaches by his sheer determination. I say coaches, because a former Alton player named Lake had arrived and was giving his serious attention to the linemen, the guards and tackles especially. Still later that week two other graduates showed up, but they remained only a few days and spent more time exchanging reminiscences on the side-lines than in actual coaching. However, their counsel was valuable to Mr. Cade, and they really did help in the evenings, when the blackboard was hauled out on the gymnasium floor and the plays were drawn thereon and the players, rubber-soled, walked and trotted through them. The new signals were being learned, and that alone was a very fair task, especially for two or three of the squad whose memories were not of the best. There were eleven line plays inside the ends, six outside, three forward-passes and one punt. These were numbered from 2 to 25, inclusive, omitting 10, 11, 20 and 21. Any number ending in 0 signified a punt. Two series, one of two plays and one of three, were indicated by the numbers 11 and 21. To commit these to memory was a task that called for real concentration.

This Tuesday there were many mistakes made, and Bert made his share. Twice he confused Number 8 and Number 13. The former play was left half through left tackle and the latter was left end around right end, and there was no similarity either in the numbers or the plays. Yet Bert for some, perhaps psychological, reason got mixed badly. It was well toward the end of the week before he rid himself of the haunting fear that he would forever confuse 8 and 13!

However, quarter-backs and coaches were lenient to-day; the former, perhaps, because they were none too certain themselves of the new signals. Even Ted Ball, who had won the reputation of being a shark at calling signals, faltered more than once. Mr. McFadden, who had scouted Kenly Hall several times during the season, came over at four-fifteen with a team drilled in Kenly plays, and most of the rest of the session was given over by the First to defensive work. Whether the Second had really perfected itself in the rival’s style and methods was problematical, but certain it is that the First experienced no great difficulty in stopping the Scrub, even when Mr. Cade gave the ball to the latter on the First’s ten-yard line. Bert played through one ten-minute period of the scrimmage and comported himself well enough to win a word of commendation from Mr. Lake, who, with Mr. Cade, hovered about the team like a sternly anxious hen over a brood of young chicks.

“That’s the game, What’s-your-name! Don’t start off blind, but wait till you see where the play’s coming. You stopped that nicely, fellow!”

Bert stopped more than one ambitious Scrub back during his ten minutes of service, or helped stop them, and suffered painful if honorable wounds in consequence. But he didn’t mind while he was in. Only after he had been relegated to the bench to make way for Walsh, did he fully appreciate his injuries. Then he went over to Jake and had two fingers taped together above a splint and a nice square of plaster applied to his left cheek. The Scrub in its imitation of Kenly was doing a conscientious job!

Walsh stayed in only some four minutes and then yielded to Keys. Walsh was plainly proving rather a disappointment to the coach. He had weight and was a hard fellow to stop when he got well started, but he was almost phenomenally slow and, to-day at least, mixed signals badly. Bert wasn’t afraid of Walsh nowadays, but he was afraid of Keys. It seemed to Bert that Keys was bound to have the call for right half-back position by Saturday; and it was a fair assumption that whoever played on the first-string against Alton High would start the game against Kenly. Of course Keys wouldn’t play the big game through, and sooner or later, Bert assured himself, he, Bert, would get in. But sometimes a back had the good fortune to stick it out right to the end, or to within a few minutes of it, and Bert wasn’t going to be satisfied with merely saying, “How do you do? Good-by!” to the referee. He watched rather glumly while Keys performed the duties of a half-back and credited Larry with doing considerably better than he really did.

Chick played a full period and showed himself superior to Fitz Savell as a defensive end. Unfortunately, though, he erased whatever good impression he may have made on the coaches when he failed miserably just at the end of the scrimmage to get into position for Galvin’s long throw down the field. Chick confessed later that he mistook the signal.

Neither side scored that afternoon and the battle ended with honors fairly even when it was almost too dark to see the ball ten yards away. Jake fussed and grumbled a good deal during the succeeding half hour, for it seemed that about every other man on the two teams had managed to get himself hurt in some fashion. The injuries were only casual and to be expected, but Jake, swashing iodine around and snipping tape, was a growling pessimist. At this rate, he confided to his grinning patients, there wouldn’t be a whole team left by a week from Saturday!

The evening sessions for the First Team interfered badly with Chick’s pool program. Mr. Cade generally dismissed them by eight-thirty, although you couldn’t count on it, but that left Chick only an hour in which to subjugate Mr. Devore and retrieve his losses, and an hour wasn’t nearly enough. So Chick, by Wednesday of that week, was tiptoeing into Number 21 around eleven o’clock, which was a very risky proceeding and one not calculated to sending him leaping out of bed, bright-eyed and refreshed, at seven o’clock the next morning. But getting even with Lester Devore had become almost an obsession with Chick, and school laws and training rules were forgotten. Bert was always fast asleep long before the truant returned, although he sometimes awoke enough to realize that his room-mate was moving about and to wonder what time it was.

It was on Thursday that Bert, finding mail in the box downstairs, tossed a letter across the table to Chick with the remark: “If you’re expecting any freight, Charles, it has arrove.” Chick looked at the corner of the buff envelope, which bore the name of the railroad followed by the legend “Freight Department,” and scowled. Bert busied himself with a letter of his own until an indignant exclamation from the other caught his attention.

“What a nerve!” growled Chick. “Wants me to pay him ten dollars right away because he’s ‘got use for the money’! Maybe I haven’t got use for it, too; or would if I had it! Why didn’t he say something about it last night?”

“Oh, that’s Devore writing to you, eh?” said Bert. “Well, see here, Chick, can’t you pay what you owe him and then keep away from him for a while? How much is it, anyway? Only ten?”

Chick shrugged, hesitated and answered: “No, it’s more than that, counting last night. It’s--it’s sixteen-twenty-five now.”

Bert whistled. “How much have you got?” he asked.

“About three and a half. And I owe you--”

“Never mind what you owe me. I’ve got five--no, about four-fifty. That’ll make eight. Borrow a couple somewhere and get it to him. After all, he’s got a right to it, I suppose.”

“You lend me a couple and I’ll pay him five,” said Chick. “That’s enough for him. He knows he’ll get it all when I have it. I wouldn’t be owing him so much if he didn’t always say, ‘Oh, that’s all right. Pay when you get ready!’ I tried to get ten from the old man, but he’s as tight as a bow-string, hang it. Wrote back that I was thirty dollars overdrawn already! Gosh, he keeps track of every sou he lets go of! Next dad I have won’t be a banker, I’ll bet!”

“Well, here’s two,” said Bert, “and for goodness’ sake put some more with it and hush him up. And for Pete’s sake, Chick, stop playing pool with him until you get yourself squared. What time did you come wandering in last night, anyway? It seemed like the middle of the night to me.”

“Oh, it wasn’t that bad,” said Chick. “Thanks for this, Bert. That makes six fifty, doesn’t it? You’ll have to remember because I’m likely to forget. I’ll slip over to Mooney’s after dinner and leave it for him.”

“Doesn’t he have any home?” inquired Bert. “Doesn’t sleep at Mooney’s, too, does he?”

“He says leave it at Mooney’s,” answered Chick, “so that’s what I’ll do. I hope he chokes!”

“Well,” murmured Bert, “I won’t go that far, but hanged if I’d loosen the knot if he was choking!”