CHAPTER III

CHAPTER III“PAX”It is not to be supposed that we share the fright of the four hazers. Tony of course was not drowned, nor indeed at any time had he been in danger. He had not lived on a Mississippi bayou for the greater part of his life in vain. He was an excellent swimmer, and he had the knack to an unusual degree of swimming under water a long distance.When Chapin had first advanced upon him, he had intended to fight, but he realized at once that such a course would be foolish, for he would inevitably be conquered, and forced in the long run to go through the “stunts” even in a more unpleasant fashion than if he submitted at once. He had, however, no intention of submitting so long as he saw any possibility of a way out of the situation. Suddenly it occurred to him that by jumping into the creek and swimming for some distance under water, he might get a start in the way of escape that it would be difficult for his pursuers to make up. In this way the hazing might be avoided for the night at least, and on the morrow he could take counsel as to the future with some of his new-found allies.No sooner did he think of this stratagem than he acted upon it. As we have seen, it proved even moresuccessful than he had expected or hoped. The creek was quite deep enough for him to swim a considerable distance beneath the surface. He headed up stream, and kept under water to the limit of his endurance. Then, instead of coming to the surface in the splashing, sputtering fashion of the amateur, he came so far up as to thrust only his face above the waters for breath. So careful were his movements that the anxious watchers did not detect him even at this moment. A second time he went below, swimming beneath the surface for some yards, until he emerged again, this time within a short distance of the bridge. A few strokes brought him to this hiding-place, and he had scarcely ensconced himself there, clinging to one of the heavy wooden supports, when he heard Chapin and Marsh rushing across the planks above his head. He could tell by their tones of alarm, as they talked farther down the bank, that they thought he had drowned. He heard one of them jump into the creek and splash vainly about for some moments, and at last he heard two of them depart, and saw the shadowy outlines of the other two, as they returned disconsolate to wait by the rocks.In about five minutes Tony crawled out from his hiding-place beneath the bridge. He was shivering with the cold, but otherwise not the worse for his long immersion. He ran softly along the dune road, about a hundred yards or so behind Carroll and Marsh on their way to the school. He followed them at a safe distance across the meadows and the campus, and watched them as they rang the bell ofthe Head Master’s house. Then he hurried off to his own room in Standerland, slipped off his wet clothes, and got into bed. A little alarm as to his safety on the part of his would-be tormentors, he thought, would be a just bit of revenge, particularly against the supercilious Carroll.While Deering lay comfortably in bed, rapidly recovering in body and spirit, the two conspirators had a mournful few minutes as they explained matters to Doctor Forester, who had thrust his head and his pyjama’d shoulders out of an upper window.The Head Master listened to their frightened explanations. “Very well,” he said at length, “I will dress at once. In the meantime, one of you go quickly over to Standerland and see if by any chance he has returned there. It is possible that there has been a serious accident, but I think it much more likely that he has simply outwitted you. I trust that is the case. Report to me immediately.” And with that the Doctor closed his window sash with a bang.With his heart in his mouth Carroll ran across the quadrangles to Standerland House, resolving with more passion than he customarily allowed himself that the Head had shown himself a brute. He felt his way along the dark corridor, still cautious, although convinced that it was but a matter of moments when the whole school must be alarmed. He always recalled that walk upstairs as one of the most disagreeable quarters of an hour of his life. At last he found his door, entered his study, and breathed a sigh of relief as he switched on the light. Then hecautiously opened the door into Tony’s bedroom, and gave a frightful start as he saw the boy sitting up in bed. But Carroll was not one to betray more than momentary surprise. He gave Tony a long curious look, sufficiently assured after the first glance that he was not a ghost. “So, my Socrates,” he said, “you are back?”“It would seem so,” answered Tony dryly, and as the older boy thought, impertinently.“One wondered, you know,” Carroll remarked quietly, as he turned off the light and left the room.In five minutes he was back at the Head Master’s house. “Deering is in bed, sir,” he reported to the non-committal head at the upper window.“Good; I thought so. Do you go now after your companions on the beach. Return at once; get back into bed as quietly as you got out of it, and the four of you report to me to-morrow morning after prayers. I fancy that whether or not you become the laughing stock of the school will depend entirely upon yourselves. Good-night!”“Good-night, sir.”Carroll had lost but a trifle of his suavity during this nocturnal adventure. He hurried off now to the beach, and explained the situation to Thorndyke and Chapin, who were so rejoiced to learn that they had not been the cause of an involuntary suicide that they forgot to be annoyed with Tony for outwitting them. It was a cold and dejected trio of boys that stowed away the remains of the unenjoyed feast, and then betook themselves up the hill, crept silently into their dormitories, and went to bed.On the morrow they were excused from first study and reported to the Head Master. To their surprise Doctor Forester had very little to say to them. “I had intended to give you a lecture,” he said, looking up from his writing and without laying down his pen, “and probably a severe punishment, but I fancy you have learned a lesson.... You can see, at least, to what the hazing of a high-spirited boy might lead.... I understand your ideas about hazing. I do not share them. I believe that you will not disappoint me when I say that I expect the practice to stop from this day.”“Quite so, sir,” said Thorndyke.“And that is all,” added the Doctor, giving them a nod of dismissal.“Phew!” exclaimed Chapin, as they entered the corridor, “that’s sliding out easy.”“Rather,” answered Thorndyke, “unless we have the whole school howling at us when the kid squeals.”“Which he’s sure to do,” suggested Marsh.Carroll withered them with a glance. “I rather fancy not,” he drawled. “He’s a southerner and a gentleman.”“Well, let’s hope not,” interposed Thorndyke.... “There, don’t get huffy, Harry, you can’t help coming from Chicago.”“Who wants to help it, you big cow?” cried Marsh, giving his chum Thorndyke a good-natured push against the wall. “But if I thought, as Carroll does, that there were not any gentlemen north of Mason and Dixon’s line, I wouldn’t come to a northern school.”“Rot!” vouchsafed Carroll. “Let’s whoop her upfor Gumshoe, and avoid any daffy questions about being quizzled by the Head.”********Tony found it difficult the next day not to take Jimmie Lawrence or Kit Wilson into his confidence, and tell them of his adventure of the night before. But he conquered the temptation, for he was singularly incapable of enjoying himself at the expense of any one’s else discomfiture. Tony was not without his faults, as we shall see, but he genuinely disliked to make other people uncomfortable. Perhaps this was an inheritance from a long line of ancestors who had had rather nice ideas about what constitutes a gentleman. At any rate, he was born that way, and did not deserve any special credit for it. He realized that if he told his story he might easily make his three captors the butts of the school, but that was not a form of revenge that appealed to him. Accordingly he held his peace, and if it had depended on him the story never would have been told. But we may say in passing, that eventually Carroll told the tale himself: it entered into the body of Deal tradition, and is frequently told by old Deal boys when hazing is a subject of conversation.Tony felt almost familiar with the schoolroom as he entered after prayers the next morning. A score of faces were now known to him, and so many had seemed friendly as he looked into them, that the homesick feeling and the alarm of the night before rapidly passed away. Occasionally he noticed Mr. Morris’s glance resting upon him, as he sat athis books during the day, in a particularly interested and friendly way. There was something in Morris’s face—an attractiveness, perhaps one would call it, for he was not precisely handsome—a winningness in the directness of his glance, that more than once had won boys at almost first sight. Morris had the genius of inspiring enthusiasms, and he was to inspire one in Tony. The master was soon to hear from Carroll the inwardness of Tony’s exploits, and marvel with him at the boy’s “whiteness” in not talking. Mr. Morris was the occasional recipient of the intimate confidences of the supercilious Virginian, for even Carroll had moments of weakness when he felt the need of unburdening himself and receiving sympathy—moments, as he would have said, when he was not himself.As the day wore on Tony was inclined to forget his unpleasant adventure of the night before. The afternoon found him again on the football field, absorbed in learning the game, and winning encomiums in the eyes of Kit, who until Thanksgiving would have few thoughts aside from football. Kit was captain of his form eleven, and his interest in its success was equaled only by the readiness with which he would sacrifice his best players to the school team or even to the scrub if they were needed. He was delighted with Deering’s advent, as he had felt he was weak in ends, and Tony’s fleetness promised much in that direction.The likelihood of his securing a position on his form team gave Deering a prestige that stood him in good stead as a new boy; and as he was lively,good-natured and appreciative, it seemed that on the whole he would have an agreeable time.There was, however, a rift in the lute—which Tony detected the second day of his school life. As he would pass Chapin in the Schoolhouse corridors or on the campus, he could see by the expression on his face that he had taken the result of their adventures of the night before in bad part. They exchanged no words on the subject, but Chapin’s behavior was in such contrast to that of Thorndyke and Marsh, or even of Carroll, all of whom had smiled good-naturedly when they had met him, that he put it down that in Chapin he had made an enemy. At the time this troubled him very little. He wondered of course if he should be hazed again, but surmised correctly that if he were it would not be by the same crowd.The spirit with which he went into things, his success on the form team, and the powerful friends that he had made in Wilson and Lawrence, the leaders of the Third, soon secured him an immunity from hazing in any form. The Sixth frowned on the custom, so that none but adventurous spirits were apt to attempt it.Tony was tired out that night, and as soon as he was dismissed from the schoolroom at nine o’clock, he ran over to Standerland and got into bed, scarcely noticing Carroll, who had the privilege of working in their common study. Hardly, however, was he in bed, than the door was opened, his light switched on, and again Carroll appeared, but this time there was a friendly grin on his face, and a box of biscuit and a jar of jam tucked under his arm.“Don’t jump, my philosopher!” he exclaimed, “I am alone and unarmed.” Then he advanced to the bed, and held out his hand. “Shall we make it ‘pax’?”“With all my heart,” laughed Tony, and gave Carroll’s hand a friendly shake.“Suppose then we smoke a pipe of peace,” and Carroll extracted from the recesses of his pocket two brierwood pipes.“Hang it!” said Tony, “I don’t smoke, you know. Aren’t you afraid of getting caught?”“Oh, yes, somewhat,” answered Carroll, as he nonchalantly lighted a match. “But what will you have? School bores me to extinction. I find myself within two days craving nefarious excitement. You are fortunate to possess a calmer temperament. Here, help yourself to the jam and biscuit.”“You seem calm enough,” commented Tony.“I assume that, little one, for amusement, I am in reality excitable to a degree. Now take that incident last night—”“Oh, let’s drop that,” said Tony.“On the contrary, I should like to discuss it. I was rather a beast to go in for it, you know, when you had been, as it were, put in my tender care. It was the fun of doing something that one knew would get one into trouble if one were caught. You behaved in a singular fashion, I must confess, and lamentably upset our little calculations. Somehow, after blowing the business to the Head the joy of the affair was gone. I felt like a sick cat when I crawled into bed at oneA. M.”“What happened?” asked Tony.Carroll took a deep pull at his pipe, and blew the smoke out of the window. “Old Hawk laughed at us, and sent us to bed as though we were First Formers. Say, it was rather decent of you, you know, not to peach to the fellows.”“How do you know I didn’t?”“Well, we’ve escaped the jolly horsing we’d have got if you had, that’s all.... Do you know, I approve of that,—well, to a degree. Confound it! there’s curfew. Lie still, I’ll souse the light. I guess we’re safe enough. Bill saw us both in, and he isn’t one to nose about after lights unless there’s a beastly noise. Bill is such a gentleman that one hates to take advantage of his considerateness,—like this!” And he blew a puff of smoke into Tony’s face.“Why do you do it then?”Carroll got up and turned out the light; then resumed his seat on Tony’s bed.“Why do I? Hang it, Deering, I sometimes wonder why I do a number of things. I’ve a great notion to chuck it.”Tony had the good sense to make no reply to this remark, but to munch instead with rather unctious enjoyment on his biscuit and jam. Carroll seemed to meditate for the moment in the dark, then knocked his ashes out on the window-sill, and leaned over, feeling for the jar. “Where the deuce is the biscuit? That jam is the real article, you know. There is a great gulf between the jam I use and what one gets in the refectory. Would that in that gulf we might souse the housekeeper, eh?”And so they talked the shop and jargon, the boyish confidences, and experiences, and plans, that have been the theme of nocturnal talks ever since schools were invented. It was quite late before Carroll returned to his bedroom, and Tony immediately dropped to sleep, feeling that after all he had misjudged him upon first appearances. His next conscious thought was as he leaped to his feet in answer to the strident tones of the rising bell.CHAPTER IVMICHAELMAS TERMThis late talk with Carroll did more toward putting Tony at his ease in the school than perhaps anything that happened to him. From that time on he became very friendly with his room-mate—all the better friends doubtless because they always maintained toward each other a certain reserve, due rather to Carroll’s involuntary elaborateness of manner than to any deliberate effort on their part. All the better also was it that real as was their mutual regard for each other neither had that enthusiastic affection that school boys so frequently experience, and of which Tony was already aware in another direction. For just such a friendship quickly developed between him and Jimmie Lawrence.He has missed one of the purest joys of life who has not known the delights of an enthusiastic boyish friendship. It has its sweetnesses, its fears and scruples, as has every other love; but there is a cloudless carelessness about its happy days as about no other period of life. For Tony, in that first Indian summer at Deal to wander off from the common fields with Jimmie Lawrence, into unfamiliar haunts, into the enchanted region of Lovel’s Woods, or along the rocky kelp-strewn shores of the Strathsey River or the tawny beaches of the Neck, was a joy pure and unalloyed.Among others Carroll watched the development of this friendship with interest. Carroll was not the sort to give his affection quickly in such whole-hearted fashion, though he cared deeply enough about things, he thought. He neither approved nor disapproved of his room-mate’s devotion to Jimmie, certainly was not jealous of it. If such things must be—he had a way of smiling with his assumed air of cynicism when friendship was mentioned—why he supposed Jimmie Lawrence was as worthy of Tony’s devotion as the next boy. Carroll never spoke of this friendship to Tony, but tactfully began to welcome Jimmie as a visitor to their rooms during that fall term. To his own form-mates he referred to his study as “the kindergarten.” He did, however, speak unusually frankly to Tony of another friendship which that youth appeared to have made. They had wandered toward the beach one evening. Football practice was just over; Tony had had his bath and was glowing a beautiful pink and white in the soft air of the Indian summer twilight.“Do you know,” said Carroll, flecking at the pebbles in the sands, as they stopped at the creek, “that you have made a great hit with our beloved Bill?”Tony laughed. “Bill’s made a great hit with me, I may say. But doubtless that’s plain enough.”“Oh, perfectly,” answered Carroll who was used to boys liking Mr. Morris, “but it has never been evident before that Bill has particularly cared for one of us rather than for another; he has been extraordinarily decent to everyone with whom he has to do,just as Gumshoe has been extraordinarily odious. For myself, I have always disliked intensely the attitude that most school masters think it expedient to assume—to wit, a sort of official consciousness of a universalin loco parentis, a grim determination to make people think every boy is liked just in the same way, which we know is impossible, and as undesirable as it is unreal. Witness, Gumshoe really makes me grateful to him, despite his native hideousness, because he never addresses me without a sarcastic snarl or an odious grin as though I were amusing him. One understands that amusement.”“Oh, quite,” said Tony, absently.Reggie did not like these little interjections in his monologue. “Don’t assume to be paying attention,” he commented now. “I know of course that you are not until I get back to you. Don’t think it necessary to assent. I am accustomed to talking without being listened to.”“Oh, dry up, Reggie, go on with Bill—what about him?”“Ah, I thought our curiosity had been aroused. This, little one; he had succeeded better than most people in liking a good many fellows, with the result of course that the fellows really like him. But, for you, his liking is more patent than usual. I congratulate you—not to say, I envy you.”“Nonsense,” began Tony.“Cultivate him, my boy.”“Oh, I mean to do that,” Deering answered. “Tell me, do you like Mr. Morris, Reggie; you’re such a—”“I, oh I adore him,—in my way; but even so muchis between you and me. He is a demi-god, the superman. As for me, I amuse him, interest him, baffle him a little, I hope; but he will never be fond of me. It will be a relief to Bill when I get out of his house.”“Don’t you think it’s just that he’s never been sure whether or not he could trust you?” asked Tony.Carroll for once started. “Trust me? Good heavens, Deering, I imagine the man takes me for a gentleman.”“Oh, of course, that—I meant rather in other ways; if he counts on you to help out....”“Oh!” Carroll exclaimed, with a tone of relief, “I dare say not.... I dare say not....” And for a while he seemed to think rather seriously. Tony wondered to himself how he had happened to stumble on what doubtless was a sore spot with his room-mate in his relation to the house-master. As for Carroll’s talk about Mr. Morris’s good opinion, Tony only took that half seriously. He hoped it was true, of course. Tony liked to be liked, as perhaps most people do.Those were really golden days for him, which he was always to recall with a peculiar sense of pleasure. He was consciously happier than he had ever been before, because often at home there had been certain family shadows that dimmed the day. Life went well with him that first fall term. He seemed to catch the spirit of the school almost by intuition; indeed, as he said to himself one afternoon as he stood on the terrace in front of the Old School, looking down across the sloping meadows, past the ochre-colored beach, out upon Deigr Rock and a quivering ocean,it was in his blood: it was his inheritance and tradition to be a part of and to love Deal School.He was quick and sensible enough to keep his classroom work up to the average, and though he did not distinguish himself as a scholar, he suffered very little from detention or pensums, those popular devices for the torture of the dull and the lazy. He had his long afternoons free, save for football. And football in that day, under what Tony ever felt was a wise dispensation of the Head’s, was never allowed to absorb more than an hour, except when a game was on. As it was, he always had a good hour or so of daylight in which with a congenial companion,—Jimmie, or Kit, or Carroll, often,—he could explore the surrounding country. And this for Tony soon became the most fascinating way of spending his time. Before the Michaelmas term was over he had got to know every path and by-way for five miles roundabout. To a boy who had eyes as well as wits there was a plenty to interest him in the region about Deal;—the bold and varied shore, with its rocks and beaches, its coves and caves, its points and necks, the abode of wild fowl of the sea; the rolling fertile country to the north; Lovel’s Woods; the quiet waters of Deal Great Pond; the quaint streets of the old town of Monday Port, with its rotting wharves and empty harbor.This strange old town, despite everywhere the lingering touch of the summer invasion, with its suggestion of a vanished trade, in the winter was bereft of all save its memories of a bygone order of things; and with these memories, to an imaginativeboy, the town seemed heavy. It required a special permission and a good excuse for any of the schoolboys, except the Sixth, to get the freedom of its streets. Tony was especially keen for such excuses and such freedom. His first walk there had been with Mr. Morris, who seemed to know the intimate stories of its houses, to be familiar with all its little secrets. In less conventional conversations Tony planned escapades for that direction; but as yet nothing very definite suggested itself. The penalties for being caught in Monday Port without the good excuse were considered excessive and usually not worth the risk. Mr. Morris had a glorious tale of the days when he was a schoolboy at Deal, of the actual exodus from the school by night of the whole Fifth, the boarding of a schooner that had lain dreaming in the sleepy harbor for a day or so, a thrilling sail into the open, and the overhauling of the pirate crew by the Head in a steam-launch. Those were the good old days of birching, and yes, Mr. Morris had caught it. He had smiled at the memory as if it were a pleasant one.Golden days that more and more took the aspect of holidays as midst school strain and throbbing excitement, they drew near the day of the “great game” with Boxford, the rival school across the Smoke mountains.It had seemed possible for some time that Tony might make end on the School team. Mr. Stenton, the athletic director, though he had a vigorous way of finding fault, forever threatening the boys with defeat and the benches and fines, secretly regarded Deering as a “find.” He had watched hisplay for a week or two on Kit Wilson’s Third Form team; saw that he was green but teachable, and judged that he was one of the swiftest runners that had ever come to Deal. The end of the first month found Tony a member of the School squad.To the old boys it seemed almost “fresh” that a newcomer should be able to play football so much better than they, and to be a greenhorn at that! But Jack Stenton knew his business; he was an old Kingsbridge man, and he had played on the Kingsbridge eleven in the very earliest days of American football, when it was a very different game indeed. And Stenton made up his mind that Tony eventually should make the Kingsbridge eleven. Deal boys had not been taking many places on Kingsbridge teams of recent years, which was a matter of real grief to the faithful coach. Stenton, however, was the last man in the world to give a boy a good opinion of himself, so that he pretended to hold out to Tony but the smallest hope. “You may squeeze into shape,” he would say, “but I doubt it.” And in truth he was averse to playing a new boy in a big game; so that up to the eve of the Boxford game the line-up was in doubt. Tony had a vigorous rival for his position, in Henry Marsh, one of the members of the hazing-bee of the first few nights at Deal. Marsh was quick; Tony was quicker; but Marsh had the advantage of knowing the game, and clever as Tony was proving himself, he nevertheless was a greenhorn.His promotion to the school squad did a great deal for Deering in the way of increasing his popularity. Kit Wilson no longer patronized him; on the otherhand he was rather proud of Tony’s friendship, and took a good deal of credit to himself for having discovered him. He proposed Deering for membership in the Dealonian, a semi-secret society that took a great deal of credit to itself for the smooth and successful running of the School. Membership in it was an honor, which a new boy rarely achieved. It was enough to have turned our friend’s head, but he was singularly not a self-conscious youth, and to this it was due that his quick success aroused so little jealousy. Tony had the quality of lovableness to a marked degree, which is after all a quality; it was what won him at college in later years the nickname of “Sunshine,” a famous nickname in the annals of Kingsbridge, as Kingsbridgeans know—but that’s another story.In all the unexpected happiness of the term there was for Tony nevertheless the inevitable rift in the lute. Chapin was still sulky toward him; and he could see beneath a rather elaborate courtesy, that Henry Marsh, Chapin’s particular crony, was anything but friendly. This lack of friendliness became so noticeable to Carroll that despite his intimacy with the two, he began to draw somewhat away from them. Carroll thought that they had singularly failed to appreciate Tony’s “whiteness” in saving them all from an unmerciful horsing. Even the Head Master had called their attention to that in his brief discourse to them on that unpleasant morning afterwards.Carroll met the two coming out of Thornton Hall—the refectory—one evening after supper, and joinedthem as they walked around the terrace in the moonlight.“I say, you fellows,” he began, plungingin medias res—Carroll always took the unexpected line—“why the deuce do you keep so sour on young Deering?”Chapin looked up quickly, his eyes glinting unpleasantly in the moonlight. “Hang it, Carroll!” he exclaimed, “what’s that to you? We’ve no obligation to take up with every little southern beggar that comes to school, as you seem to have.”“No, assuredly,” Carroll replied, suavely, “but it occurs to me that when a chap has behaved as uncommonly decently to us as Deering has, you might show a little—well, appreciation.”“Rot! Deering has had a swelled head ever since the night of the hazing-bee, and if Jack Stenton sticks him on the team for the Boxford game there’ll be no holding him. We will be for sending him up to Kingsbridge instanter.”“You are uttering unspeakable nonsense, my dear Arthur, and you know it. Give the lad a show; play fair. What’s the matter with you, Harry?” he added, turning to Marsh, “it is only lately that you have taken to snubbing him.”Marsh gave an uneasy laugh. “Oh, Arty and me hang together,” he said lamely.“Well, that is more than you can say for your English,” remarked Carroll, with a contemptuous smile, and turned away.Chapin followed him up, and laid an arm upon his shoulder. “Look here, Reggie,” he exclaimed, “don’t let’s bicker about this kid. I don’t like him, butwhat difference need that make between us? We have stuck pretty close these four years. Come on now, let’s slip down to the cave, hit the pipe, and talk things over.”“No, thank you,” replied Carroll briefly.“Come on, Reggie, do,” put in Marsh, “we’ve bagged a bottle of wine to-day, and we’ll bust it to-night in your honor.”“Thanks, no; seductive as your offering is, I rather fancy you may count me out of your little meetings in the future.” And with the words Carroll went on his way.The two boys looked after him a moment, until he entered the Old School, when Chapin exclaimed, with an oath, “Let him go, Harry; we’ll count him out all right; but we’ll get even with his cub.”Marsh murmured an assent, but hung back a little when Chapin renewed the proposal to visit the cave on the beach. “Don’t let us go to-night, Art; remember you’re in training.”“The deuce with training. What’s the use of banging your head against a football for a month if a greenhorn like that is to be shoved into the front row at the last moment. I’m going to have some fun nights, and you’ll see, I shall be as fit as a fiddle in the morning anyway.” And as he spoke, he drew Marsh’s arm within his, and together they started for the beach.From that day Carroll avoided them, a circumstance that did not increase their friendliness toward Tony. It had been comparatively easy at the time for Reginald to take the course he did, but as the days cameand went, he began to miss the companionship of Chapin and Marsh more than he cared to acknowledge. Although naturally there was little in common between them, for so long a time he had identified himself with them and their crowd,—attracted by their willingness to engage upon any lark however wild and their keenness to avoid school rules, a process to which his own languid existence had been secretly dedicated,—that he keenly missed the nefarious exploits their companionship afforded. To be sure he had stopped smoking, he was bracing up a bit and helping Mr. Morris out with the discipline of the house, but beyond that he craved as ardently as ever the excitement and adventure of his more careless days.At that moment he was ripe to have entered into a closer intimacy with Tony, or even with Mr. Morris. But Deering was absorbed in the life of his form, and except at night he and Carroll had no opportunity of being together, and then Tony was so tired out with football practice that by “lights” he was ready to tumble into bed. And so they fell quite out of the way of having nocturnal talks. Mr. Morris had a great liking for Carroll, despite his obvious faults, but he had long since given up the hope of knowing him better, of getting beyond Carroll’s supercilious reserve and too-elaborate courtesy. The consequence was that he detected no change now in the boy’s attitude and failed to make the advances that Carroll would have responded to so readily. For the first time Carroll became seriously dissatisfied with his life at school. He was really bored, as he had alwayspretended to be, and also lonely, which of course he did not acknowledge, even to himself. He was a little inclined to think in his heart that his half-conscious efforts at reform were not worth while. However he decided to stick it out for the year at any rate, and settled down to the monotonous routine with an air of indifference, and kept steadily away from his old companions.CHAPTER VTHE BOXFORD GAMEThe first cold snap gave way again to Indian summer with just enough northwest wind to make good football weather. The practice went on diligently. Lesser rivals came week by week to Deal and literally and metaphorically bit the dust ere the great Boxford game drew near. The school was a-quiver with excitement. The form leaders marshalled the boys onto the field in the bright clear afternoons and stimulated them to cheer until they were hoarse. Theprosandconsof winning were the principal theme of conversation during recreation times, and hours and minutes were counted as the great day came nearer and nearer.The day before the game a mass meeting was held in the Gymnasium, and the Head and Mr. Stenton and such other masters as had athletic proclivities were called upon for speeches, while the boys cheered everything enthusiastically without discrimination. Sandy Maclaren, the doughty captain of the eleven, mounted the rostrum amongst others, and delivered his sentiments in a terse series of twelve stammering words, “Boys, we’ve got to win; and that’s all I have to say,” which was greeted with an applause that more skilled orators seldom evoke. The form games were over, and the form teams had disbanded; alleffort was concentrated now upon the chief game of the year.Tony, from his place amongst the scrub players, heard it all with tingling ears and beating heart, absorbing that intangible energy—school spirit—as air into his lungs. This unexpected and vehement stirring of his emotions bewildered him. He thought he was just beginning to understand what love of school might mean. Then they sang “Here’s to good old Deal” and “There’s a wind that blows o’er the sea-girt isle” in a fashion that brought the heart to the throat and tears of exquisite happiness to the eyes. And at last Doctor Forester dismissed them with a few encouraging words that sounded very much like a blessing.Jimmie Lawrence sought Tony’s side, as the boys poured out of the Gymnasium. “Hey, Tony, ain’t it grand?” he exclaimed, as he twined his arms around his friend’s neck. “Oh, say, boy, we’vegotto win.”Tony gave a little gulp and squeezed Jimmie’s hand. “Oh, Jimmie, I never felt so great in all my life.”The night before the game they were in Jimmie’s rooms in Standerland and a crowd of Third Formers came trooping in. “No school to-night,” cried Kit Wilson, “there’s to be a P-rade around the campus at eight-thirty sharp. Tony, you lucky dog, don’t it feel good even to be a despised scrub?”Tony laughed. “Say, fellows, you don’t know how it all strikes a greenhorn like me. Why, it makes me feel bully to be alive.” And as he stood there in the center of the room, with smiling friendly faces abouthim, health and excitement glowing in his cheeks and a happy smile playing on his boyish lips, there was an unconscious feeling within them all that it was bully for him to be alive.Rush Merton, an irrepressible, black eyed, black haired youth, proposed a fresh song and started to bellow it forth, but the boys were keen for talk and promptly smothered him with sofa pillows—an assault that was resented so violently that in much less time than it takes to tell Jimmie’s attractive rooms were in that sad condition, technically known as “rough-house.” In the midst of the hubbub a stentorian voice made itself heard, “Here stop this nonsense!” And Jack Stenton, the hardy popular athletic director, came in. “Don’t make nuisances of yourselves, children. Pick up those sofa pillows, compose yourselves, and listen to words of wisdom from an older and wiser man.”“Hear, hear!” came in boisterous good-nature from a dozen throats. Rush gathered himself together from the pile of cushions, made an absurd bow, and indicated Mr. Stenton with a pompous wave of the hand. “Gentlemen, I yield the center of attention (and the center of gravity,” he addedsotto voce) “to our beloved athletic director. Mr. Athletic Director, we are all ears.”“Good! You are all Third Formers, eh?” said Stenton, with a smile, as he looked them over good-naturedly. “I fancied that I might find you congregated in this den of iniquity. Well, I have come up here to tell you fellows how much I appreciate Kit Wilson’s spirit in cheerfully giving his best formplayers to the scrub. He has set an example to the other forms that is bound to be a fine thing for the athletics of the school. And I want to tell you also that the form, this time, is going to get something out of it—an honor that I don’t think has fallen to the Third Form previous to this in the history of Deal School. After due consideration Captain Maclaren and I have decided to play Deering at left end in to-morrow’s game.”For a moment there was silence, due to the overwhelming surprise, for they had hardly dared hope that Tony would be given a chance except as a substitute; and this meant that he had won out against Marsh who had played on the team last year. Deering himself looked in helpless amazement, first at Stenton, then at his form mates. Jimmie broke the stillness at last by exclaiming in a shrill voice, “Come to my arms, my frabjous boy,” and clasped Tony wildly about the waist. Then the cheers rang forth, despite Stenton’s protest, until Mr. Morris came running out of his study to find out what the racket was.“Come, come,” Mr. Stenton cried at last, “cut this now; and you, young ‘un, get to bed and don’t celebrate any more to-night. Hello, Mr. Morris, we have decided to put Deering in the game to-morrow—hence this bedlam.”“That’s fine!” exclaimed Morris heartily, as he shook Tony’s hand. “But you boys had better get out now and join the procession; they are meeting before the Chapel.”i50AFTER DUE CONSIDERATION CAPTAIN MACLAREN AND I HAVE DECIDED TO PLAY DEERING AT LEFT END IN TO-MORROW’S GAME.At last they were gone, having wrung Tony’s hand two or three times each, and Deering and Lawrence were left alone. For a moment neither boy spoke, but stood looking at each other, their eyes glistening with friendliness that had been heightened by the excitement and the common joy. Jimmie was as unaffectedly glad as if the honor had come to him. Then Tony slipped into a chair by the window, and putting his head upon his hands stared out upon the campus, which was beginning to be covered with groups of boys, converging toward the Chapel. “I wish old Jack had let me go out and help celebrate,” he said, with a little laugh. “I can’t sleep if I do go to bed.”Jimmie sat down on the chair, and slipped his arm about Tony’s neck. “You must, dear old boy, all the same; ‘cause you’ve got to win for us.”Tony laughed, and clasping Jimmie’s hand, he looked up at him with a sudden seriousness that in after days Jimmie was to recall as having been profoundly significant. “Jim,” he said, “I know that Sandy and Larry Cummings and Chapin and the rest of ‘em can play football a thousand times better than I will ever do, but just the same there’s something that kind of tells me that I am going to have my chance to-morrow in a special way. I must do something to prove to Jack and Sandy that they aren’t making a mistake. Oh, Jim, you don’t know how I feel—awfully puffed up and absurdly small. I wish it were you.”“You’re all right, old boy; and Sandy and Jack know their business a blame sight better than we do. Now cut it for bed, and I’ll go out and help make the night hideous.”In his own rooms, where Tony went as soon asJimmie left him, he found Carroll deep in a Morris chair and the pages of a French novel. “Hello, Reggie,” he cried, “aren’t you going to p-rade?”“Not I, kiddo,” answered Carroll, indifferently. “I fancy I’ve reached that patriarchal age, in spirit if not in the flesh, when one puts away childish things. I am mildly moved, however, to go and tell Stenton and Maclaren that I approve of them, but I’ll content myself with saying that to you. It is worth while to have swift-moving pedalities, isn’t it?”“So it seems,” Tony muttered, a little disappointed by the coolness of his friend’s tone. “Well, good-night,” he added, “I am going to turn in.”Carroll had not meant to be supercilious, and for a moment after Tony left him, avoiding his glance as he had, he laid down his novel and started toward Deering’s bedroom. His hand was almost on the knob, the generous hearty words on his lips, but he hesitated, and at last turned back and took up his book. The study door was open, and at that moment Mr. Morris paused at it, evidently on his way to the campus.“Not celebrating, Reginald?” he enquired.“No, Mr. Morris,” answered Carroll, rising.A momentary wave of anger swept over Morris’s strong kindly face. “Is it that your school spirit is so slack or that your French novel is so absorbing?”Carroll bowed with an icy politeness. “I am afraid, Mr. Morris,” he said at last, with compressed lips, “that whichever explanation I gave would mean the same to you.”“I am afraid it would, Reginald,” said Mr. Morris,as he turned away, with something like a sigh. “Good-night.”“Good-night, sir.”Carroll sat for a long time without reading, listening to the shouts upon the campus. At length he picked up his novel, went into his bedroom, and undressed. Before getting into bed, he darkened his transom, lighted a small electric night-lamp, and laid a pad and pencil on the table by his bedside. For an hour or more, long after the excitement had ebbed without and the boys had got back and gone noisily to bed, long after he had heard the watchman make his stealthy midnight rounds, Carroll sat there in bed, gazing dreamily out of his window upon the moonlit sea and the misty outlines of Lovel’s Woods and at the ruby intermittent glow of Deigr Light, and now and then he jotted down a line or word upon the pad. This was what he wrote:The pure stars shine above the flowing sea,The strand is gleaming in the moon’s soft light,The south wind blows across the murky lea,The lamps of Monday glimmer in the night.The moon sags slowly in the violet west,A yellow crescent, cloud-hung all about,As though in weariness it sinks to rest,And one by one the glowing lamps go out.So flutter all the little weary soulsIn trembling dreams a moment and are still;The school is wrapped in darkness; on the shoalsThe tide turns; night enfolds the silent hill.*********The day of the game turned out bright and fair,after a dull gray morning, with ozone and freshness in the nippy air of early November. Recitations of a sort were held in the morning, though to be sure most of the masters fell into reminiscent vein and àpropos of nothing at all told their classes stories of the bygone heroes of the School—of Nifty Turner’s mighty kick and Pard’s immortal run from the enemy’s ten-yard line. Mr. Roylston alone had the ability and the temerity to hold his form down to an unrelieved discussion of the sequence of tenses inCæsarand mercilessly put Kit Wilson into detention for misconstruing an obvious Imperfect with the remark, “I guess to-day it is an Historical Present.” Kit served his detention and passed into history.The team, including Tony in a brand-new red sweater with a gorgeous black “D” across the breast, were excused from school at noon, and had dinner in the Refectory with the Boxfordians, who had coached across the hills in the morning. By two o’clock the teams were on the field, passing footballs, catching punts and kicking goals in regulation fashion.The boys poured out of the Schoolhouse after two o’clock call-over, and crowded the side lines, while the faculty and their wives and distinguished visitors from Boxford and Monday Port filled the line of wooden bleachers which had been run up the day before.Doctor Forester and the Head Master of Boxford walked up and down within the lines, repeating the same amiable courtesies and remarks about the weather and the view and the condition of the teams that they had made for years, as though this were thefirst instead of the twentieth struggle in which Deal and Boxford had been engaged. It was a specially important game, as the score in games between the two schools was a tie.The present scribe, who was not a football player, cannot undertake to describe that eventful game in technical language. The intricacies of formation and mass play were beyond his humble abilities at school, as he has no doubt they are to the majority of people who nevertheless follow the game with as keen interest as if they knew it. That is to say, it is inconceivable to him, that anything could be quite as exciting to a Deal boy or a Kingsbridge man as to see his school or college team pressing nearer and nearer the coveted goal, or to watch a fleet-footed boy dodge through a broken field, sprint as though the fate of empires hung upon his fleetness, and sprawl gloriously at last behind the enemy’s line on top of the ball. The technically curious are referred to Vol. LX, No. 2 of theDeal Literary Magazine, where they will find a more accurate account than they certainly will find in the pages of this chronicle. They will miss there, however, an incident, which impresses the scribe as having been the most important of the game.Suffice it, the ball was kicked off at three o’clock by the Boxford center, and went sailing down the field into the arms of Sandy Maclaren on the ten-yard line, and eleven blue-garbed Boxfordians went chasing after it lipity-cut. Here one described a graceful parabola as his knees encountered the hardy back of Arthur Chapin, another went flying offinvoluntarily in a reverse direction as he caught Deering’s hand in his ribs, but one, surer than the rest, dived for a tackle and laid Sandy low just as he was crossing the thirty-yard line. Cheers rang out indiscriminately from both sides of the field, until the scattered teams had run together, and, kneeling face to face, with hands clenched, faces grimly set, the muscles a-quiver, waited while Kid Drayton, Deal’s little quarter-back, gave the signals in his high shrill voice, “Forty-nine, eleven, sixteen.” Then the ball was snapped, and Chapin, the half-back, was hurled through a hole in Boxford’s line for a gain of seven yards. Once, twice, thrice, the Deal boys made their distance to the indescribable joy of their supporters. Then the Boxford team, recovering from the unexpected strength of the first onslaught, stiffened and became as a stone wall, and held Deal for three downs, so that Thorndyke, the full-back, dropped behind for a kick. The oval went spinning through the air, Tony speeding away almost under it, dodging the player who tried to intercept him, so that as the Boxford half leaned back to catch the ball, he downed him in his tracks. For the first time Tony heard theSis,Boom,Ah!of the rippling cheer ring out with his own name tacked on to the end of it.Back and forth, now tucked tight under the arm of a red or a blue sweater, now sailing luxuriously in the air, the ball was worked over the field; near Boxford’s goal, near Deal’s; or worried like a rat by a pack of terriers in the middle of the gridiron. The two teams were almost equally matched, and the first half ended without a score.“You are doing well, young ‘un,” said Stenton to Tony, as he stood in the center of the Deal team in the locker-rooms under the Gymnasium between the halves. “Give him a chance, Drayton, and send him around right end. I think it will work.”“All right, sir,” the little quarter-back squeaked. “I’ve been counting on Chapin mostly, but toward the end he seemed to be completely tuckered.”Chapin looked up from the bench where he was sitting. “You were so blame winded yourself that you could hardly give the signals,” he snarled.“Drop that kind of talk!” exclaimed Stenton. “You have been playing like a tackling dummy for the last ten minutes. If you want to lose the game for us keep that up.”“I am playing the best game I know,” Chapin answered surlily. “If you don’t like it,” he muttered, though Stenton did not hear him, “go get another of your Third Form pets. You chucked Marsh, one of your best players.”The second half opened, and each team seemed to come back fresher to the fray. With a few trifling exceptions there had been no injuries. Chapin seemed the only boy on whom the strain was telling, and Stenton correctly surmised that that was because he had not been keeping training. And as a matter of fact at a fatal moment his form told. The ball had been worked down well toward Deal’s goal line, and each time through Chapin. Suddenly the Boxford full-back dropped back for a kick: the center sent the ball spinning to him, and a second later he made a drop kick that sent the ball like a great bird sailingmajestically between the Deal goal posts. And the score was 4 to 0 in favor of Boxford.Pandemonium broke loose on the visitors’ side-lines, while the home boys were still with apprehension and disappointment. Soon the ball was back in the center of the field in Deal’s possession, and was being pushed, inevitably it appeared, toward Boxford’s goal, and the strident cries of “Touchdown, touchdown, touchdown!” rang across the campus from the throats of three hundred Deal boys. “How much time?” cried Sandy. “Three minutes to play!” called the time-keeper, and his ominous words were taken up and repeated by the referee. Tony felt as if his heart would break. Why, why, why, he wondered, did not Drayton give him a chance? And Jack Stenton, anxiously pacing the side-lines, wondered too. And then suddenly Tony heard Kid’s squeaky voice ring out, “Sixteen, twenty-two, one,”—his signal! And bracing nerves and sinews, he waited breathlessly as the left half received the ball, and, dodging the arms of the Boxford player who had broken through, thrust the smooth little pigskin into Tony’s arms. Away he dashed, with Chapin, Maclaren, and Thorndyke interfering, round right end. He thrust his hand into the shoulder of the opposing tackle, successfully dodged a heavy Boxford boy who had dived to tackle, and with Chapin by his side, went tearing down the field, which was perfectly open save for the frantic quarter-back of the Boxford team, who was dashing forward to intercept him. Thirty yards more and the game was won! but the quarter-back was almost upon him. “Keep ahead! keep ahead!” he screamed at Chapin, who seemed for the instant to be lagging behind. Twenty yards!—and he could see the Boxford quarter dashing diagonally across the field toward him, and almost feel his arms pinioning his legs. An instantaneous glance—yes, yes, he could make it if Chapin would only keep up with him and ward off that quarter as he made his lunge. Then, just as the Deal boys rose to a man, with a frantic cheer, the supreme moment was come. The line was reached, but suddenly Deering felt a jolt; the quarter’s arms were about his waist, as they went sprawling toward the goal-line; but another arm clothed in aredsweater had thrust itself next Tony’s body and given the ball a terrific shove. In an agony of horror, as he fell heavily to earth, he saw the football fall out of his arms, bound to the ground in front of them, and Chapin and the Boxford quarter lunge together, as they all went down in the mêlée. But the Boxford boy was on the ball and had scored a touchback!There was a shrill whistle, and the crowd of players were about them, the Deal boys uttering harsh cries of anger and disappointment; the Boxford boys cheering in delirious joy, and above it all a hoarse voice screaming “Time! time!” Tony pulled himself together. “What’s that?” he exclaimed in bewildered fashion. “Deal this way,” yelled Sandy Maclaren; and then to him in a contemptuous aside, “The game’s over, you fool; get up and cheer.”Suddenly he realized the whole situation, realized much more than any one else did at that strenuous moment, for he remembered the red-clothed arm that was responsible for the catastrophe of his losing theball, and he gave a long look full into Chapin’s face, but held his tongue. With a sudden overwhelming bitterness he realized that Chapin had had his revenge.As soon as the cheer was over he ran across the field toward the Gymnasium, passing Jack Stenton on the way, who gave him a glance of unmitigated disgust. “Couldn’t you have kept from fumbling for one second when the game was in your hands?” he hissed at him, forgetting himself in his bitter disappointment. Tony bent his head and ran on—not back to the lockers, but to his own room in Standerland, where he locked himself in. He refused to open even to Jimmie Lawrence, who came knocking there presently, loyal despite his grief, anxious only to commiserate his friend, whom he knew was suffering more keenly than any of the rest of them.

CHAPTER III“PAX”It is not to be supposed that we share the fright of the four hazers. Tony of course was not drowned, nor indeed at any time had he been in danger. He had not lived on a Mississippi bayou for the greater part of his life in vain. He was an excellent swimmer, and he had the knack to an unusual degree of swimming under water a long distance.When Chapin had first advanced upon him, he had intended to fight, but he realized at once that such a course would be foolish, for he would inevitably be conquered, and forced in the long run to go through the “stunts” even in a more unpleasant fashion than if he submitted at once. He had, however, no intention of submitting so long as he saw any possibility of a way out of the situation. Suddenly it occurred to him that by jumping into the creek and swimming for some distance under water, he might get a start in the way of escape that it would be difficult for his pursuers to make up. In this way the hazing might be avoided for the night at least, and on the morrow he could take counsel as to the future with some of his new-found allies.No sooner did he think of this stratagem than he acted upon it. As we have seen, it proved even moresuccessful than he had expected or hoped. The creek was quite deep enough for him to swim a considerable distance beneath the surface. He headed up stream, and kept under water to the limit of his endurance. Then, instead of coming to the surface in the splashing, sputtering fashion of the amateur, he came so far up as to thrust only his face above the waters for breath. So careful were his movements that the anxious watchers did not detect him even at this moment. A second time he went below, swimming beneath the surface for some yards, until he emerged again, this time within a short distance of the bridge. A few strokes brought him to this hiding-place, and he had scarcely ensconced himself there, clinging to one of the heavy wooden supports, when he heard Chapin and Marsh rushing across the planks above his head. He could tell by their tones of alarm, as they talked farther down the bank, that they thought he had drowned. He heard one of them jump into the creek and splash vainly about for some moments, and at last he heard two of them depart, and saw the shadowy outlines of the other two, as they returned disconsolate to wait by the rocks.In about five minutes Tony crawled out from his hiding-place beneath the bridge. He was shivering with the cold, but otherwise not the worse for his long immersion. He ran softly along the dune road, about a hundred yards or so behind Carroll and Marsh on their way to the school. He followed them at a safe distance across the meadows and the campus, and watched them as they rang the bell ofthe Head Master’s house. Then he hurried off to his own room in Standerland, slipped off his wet clothes, and got into bed. A little alarm as to his safety on the part of his would-be tormentors, he thought, would be a just bit of revenge, particularly against the supercilious Carroll.While Deering lay comfortably in bed, rapidly recovering in body and spirit, the two conspirators had a mournful few minutes as they explained matters to Doctor Forester, who had thrust his head and his pyjama’d shoulders out of an upper window.The Head Master listened to their frightened explanations. “Very well,” he said at length, “I will dress at once. In the meantime, one of you go quickly over to Standerland and see if by any chance he has returned there. It is possible that there has been a serious accident, but I think it much more likely that he has simply outwitted you. I trust that is the case. Report to me immediately.” And with that the Doctor closed his window sash with a bang.With his heart in his mouth Carroll ran across the quadrangles to Standerland House, resolving with more passion than he customarily allowed himself that the Head had shown himself a brute. He felt his way along the dark corridor, still cautious, although convinced that it was but a matter of moments when the whole school must be alarmed. He always recalled that walk upstairs as one of the most disagreeable quarters of an hour of his life. At last he found his door, entered his study, and breathed a sigh of relief as he switched on the light. Then hecautiously opened the door into Tony’s bedroom, and gave a frightful start as he saw the boy sitting up in bed. But Carroll was not one to betray more than momentary surprise. He gave Tony a long curious look, sufficiently assured after the first glance that he was not a ghost. “So, my Socrates,” he said, “you are back?”“It would seem so,” answered Tony dryly, and as the older boy thought, impertinently.“One wondered, you know,” Carroll remarked quietly, as he turned off the light and left the room.In five minutes he was back at the Head Master’s house. “Deering is in bed, sir,” he reported to the non-committal head at the upper window.“Good; I thought so. Do you go now after your companions on the beach. Return at once; get back into bed as quietly as you got out of it, and the four of you report to me to-morrow morning after prayers. I fancy that whether or not you become the laughing stock of the school will depend entirely upon yourselves. Good-night!”“Good-night, sir.”Carroll had lost but a trifle of his suavity during this nocturnal adventure. He hurried off now to the beach, and explained the situation to Thorndyke and Chapin, who were so rejoiced to learn that they had not been the cause of an involuntary suicide that they forgot to be annoyed with Tony for outwitting them. It was a cold and dejected trio of boys that stowed away the remains of the unenjoyed feast, and then betook themselves up the hill, crept silently into their dormitories, and went to bed.On the morrow they were excused from first study and reported to the Head Master. To their surprise Doctor Forester had very little to say to them. “I had intended to give you a lecture,” he said, looking up from his writing and without laying down his pen, “and probably a severe punishment, but I fancy you have learned a lesson.... You can see, at least, to what the hazing of a high-spirited boy might lead.... I understand your ideas about hazing. I do not share them. I believe that you will not disappoint me when I say that I expect the practice to stop from this day.”“Quite so, sir,” said Thorndyke.“And that is all,” added the Doctor, giving them a nod of dismissal.“Phew!” exclaimed Chapin, as they entered the corridor, “that’s sliding out easy.”“Rather,” answered Thorndyke, “unless we have the whole school howling at us when the kid squeals.”“Which he’s sure to do,” suggested Marsh.Carroll withered them with a glance. “I rather fancy not,” he drawled. “He’s a southerner and a gentleman.”“Well, let’s hope not,” interposed Thorndyke.... “There, don’t get huffy, Harry, you can’t help coming from Chicago.”“Who wants to help it, you big cow?” cried Marsh, giving his chum Thorndyke a good-natured push against the wall. “But if I thought, as Carroll does, that there were not any gentlemen north of Mason and Dixon’s line, I wouldn’t come to a northern school.”“Rot!” vouchsafed Carroll. “Let’s whoop her upfor Gumshoe, and avoid any daffy questions about being quizzled by the Head.”********Tony found it difficult the next day not to take Jimmie Lawrence or Kit Wilson into his confidence, and tell them of his adventure of the night before. But he conquered the temptation, for he was singularly incapable of enjoying himself at the expense of any one’s else discomfiture. Tony was not without his faults, as we shall see, but he genuinely disliked to make other people uncomfortable. Perhaps this was an inheritance from a long line of ancestors who had had rather nice ideas about what constitutes a gentleman. At any rate, he was born that way, and did not deserve any special credit for it. He realized that if he told his story he might easily make his three captors the butts of the school, but that was not a form of revenge that appealed to him. Accordingly he held his peace, and if it had depended on him the story never would have been told. But we may say in passing, that eventually Carroll told the tale himself: it entered into the body of Deal tradition, and is frequently told by old Deal boys when hazing is a subject of conversation.Tony felt almost familiar with the schoolroom as he entered after prayers the next morning. A score of faces were now known to him, and so many had seemed friendly as he looked into them, that the homesick feeling and the alarm of the night before rapidly passed away. Occasionally he noticed Mr. Morris’s glance resting upon him, as he sat athis books during the day, in a particularly interested and friendly way. There was something in Morris’s face—an attractiveness, perhaps one would call it, for he was not precisely handsome—a winningness in the directness of his glance, that more than once had won boys at almost first sight. Morris had the genius of inspiring enthusiasms, and he was to inspire one in Tony. The master was soon to hear from Carroll the inwardness of Tony’s exploits, and marvel with him at the boy’s “whiteness” in not talking. Mr. Morris was the occasional recipient of the intimate confidences of the supercilious Virginian, for even Carroll had moments of weakness when he felt the need of unburdening himself and receiving sympathy—moments, as he would have said, when he was not himself.As the day wore on Tony was inclined to forget his unpleasant adventure of the night before. The afternoon found him again on the football field, absorbed in learning the game, and winning encomiums in the eyes of Kit, who until Thanksgiving would have few thoughts aside from football. Kit was captain of his form eleven, and his interest in its success was equaled only by the readiness with which he would sacrifice his best players to the school team or even to the scrub if they were needed. He was delighted with Deering’s advent, as he had felt he was weak in ends, and Tony’s fleetness promised much in that direction.The likelihood of his securing a position on his form team gave Deering a prestige that stood him in good stead as a new boy; and as he was lively,good-natured and appreciative, it seemed that on the whole he would have an agreeable time.There was, however, a rift in the lute—which Tony detected the second day of his school life. As he would pass Chapin in the Schoolhouse corridors or on the campus, he could see by the expression on his face that he had taken the result of their adventures of the night before in bad part. They exchanged no words on the subject, but Chapin’s behavior was in such contrast to that of Thorndyke and Marsh, or even of Carroll, all of whom had smiled good-naturedly when they had met him, that he put it down that in Chapin he had made an enemy. At the time this troubled him very little. He wondered of course if he should be hazed again, but surmised correctly that if he were it would not be by the same crowd.The spirit with which he went into things, his success on the form team, and the powerful friends that he had made in Wilson and Lawrence, the leaders of the Third, soon secured him an immunity from hazing in any form. The Sixth frowned on the custom, so that none but adventurous spirits were apt to attempt it.Tony was tired out that night, and as soon as he was dismissed from the schoolroom at nine o’clock, he ran over to Standerland and got into bed, scarcely noticing Carroll, who had the privilege of working in their common study. Hardly, however, was he in bed, than the door was opened, his light switched on, and again Carroll appeared, but this time there was a friendly grin on his face, and a box of biscuit and a jar of jam tucked under his arm.“Don’t jump, my philosopher!” he exclaimed, “I am alone and unarmed.” Then he advanced to the bed, and held out his hand. “Shall we make it ‘pax’?”“With all my heart,” laughed Tony, and gave Carroll’s hand a friendly shake.“Suppose then we smoke a pipe of peace,” and Carroll extracted from the recesses of his pocket two brierwood pipes.“Hang it!” said Tony, “I don’t smoke, you know. Aren’t you afraid of getting caught?”“Oh, yes, somewhat,” answered Carroll, as he nonchalantly lighted a match. “But what will you have? School bores me to extinction. I find myself within two days craving nefarious excitement. You are fortunate to possess a calmer temperament. Here, help yourself to the jam and biscuit.”“You seem calm enough,” commented Tony.“I assume that, little one, for amusement, I am in reality excitable to a degree. Now take that incident last night—”“Oh, let’s drop that,” said Tony.“On the contrary, I should like to discuss it. I was rather a beast to go in for it, you know, when you had been, as it were, put in my tender care. It was the fun of doing something that one knew would get one into trouble if one were caught. You behaved in a singular fashion, I must confess, and lamentably upset our little calculations. Somehow, after blowing the business to the Head the joy of the affair was gone. I felt like a sick cat when I crawled into bed at oneA. M.”“What happened?” asked Tony.Carroll took a deep pull at his pipe, and blew the smoke out of the window. “Old Hawk laughed at us, and sent us to bed as though we were First Formers. Say, it was rather decent of you, you know, not to peach to the fellows.”“How do you know I didn’t?”“Well, we’ve escaped the jolly horsing we’d have got if you had, that’s all.... Do you know, I approve of that,—well, to a degree. Confound it! there’s curfew. Lie still, I’ll souse the light. I guess we’re safe enough. Bill saw us both in, and he isn’t one to nose about after lights unless there’s a beastly noise. Bill is such a gentleman that one hates to take advantage of his considerateness,—like this!” And he blew a puff of smoke into Tony’s face.“Why do you do it then?”Carroll got up and turned out the light; then resumed his seat on Tony’s bed.“Why do I? Hang it, Deering, I sometimes wonder why I do a number of things. I’ve a great notion to chuck it.”Tony had the good sense to make no reply to this remark, but to munch instead with rather unctious enjoyment on his biscuit and jam. Carroll seemed to meditate for the moment in the dark, then knocked his ashes out on the window-sill, and leaned over, feeling for the jar. “Where the deuce is the biscuit? That jam is the real article, you know. There is a great gulf between the jam I use and what one gets in the refectory. Would that in that gulf we might souse the housekeeper, eh?”And so they talked the shop and jargon, the boyish confidences, and experiences, and plans, that have been the theme of nocturnal talks ever since schools were invented. It was quite late before Carroll returned to his bedroom, and Tony immediately dropped to sleep, feeling that after all he had misjudged him upon first appearances. His next conscious thought was as he leaped to his feet in answer to the strident tones of the rising bell.

“PAX”

It is not to be supposed that we share the fright of the four hazers. Tony of course was not drowned, nor indeed at any time had he been in danger. He had not lived on a Mississippi bayou for the greater part of his life in vain. He was an excellent swimmer, and he had the knack to an unusual degree of swimming under water a long distance.

When Chapin had first advanced upon him, he had intended to fight, but he realized at once that such a course would be foolish, for he would inevitably be conquered, and forced in the long run to go through the “stunts” even in a more unpleasant fashion than if he submitted at once. He had, however, no intention of submitting so long as he saw any possibility of a way out of the situation. Suddenly it occurred to him that by jumping into the creek and swimming for some distance under water, he might get a start in the way of escape that it would be difficult for his pursuers to make up. In this way the hazing might be avoided for the night at least, and on the morrow he could take counsel as to the future with some of his new-found allies.

No sooner did he think of this stratagem than he acted upon it. As we have seen, it proved even moresuccessful than he had expected or hoped. The creek was quite deep enough for him to swim a considerable distance beneath the surface. He headed up stream, and kept under water to the limit of his endurance. Then, instead of coming to the surface in the splashing, sputtering fashion of the amateur, he came so far up as to thrust only his face above the waters for breath. So careful were his movements that the anxious watchers did not detect him even at this moment. A second time he went below, swimming beneath the surface for some yards, until he emerged again, this time within a short distance of the bridge. A few strokes brought him to this hiding-place, and he had scarcely ensconced himself there, clinging to one of the heavy wooden supports, when he heard Chapin and Marsh rushing across the planks above his head. He could tell by their tones of alarm, as they talked farther down the bank, that they thought he had drowned. He heard one of them jump into the creek and splash vainly about for some moments, and at last he heard two of them depart, and saw the shadowy outlines of the other two, as they returned disconsolate to wait by the rocks.

In about five minutes Tony crawled out from his hiding-place beneath the bridge. He was shivering with the cold, but otherwise not the worse for his long immersion. He ran softly along the dune road, about a hundred yards or so behind Carroll and Marsh on their way to the school. He followed them at a safe distance across the meadows and the campus, and watched them as they rang the bell ofthe Head Master’s house. Then he hurried off to his own room in Standerland, slipped off his wet clothes, and got into bed. A little alarm as to his safety on the part of his would-be tormentors, he thought, would be a just bit of revenge, particularly against the supercilious Carroll.

While Deering lay comfortably in bed, rapidly recovering in body and spirit, the two conspirators had a mournful few minutes as they explained matters to Doctor Forester, who had thrust his head and his pyjama’d shoulders out of an upper window.

The Head Master listened to their frightened explanations. “Very well,” he said at length, “I will dress at once. In the meantime, one of you go quickly over to Standerland and see if by any chance he has returned there. It is possible that there has been a serious accident, but I think it much more likely that he has simply outwitted you. I trust that is the case. Report to me immediately.” And with that the Doctor closed his window sash with a bang.

With his heart in his mouth Carroll ran across the quadrangles to Standerland House, resolving with more passion than he customarily allowed himself that the Head had shown himself a brute. He felt his way along the dark corridor, still cautious, although convinced that it was but a matter of moments when the whole school must be alarmed. He always recalled that walk upstairs as one of the most disagreeable quarters of an hour of his life. At last he found his door, entered his study, and breathed a sigh of relief as he switched on the light. Then hecautiously opened the door into Tony’s bedroom, and gave a frightful start as he saw the boy sitting up in bed. But Carroll was not one to betray more than momentary surprise. He gave Tony a long curious look, sufficiently assured after the first glance that he was not a ghost. “So, my Socrates,” he said, “you are back?”

“It would seem so,” answered Tony dryly, and as the older boy thought, impertinently.

“One wondered, you know,” Carroll remarked quietly, as he turned off the light and left the room.

In five minutes he was back at the Head Master’s house. “Deering is in bed, sir,” he reported to the non-committal head at the upper window.

“Good; I thought so. Do you go now after your companions on the beach. Return at once; get back into bed as quietly as you got out of it, and the four of you report to me to-morrow morning after prayers. I fancy that whether or not you become the laughing stock of the school will depend entirely upon yourselves. Good-night!”

“Good-night, sir.”

Carroll had lost but a trifle of his suavity during this nocturnal adventure. He hurried off now to the beach, and explained the situation to Thorndyke and Chapin, who were so rejoiced to learn that they had not been the cause of an involuntary suicide that they forgot to be annoyed with Tony for outwitting them. It was a cold and dejected trio of boys that stowed away the remains of the unenjoyed feast, and then betook themselves up the hill, crept silently into their dormitories, and went to bed.

On the morrow they were excused from first study and reported to the Head Master. To their surprise Doctor Forester had very little to say to them. “I had intended to give you a lecture,” he said, looking up from his writing and without laying down his pen, “and probably a severe punishment, but I fancy you have learned a lesson.... You can see, at least, to what the hazing of a high-spirited boy might lead.... I understand your ideas about hazing. I do not share them. I believe that you will not disappoint me when I say that I expect the practice to stop from this day.”

“Quite so, sir,” said Thorndyke.

“And that is all,” added the Doctor, giving them a nod of dismissal.

“Phew!” exclaimed Chapin, as they entered the corridor, “that’s sliding out easy.”

“Rather,” answered Thorndyke, “unless we have the whole school howling at us when the kid squeals.”

“Which he’s sure to do,” suggested Marsh.

Carroll withered them with a glance. “I rather fancy not,” he drawled. “He’s a southerner and a gentleman.”

“Well, let’s hope not,” interposed Thorndyke.... “There, don’t get huffy, Harry, you can’t help coming from Chicago.”

“Who wants to help it, you big cow?” cried Marsh, giving his chum Thorndyke a good-natured push against the wall. “But if I thought, as Carroll does, that there were not any gentlemen north of Mason and Dixon’s line, I wouldn’t come to a northern school.”

“Rot!” vouchsafed Carroll. “Let’s whoop her upfor Gumshoe, and avoid any daffy questions about being quizzled by the Head.”

********

Tony found it difficult the next day not to take Jimmie Lawrence or Kit Wilson into his confidence, and tell them of his adventure of the night before. But he conquered the temptation, for he was singularly incapable of enjoying himself at the expense of any one’s else discomfiture. Tony was not without his faults, as we shall see, but he genuinely disliked to make other people uncomfortable. Perhaps this was an inheritance from a long line of ancestors who had had rather nice ideas about what constitutes a gentleman. At any rate, he was born that way, and did not deserve any special credit for it. He realized that if he told his story he might easily make his three captors the butts of the school, but that was not a form of revenge that appealed to him. Accordingly he held his peace, and if it had depended on him the story never would have been told. But we may say in passing, that eventually Carroll told the tale himself: it entered into the body of Deal tradition, and is frequently told by old Deal boys when hazing is a subject of conversation.

Tony felt almost familiar with the schoolroom as he entered after prayers the next morning. A score of faces were now known to him, and so many had seemed friendly as he looked into them, that the homesick feeling and the alarm of the night before rapidly passed away. Occasionally he noticed Mr. Morris’s glance resting upon him, as he sat athis books during the day, in a particularly interested and friendly way. There was something in Morris’s face—an attractiveness, perhaps one would call it, for he was not precisely handsome—a winningness in the directness of his glance, that more than once had won boys at almost first sight. Morris had the genius of inspiring enthusiasms, and he was to inspire one in Tony. The master was soon to hear from Carroll the inwardness of Tony’s exploits, and marvel with him at the boy’s “whiteness” in not talking. Mr. Morris was the occasional recipient of the intimate confidences of the supercilious Virginian, for even Carroll had moments of weakness when he felt the need of unburdening himself and receiving sympathy—moments, as he would have said, when he was not himself.

As the day wore on Tony was inclined to forget his unpleasant adventure of the night before. The afternoon found him again on the football field, absorbed in learning the game, and winning encomiums in the eyes of Kit, who until Thanksgiving would have few thoughts aside from football. Kit was captain of his form eleven, and his interest in its success was equaled only by the readiness with which he would sacrifice his best players to the school team or even to the scrub if they were needed. He was delighted with Deering’s advent, as he had felt he was weak in ends, and Tony’s fleetness promised much in that direction.

The likelihood of his securing a position on his form team gave Deering a prestige that stood him in good stead as a new boy; and as he was lively,good-natured and appreciative, it seemed that on the whole he would have an agreeable time.

There was, however, a rift in the lute—which Tony detected the second day of his school life. As he would pass Chapin in the Schoolhouse corridors or on the campus, he could see by the expression on his face that he had taken the result of their adventures of the night before in bad part. They exchanged no words on the subject, but Chapin’s behavior was in such contrast to that of Thorndyke and Marsh, or even of Carroll, all of whom had smiled good-naturedly when they had met him, that he put it down that in Chapin he had made an enemy. At the time this troubled him very little. He wondered of course if he should be hazed again, but surmised correctly that if he were it would not be by the same crowd.

The spirit with which he went into things, his success on the form team, and the powerful friends that he had made in Wilson and Lawrence, the leaders of the Third, soon secured him an immunity from hazing in any form. The Sixth frowned on the custom, so that none but adventurous spirits were apt to attempt it.

Tony was tired out that night, and as soon as he was dismissed from the schoolroom at nine o’clock, he ran over to Standerland and got into bed, scarcely noticing Carroll, who had the privilege of working in their common study. Hardly, however, was he in bed, than the door was opened, his light switched on, and again Carroll appeared, but this time there was a friendly grin on his face, and a box of biscuit and a jar of jam tucked under his arm.

“Don’t jump, my philosopher!” he exclaimed, “I am alone and unarmed.” Then he advanced to the bed, and held out his hand. “Shall we make it ‘pax’?”

“With all my heart,” laughed Tony, and gave Carroll’s hand a friendly shake.

“Suppose then we smoke a pipe of peace,” and Carroll extracted from the recesses of his pocket two brierwood pipes.

“Hang it!” said Tony, “I don’t smoke, you know. Aren’t you afraid of getting caught?”

“Oh, yes, somewhat,” answered Carroll, as he nonchalantly lighted a match. “But what will you have? School bores me to extinction. I find myself within two days craving nefarious excitement. You are fortunate to possess a calmer temperament. Here, help yourself to the jam and biscuit.”

“You seem calm enough,” commented Tony.

“I assume that, little one, for amusement, I am in reality excitable to a degree. Now take that incident last night—”

“Oh, let’s drop that,” said Tony.

“On the contrary, I should like to discuss it. I was rather a beast to go in for it, you know, when you had been, as it were, put in my tender care. It was the fun of doing something that one knew would get one into trouble if one were caught. You behaved in a singular fashion, I must confess, and lamentably upset our little calculations. Somehow, after blowing the business to the Head the joy of the affair was gone. I felt like a sick cat when I crawled into bed at oneA. M.”

“What happened?” asked Tony.

Carroll took a deep pull at his pipe, and blew the smoke out of the window. “Old Hawk laughed at us, and sent us to bed as though we were First Formers. Say, it was rather decent of you, you know, not to peach to the fellows.”

“How do you know I didn’t?”

“Well, we’ve escaped the jolly horsing we’d have got if you had, that’s all.... Do you know, I approve of that,—well, to a degree. Confound it! there’s curfew. Lie still, I’ll souse the light. I guess we’re safe enough. Bill saw us both in, and he isn’t one to nose about after lights unless there’s a beastly noise. Bill is such a gentleman that one hates to take advantage of his considerateness,—like this!” And he blew a puff of smoke into Tony’s face.

“Why do you do it then?”

Carroll got up and turned out the light; then resumed his seat on Tony’s bed.

“Why do I? Hang it, Deering, I sometimes wonder why I do a number of things. I’ve a great notion to chuck it.”

Tony had the good sense to make no reply to this remark, but to munch instead with rather unctious enjoyment on his biscuit and jam. Carroll seemed to meditate for the moment in the dark, then knocked his ashes out on the window-sill, and leaned over, feeling for the jar. “Where the deuce is the biscuit? That jam is the real article, you know. There is a great gulf between the jam I use and what one gets in the refectory. Would that in that gulf we might souse the housekeeper, eh?”

And so they talked the shop and jargon, the boyish confidences, and experiences, and plans, that have been the theme of nocturnal talks ever since schools were invented. It was quite late before Carroll returned to his bedroom, and Tony immediately dropped to sleep, feeling that after all he had misjudged him upon first appearances. His next conscious thought was as he leaped to his feet in answer to the strident tones of the rising bell.

CHAPTER IVMICHAELMAS TERMThis late talk with Carroll did more toward putting Tony at his ease in the school than perhaps anything that happened to him. From that time on he became very friendly with his room-mate—all the better friends doubtless because they always maintained toward each other a certain reserve, due rather to Carroll’s involuntary elaborateness of manner than to any deliberate effort on their part. All the better also was it that real as was their mutual regard for each other neither had that enthusiastic affection that school boys so frequently experience, and of which Tony was already aware in another direction. For just such a friendship quickly developed between him and Jimmie Lawrence.He has missed one of the purest joys of life who has not known the delights of an enthusiastic boyish friendship. It has its sweetnesses, its fears and scruples, as has every other love; but there is a cloudless carelessness about its happy days as about no other period of life. For Tony, in that first Indian summer at Deal to wander off from the common fields with Jimmie Lawrence, into unfamiliar haunts, into the enchanted region of Lovel’s Woods, or along the rocky kelp-strewn shores of the Strathsey River or the tawny beaches of the Neck, was a joy pure and unalloyed.Among others Carroll watched the development of this friendship with interest. Carroll was not the sort to give his affection quickly in such whole-hearted fashion, though he cared deeply enough about things, he thought. He neither approved nor disapproved of his room-mate’s devotion to Jimmie, certainly was not jealous of it. If such things must be—he had a way of smiling with his assumed air of cynicism when friendship was mentioned—why he supposed Jimmie Lawrence was as worthy of Tony’s devotion as the next boy. Carroll never spoke of this friendship to Tony, but tactfully began to welcome Jimmie as a visitor to their rooms during that fall term. To his own form-mates he referred to his study as “the kindergarten.” He did, however, speak unusually frankly to Tony of another friendship which that youth appeared to have made. They had wandered toward the beach one evening. Football practice was just over; Tony had had his bath and was glowing a beautiful pink and white in the soft air of the Indian summer twilight.“Do you know,” said Carroll, flecking at the pebbles in the sands, as they stopped at the creek, “that you have made a great hit with our beloved Bill?”Tony laughed. “Bill’s made a great hit with me, I may say. But doubtless that’s plain enough.”“Oh, perfectly,” answered Carroll who was used to boys liking Mr. Morris, “but it has never been evident before that Bill has particularly cared for one of us rather than for another; he has been extraordinarily decent to everyone with whom he has to do,just as Gumshoe has been extraordinarily odious. For myself, I have always disliked intensely the attitude that most school masters think it expedient to assume—to wit, a sort of official consciousness of a universalin loco parentis, a grim determination to make people think every boy is liked just in the same way, which we know is impossible, and as undesirable as it is unreal. Witness, Gumshoe really makes me grateful to him, despite his native hideousness, because he never addresses me without a sarcastic snarl or an odious grin as though I were amusing him. One understands that amusement.”“Oh, quite,” said Tony, absently.Reggie did not like these little interjections in his monologue. “Don’t assume to be paying attention,” he commented now. “I know of course that you are not until I get back to you. Don’t think it necessary to assent. I am accustomed to talking without being listened to.”“Oh, dry up, Reggie, go on with Bill—what about him?”“Ah, I thought our curiosity had been aroused. This, little one; he had succeeded better than most people in liking a good many fellows, with the result of course that the fellows really like him. But, for you, his liking is more patent than usual. I congratulate you—not to say, I envy you.”“Nonsense,” began Tony.“Cultivate him, my boy.”“Oh, I mean to do that,” Deering answered. “Tell me, do you like Mr. Morris, Reggie; you’re such a—”“I, oh I adore him,—in my way; but even so muchis between you and me. He is a demi-god, the superman. As for me, I amuse him, interest him, baffle him a little, I hope; but he will never be fond of me. It will be a relief to Bill when I get out of his house.”“Don’t you think it’s just that he’s never been sure whether or not he could trust you?” asked Tony.Carroll for once started. “Trust me? Good heavens, Deering, I imagine the man takes me for a gentleman.”“Oh, of course, that—I meant rather in other ways; if he counts on you to help out....”“Oh!” Carroll exclaimed, with a tone of relief, “I dare say not.... I dare say not....” And for a while he seemed to think rather seriously. Tony wondered to himself how he had happened to stumble on what doubtless was a sore spot with his room-mate in his relation to the house-master. As for Carroll’s talk about Mr. Morris’s good opinion, Tony only took that half seriously. He hoped it was true, of course. Tony liked to be liked, as perhaps most people do.Those were really golden days for him, which he was always to recall with a peculiar sense of pleasure. He was consciously happier than he had ever been before, because often at home there had been certain family shadows that dimmed the day. Life went well with him that first fall term. He seemed to catch the spirit of the school almost by intuition; indeed, as he said to himself one afternoon as he stood on the terrace in front of the Old School, looking down across the sloping meadows, past the ochre-colored beach, out upon Deigr Rock and a quivering ocean,it was in his blood: it was his inheritance and tradition to be a part of and to love Deal School.He was quick and sensible enough to keep his classroom work up to the average, and though he did not distinguish himself as a scholar, he suffered very little from detention or pensums, those popular devices for the torture of the dull and the lazy. He had his long afternoons free, save for football. And football in that day, under what Tony ever felt was a wise dispensation of the Head’s, was never allowed to absorb more than an hour, except when a game was on. As it was, he always had a good hour or so of daylight in which with a congenial companion,—Jimmie, or Kit, or Carroll, often,—he could explore the surrounding country. And this for Tony soon became the most fascinating way of spending his time. Before the Michaelmas term was over he had got to know every path and by-way for five miles roundabout. To a boy who had eyes as well as wits there was a plenty to interest him in the region about Deal;—the bold and varied shore, with its rocks and beaches, its coves and caves, its points and necks, the abode of wild fowl of the sea; the rolling fertile country to the north; Lovel’s Woods; the quiet waters of Deal Great Pond; the quaint streets of the old town of Monday Port, with its rotting wharves and empty harbor.This strange old town, despite everywhere the lingering touch of the summer invasion, with its suggestion of a vanished trade, in the winter was bereft of all save its memories of a bygone order of things; and with these memories, to an imaginativeboy, the town seemed heavy. It required a special permission and a good excuse for any of the schoolboys, except the Sixth, to get the freedom of its streets. Tony was especially keen for such excuses and such freedom. His first walk there had been with Mr. Morris, who seemed to know the intimate stories of its houses, to be familiar with all its little secrets. In less conventional conversations Tony planned escapades for that direction; but as yet nothing very definite suggested itself. The penalties for being caught in Monday Port without the good excuse were considered excessive and usually not worth the risk. Mr. Morris had a glorious tale of the days when he was a schoolboy at Deal, of the actual exodus from the school by night of the whole Fifth, the boarding of a schooner that had lain dreaming in the sleepy harbor for a day or so, a thrilling sail into the open, and the overhauling of the pirate crew by the Head in a steam-launch. Those were the good old days of birching, and yes, Mr. Morris had caught it. He had smiled at the memory as if it were a pleasant one.Golden days that more and more took the aspect of holidays as midst school strain and throbbing excitement, they drew near the day of the “great game” with Boxford, the rival school across the Smoke mountains.It had seemed possible for some time that Tony might make end on the School team. Mr. Stenton, the athletic director, though he had a vigorous way of finding fault, forever threatening the boys with defeat and the benches and fines, secretly regarded Deering as a “find.” He had watched hisplay for a week or two on Kit Wilson’s Third Form team; saw that he was green but teachable, and judged that he was one of the swiftest runners that had ever come to Deal. The end of the first month found Tony a member of the School squad.To the old boys it seemed almost “fresh” that a newcomer should be able to play football so much better than they, and to be a greenhorn at that! But Jack Stenton knew his business; he was an old Kingsbridge man, and he had played on the Kingsbridge eleven in the very earliest days of American football, when it was a very different game indeed. And Stenton made up his mind that Tony eventually should make the Kingsbridge eleven. Deal boys had not been taking many places on Kingsbridge teams of recent years, which was a matter of real grief to the faithful coach. Stenton, however, was the last man in the world to give a boy a good opinion of himself, so that he pretended to hold out to Tony but the smallest hope. “You may squeeze into shape,” he would say, “but I doubt it.” And in truth he was averse to playing a new boy in a big game; so that up to the eve of the Boxford game the line-up was in doubt. Tony had a vigorous rival for his position, in Henry Marsh, one of the members of the hazing-bee of the first few nights at Deal. Marsh was quick; Tony was quicker; but Marsh had the advantage of knowing the game, and clever as Tony was proving himself, he nevertheless was a greenhorn.His promotion to the school squad did a great deal for Deering in the way of increasing his popularity. Kit Wilson no longer patronized him; on the otherhand he was rather proud of Tony’s friendship, and took a good deal of credit to himself for having discovered him. He proposed Deering for membership in the Dealonian, a semi-secret society that took a great deal of credit to itself for the smooth and successful running of the School. Membership in it was an honor, which a new boy rarely achieved. It was enough to have turned our friend’s head, but he was singularly not a self-conscious youth, and to this it was due that his quick success aroused so little jealousy. Tony had the quality of lovableness to a marked degree, which is after all a quality; it was what won him at college in later years the nickname of “Sunshine,” a famous nickname in the annals of Kingsbridge, as Kingsbridgeans know—but that’s another story.In all the unexpected happiness of the term there was for Tony nevertheless the inevitable rift in the lute. Chapin was still sulky toward him; and he could see beneath a rather elaborate courtesy, that Henry Marsh, Chapin’s particular crony, was anything but friendly. This lack of friendliness became so noticeable to Carroll that despite his intimacy with the two, he began to draw somewhat away from them. Carroll thought that they had singularly failed to appreciate Tony’s “whiteness” in saving them all from an unmerciful horsing. Even the Head Master had called their attention to that in his brief discourse to them on that unpleasant morning afterwards.Carroll met the two coming out of Thornton Hall—the refectory—one evening after supper, and joinedthem as they walked around the terrace in the moonlight.“I say, you fellows,” he began, plungingin medias res—Carroll always took the unexpected line—“why the deuce do you keep so sour on young Deering?”Chapin looked up quickly, his eyes glinting unpleasantly in the moonlight. “Hang it, Carroll!” he exclaimed, “what’s that to you? We’ve no obligation to take up with every little southern beggar that comes to school, as you seem to have.”“No, assuredly,” Carroll replied, suavely, “but it occurs to me that when a chap has behaved as uncommonly decently to us as Deering has, you might show a little—well, appreciation.”“Rot! Deering has had a swelled head ever since the night of the hazing-bee, and if Jack Stenton sticks him on the team for the Boxford game there’ll be no holding him. We will be for sending him up to Kingsbridge instanter.”“You are uttering unspeakable nonsense, my dear Arthur, and you know it. Give the lad a show; play fair. What’s the matter with you, Harry?” he added, turning to Marsh, “it is only lately that you have taken to snubbing him.”Marsh gave an uneasy laugh. “Oh, Arty and me hang together,” he said lamely.“Well, that is more than you can say for your English,” remarked Carroll, with a contemptuous smile, and turned away.Chapin followed him up, and laid an arm upon his shoulder. “Look here, Reggie,” he exclaimed, “don’t let’s bicker about this kid. I don’t like him, butwhat difference need that make between us? We have stuck pretty close these four years. Come on now, let’s slip down to the cave, hit the pipe, and talk things over.”“No, thank you,” replied Carroll briefly.“Come on, Reggie, do,” put in Marsh, “we’ve bagged a bottle of wine to-day, and we’ll bust it to-night in your honor.”“Thanks, no; seductive as your offering is, I rather fancy you may count me out of your little meetings in the future.” And with the words Carroll went on his way.The two boys looked after him a moment, until he entered the Old School, when Chapin exclaimed, with an oath, “Let him go, Harry; we’ll count him out all right; but we’ll get even with his cub.”Marsh murmured an assent, but hung back a little when Chapin renewed the proposal to visit the cave on the beach. “Don’t let us go to-night, Art; remember you’re in training.”“The deuce with training. What’s the use of banging your head against a football for a month if a greenhorn like that is to be shoved into the front row at the last moment. I’m going to have some fun nights, and you’ll see, I shall be as fit as a fiddle in the morning anyway.” And as he spoke, he drew Marsh’s arm within his, and together they started for the beach.From that day Carroll avoided them, a circumstance that did not increase their friendliness toward Tony. It had been comparatively easy at the time for Reginald to take the course he did, but as the days cameand went, he began to miss the companionship of Chapin and Marsh more than he cared to acknowledge. Although naturally there was little in common between them, for so long a time he had identified himself with them and their crowd,—attracted by their willingness to engage upon any lark however wild and their keenness to avoid school rules, a process to which his own languid existence had been secretly dedicated,—that he keenly missed the nefarious exploits their companionship afforded. To be sure he had stopped smoking, he was bracing up a bit and helping Mr. Morris out with the discipline of the house, but beyond that he craved as ardently as ever the excitement and adventure of his more careless days.At that moment he was ripe to have entered into a closer intimacy with Tony, or even with Mr. Morris. But Deering was absorbed in the life of his form, and except at night he and Carroll had no opportunity of being together, and then Tony was so tired out with football practice that by “lights” he was ready to tumble into bed. And so they fell quite out of the way of having nocturnal talks. Mr. Morris had a great liking for Carroll, despite his obvious faults, but he had long since given up the hope of knowing him better, of getting beyond Carroll’s supercilious reserve and too-elaborate courtesy. The consequence was that he detected no change now in the boy’s attitude and failed to make the advances that Carroll would have responded to so readily. For the first time Carroll became seriously dissatisfied with his life at school. He was really bored, as he had alwayspretended to be, and also lonely, which of course he did not acknowledge, even to himself. He was a little inclined to think in his heart that his half-conscious efforts at reform were not worth while. However he decided to stick it out for the year at any rate, and settled down to the monotonous routine with an air of indifference, and kept steadily away from his old companions.

MICHAELMAS TERM

This late talk with Carroll did more toward putting Tony at his ease in the school than perhaps anything that happened to him. From that time on he became very friendly with his room-mate—all the better friends doubtless because they always maintained toward each other a certain reserve, due rather to Carroll’s involuntary elaborateness of manner than to any deliberate effort on their part. All the better also was it that real as was their mutual regard for each other neither had that enthusiastic affection that school boys so frequently experience, and of which Tony was already aware in another direction. For just such a friendship quickly developed between him and Jimmie Lawrence.

He has missed one of the purest joys of life who has not known the delights of an enthusiastic boyish friendship. It has its sweetnesses, its fears and scruples, as has every other love; but there is a cloudless carelessness about its happy days as about no other period of life. For Tony, in that first Indian summer at Deal to wander off from the common fields with Jimmie Lawrence, into unfamiliar haunts, into the enchanted region of Lovel’s Woods, or along the rocky kelp-strewn shores of the Strathsey River or the tawny beaches of the Neck, was a joy pure and unalloyed.

Among others Carroll watched the development of this friendship with interest. Carroll was not the sort to give his affection quickly in such whole-hearted fashion, though he cared deeply enough about things, he thought. He neither approved nor disapproved of his room-mate’s devotion to Jimmie, certainly was not jealous of it. If such things must be—he had a way of smiling with his assumed air of cynicism when friendship was mentioned—why he supposed Jimmie Lawrence was as worthy of Tony’s devotion as the next boy. Carroll never spoke of this friendship to Tony, but tactfully began to welcome Jimmie as a visitor to their rooms during that fall term. To his own form-mates he referred to his study as “the kindergarten.” He did, however, speak unusually frankly to Tony of another friendship which that youth appeared to have made. They had wandered toward the beach one evening. Football practice was just over; Tony had had his bath and was glowing a beautiful pink and white in the soft air of the Indian summer twilight.

“Do you know,” said Carroll, flecking at the pebbles in the sands, as they stopped at the creek, “that you have made a great hit with our beloved Bill?”

Tony laughed. “Bill’s made a great hit with me, I may say. But doubtless that’s plain enough.”

“Oh, perfectly,” answered Carroll who was used to boys liking Mr. Morris, “but it has never been evident before that Bill has particularly cared for one of us rather than for another; he has been extraordinarily decent to everyone with whom he has to do,just as Gumshoe has been extraordinarily odious. For myself, I have always disliked intensely the attitude that most school masters think it expedient to assume—to wit, a sort of official consciousness of a universalin loco parentis, a grim determination to make people think every boy is liked just in the same way, which we know is impossible, and as undesirable as it is unreal. Witness, Gumshoe really makes me grateful to him, despite his native hideousness, because he never addresses me without a sarcastic snarl or an odious grin as though I were amusing him. One understands that amusement.”

“Oh, quite,” said Tony, absently.

Reggie did not like these little interjections in his monologue. “Don’t assume to be paying attention,” he commented now. “I know of course that you are not until I get back to you. Don’t think it necessary to assent. I am accustomed to talking without being listened to.”

“Oh, dry up, Reggie, go on with Bill—what about him?”

“Ah, I thought our curiosity had been aroused. This, little one; he had succeeded better than most people in liking a good many fellows, with the result of course that the fellows really like him. But, for you, his liking is more patent than usual. I congratulate you—not to say, I envy you.”

“Nonsense,” began Tony.

“Cultivate him, my boy.”

“Oh, I mean to do that,” Deering answered. “Tell me, do you like Mr. Morris, Reggie; you’re such a—”

“I, oh I adore him,—in my way; but even so muchis between you and me. He is a demi-god, the superman. As for me, I amuse him, interest him, baffle him a little, I hope; but he will never be fond of me. It will be a relief to Bill when I get out of his house.”

“Don’t you think it’s just that he’s never been sure whether or not he could trust you?” asked Tony.

Carroll for once started. “Trust me? Good heavens, Deering, I imagine the man takes me for a gentleman.”

“Oh, of course, that—I meant rather in other ways; if he counts on you to help out....”

“Oh!” Carroll exclaimed, with a tone of relief, “I dare say not.... I dare say not....” And for a while he seemed to think rather seriously. Tony wondered to himself how he had happened to stumble on what doubtless was a sore spot with his room-mate in his relation to the house-master. As for Carroll’s talk about Mr. Morris’s good opinion, Tony only took that half seriously. He hoped it was true, of course. Tony liked to be liked, as perhaps most people do.

Those were really golden days for him, which he was always to recall with a peculiar sense of pleasure. He was consciously happier than he had ever been before, because often at home there had been certain family shadows that dimmed the day. Life went well with him that first fall term. He seemed to catch the spirit of the school almost by intuition; indeed, as he said to himself one afternoon as he stood on the terrace in front of the Old School, looking down across the sloping meadows, past the ochre-colored beach, out upon Deigr Rock and a quivering ocean,it was in his blood: it was his inheritance and tradition to be a part of and to love Deal School.

He was quick and sensible enough to keep his classroom work up to the average, and though he did not distinguish himself as a scholar, he suffered very little from detention or pensums, those popular devices for the torture of the dull and the lazy. He had his long afternoons free, save for football. And football in that day, under what Tony ever felt was a wise dispensation of the Head’s, was never allowed to absorb more than an hour, except when a game was on. As it was, he always had a good hour or so of daylight in which with a congenial companion,—Jimmie, or Kit, or Carroll, often,—he could explore the surrounding country. And this for Tony soon became the most fascinating way of spending his time. Before the Michaelmas term was over he had got to know every path and by-way for five miles roundabout. To a boy who had eyes as well as wits there was a plenty to interest him in the region about Deal;—the bold and varied shore, with its rocks and beaches, its coves and caves, its points and necks, the abode of wild fowl of the sea; the rolling fertile country to the north; Lovel’s Woods; the quiet waters of Deal Great Pond; the quaint streets of the old town of Monday Port, with its rotting wharves and empty harbor.

This strange old town, despite everywhere the lingering touch of the summer invasion, with its suggestion of a vanished trade, in the winter was bereft of all save its memories of a bygone order of things; and with these memories, to an imaginativeboy, the town seemed heavy. It required a special permission and a good excuse for any of the schoolboys, except the Sixth, to get the freedom of its streets. Tony was especially keen for such excuses and such freedom. His first walk there had been with Mr. Morris, who seemed to know the intimate stories of its houses, to be familiar with all its little secrets. In less conventional conversations Tony planned escapades for that direction; but as yet nothing very definite suggested itself. The penalties for being caught in Monday Port without the good excuse were considered excessive and usually not worth the risk. Mr. Morris had a glorious tale of the days when he was a schoolboy at Deal, of the actual exodus from the school by night of the whole Fifth, the boarding of a schooner that had lain dreaming in the sleepy harbor for a day or so, a thrilling sail into the open, and the overhauling of the pirate crew by the Head in a steam-launch. Those were the good old days of birching, and yes, Mr. Morris had caught it. He had smiled at the memory as if it were a pleasant one.

Golden days that more and more took the aspect of holidays as midst school strain and throbbing excitement, they drew near the day of the “great game” with Boxford, the rival school across the Smoke mountains.

It had seemed possible for some time that Tony might make end on the School team. Mr. Stenton, the athletic director, though he had a vigorous way of finding fault, forever threatening the boys with defeat and the benches and fines, secretly regarded Deering as a “find.” He had watched hisplay for a week or two on Kit Wilson’s Third Form team; saw that he was green but teachable, and judged that he was one of the swiftest runners that had ever come to Deal. The end of the first month found Tony a member of the School squad.

To the old boys it seemed almost “fresh” that a newcomer should be able to play football so much better than they, and to be a greenhorn at that! But Jack Stenton knew his business; he was an old Kingsbridge man, and he had played on the Kingsbridge eleven in the very earliest days of American football, when it was a very different game indeed. And Stenton made up his mind that Tony eventually should make the Kingsbridge eleven. Deal boys had not been taking many places on Kingsbridge teams of recent years, which was a matter of real grief to the faithful coach. Stenton, however, was the last man in the world to give a boy a good opinion of himself, so that he pretended to hold out to Tony but the smallest hope. “You may squeeze into shape,” he would say, “but I doubt it.” And in truth he was averse to playing a new boy in a big game; so that up to the eve of the Boxford game the line-up was in doubt. Tony had a vigorous rival for his position, in Henry Marsh, one of the members of the hazing-bee of the first few nights at Deal. Marsh was quick; Tony was quicker; but Marsh had the advantage of knowing the game, and clever as Tony was proving himself, he nevertheless was a greenhorn.

His promotion to the school squad did a great deal for Deering in the way of increasing his popularity. Kit Wilson no longer patronized him; on the otherhand he was rather proud of Tony’s friendship, and took a good deal of credit to himself for having discovered him. He proposed Deering for membership in the Dealonian, a semi-secret society that took a great deal of credit to itself for the smooth and successful running of the School. Membership in it was an honor, which a new boy rarely achieved. It was enough to have turned our friend’s head, but he was singularly not a self-conscious youth, and to this it was due that his quick success aroused so little jealousy. Tony had the quality of lovableness to a marked degree, which is after all a quality; it was what won him at college in later years the nickname of “Sunshine,” a famous nickname in the annals of Kingsbridge, as Kingsbridgeans know—but that’s another story.

In all the unexpected happiness of the term there was for Tony nevertheless the inevitable rift in the lute. Chapin was still sulky toward him; and he could see beneath a rather elaborate courtesy, that Henry Marsh, Chapin’s particular crony, was anything but friendly. This lack of friendliness became so noticeable to Carroll that despite his intimacy with the two, he began to draw somewhat away from them. Carroll thought that they had singularly failed to appreciate Tony’s “whiteness” in saving them all from an unmerciful horsing. Even the Head Master had called their attention to that in his brief discourse to them on that unpleasant morning afterwards.

Carroll met the two coming out of Thornton Hall—the refectory—one evening after supper, and joinedthem as they walked around the terrace in the moonlight.

“I say, you fellows,” he began, plungingin medias res—Carroll always took the unexpected line—“why the deuce do you keep so sour on young Deering?”

Chapin looked up quickly, his eyes glinting unpleasantly in the moonlight. “Hang it, Carroll!” he exclaimed, “what’s that to you? We’ve no obligation to take up with every little southern beggar that comes to school, as you seem to have.”

“No, assuredly,” Carroll replied, suavely, “but it occurs to me that when a chap has behaved as uncommonly decently to us as Deering has, you might show a little—well, appreciation.”

“Rot! Deering has had a swelled head ever since the night of the hazing-bee, and if Jack Stenton sticks him on the team for the Boxford game there’ll be no holding him. We will be for sending him up to Kingsbridge instanter.”

“You are uttering unspeakable nonsense, my dear Arthur, and you know it. Give the lad a show; play fair. What’s the matter with you, Harry?” he added, turning to Marsh, “it is only lately that you have taken to snubbing him.”

Marsh gave an uneasy laugh. “Oh, Arty and me hang together,” he said lamely.

“Well, that is more than you can say for your English,” remarked Carroll, with a contemptuous smile, and turned away.

Chapin followed him up, and laid an arm upon his shoulder. “Look here, Reggie,” he exclaimed, “don’t let’s bicker about this kid. I don’t like him, butwhat difference need that make between us? We have stuck pretty close these four years. Come on now, let’s slip down to the cave, hit the pipe, and talk things over.”

“No, thank you,” replied Carroll briefly.

“Come on, Reggie, do,” put in Marsh, “we’ve bagged a bottle of wine to-day, and we’ll bust it to-night in your honor.”

“Thanks, no; seductive as your offering is, I rather fancy you may count me out of your little meetings in the future.” And with the words Carroll went on his way.

The two boys looked after him a moment, until he entered the Old School, when Chapin exclaimed, with an oath, “Let him go, Harry; we’ll count him out all right; but we’ll get even with his cub.”

Marsh murmured an assent, but hung back a little when Chapin renewed the proposal to visit the cave on the beach. “Don’t let us go to-night, Art; remember you’re in training.”

“The deuce with training. What’s the use of banging your head against a football for a month if a greenhorn like that is to be shoved into the front row at the last moment. I’m going to have some fun nights, and you’ll see, I shall be as fit as a fiddle in the morning anyway.” And as he spoke, he drew Marsh’s arm within his, and together they started for the beach.

From that day Carroll avoided them, a circumstance that did not increase their friendliness toward Tony. It had been comparatively easy at the time for Reginald to take the course he did, but as the days cameand went, he began to miss the companionship of Chapin and Marsh more than he cared to acknowledge. Although naturally there was little in common between them, for so long a time he had identified himself with them and their crowd,—attracted by their willingness to engage upon any lark however wild and their keenness to avoid school rules, a process to which his own languid existence had been secretly dedicated,—that he keenly missed the nefarious exploits their companionship afforded. To be sure he had stopped smoking, he was bracing up a bit and helping Mr. Morris out with the discipline of the house, but beyond that he craved as ardently as ever the excitement and adventure of his more careless days.

At that moment he was ripe to have entered into a closer intimacy with Tony, or even with Mr. Morris. But Deering was absorbed in the life of his form, and except at night he and Carroll had no opportunity of being together, and then Tony was so tired out with football practice that by “lights” he was ready to tumble into bed. And so they fell quite out of the way of having nocturnal talks. Mr. Morris had a great liking for Carroll, despite his obvious faults, but he had long since given up the hope of knowing him better, of getting beyond Carroll’s supercilious reserve and too-elaborate courtesy. The consequence was that he detected no change now in the boy’s attitude and failed to make the advances that Carroll would have responded to so readily. For the first time Carroll became seriously dissatisfied with his life at school. He was really bored, as he had alwayspretended to be, and also lonely, which of course he did not acknowledge, even to himself. He was a little inclined to think in his heart that his half-conscious efforts at reform were not worth while. However he decided to stick it out for the year at any rate, and settled down to the monotonous routine with an air of indifference, and kept steadily away from his old companions.

CHAPTER VTHE BOXFORD GAMEThe first cold snap gave way again to Indian summer with just enough northwest wind to make good football weather. The practice went on diligently. Lesser rivals came week by week to Deal and literally and metaphorically bit the dust ere the great Boxford game drew near. The school was a-quiver with excitement. The form leaders marshalled the boys onto the field in the bright clear afternoons and stimulated them to cheer until they were hoarse. Theprosandconsof winning were the principal theme of conversation during recreation times, and hours and minutes were counted as the great day came nearer and nearer.The day before the game a mass meeting was held in the Gymnasium, and the Head and Mr. Stenton and such other masters as had athletic proclivities were called upon for speeches, while the boys cheered everything enthusiastically without discrimination. Sandy Maclaren, the doughty captain of the eleven, mounted the rostrum amongst others, and delivered his sentiments in a terse series of twelve stammering words, “Boys, we’ve got to win; and that’s all I have to say,” which was greeted with an applause that more skilled orators seldom evoke. The form games were over, and the form teams had disbanded; alleffort was concentrated now upon the chief game of the year.Tony, from his place amongst the scrub players, heard it all with tingling ears and beating heart, absorbing that intangible energy—school spirit—as air into his lungs. This unexpected and vehement stirring of his emotions bewildered him. He thought he was just beginning to understand what love of school might mean. Then they sang “Here’s to good old Deal” and “There’s a wind that blows o’er the sea-girt isle” in a fashion that brought the heart to the throat and tears of exquisite happiness to the eyes. And at last Doctor Forester dismissed them with a few encouraging words that sounded very much like a blessing.Jimmie Lawrence sought Tony’s side, as the boys poured out of the Gymnasium. “Hey, Tony, ain’t it grand?” he exclaimed, as he twined his arms around his friend’s neck. “Oh, say, boy, we’vegotto win.”Tony gave a little gulp and squeezed Jimmie’s hand. “Oh, Jimmie, I never felt so great in all my life.”The night before the game they were in Jimmie’s rooms in Standerland and a crowd of Third Formers came trooping in. “No school to-night,” cried Kit Wilson, “there’s to be a P-rade around the campus at eight-thirty sharp. Tony, you lucky dog, don’t it feel good even to be a despised scrub?”Tony laughed. “Say, fellows, you don’t know how it all strikes a greenhorn like me. Why, it makes me feel bully to be alive.” And as he stood there in the center of the room, with smiling friendly faces abouthim, health and excitement glowing in his cheeks and a happy smile playing on his boyish lips, there was an unconscious feeling within them all that it was bully for him to be alive.Rush Merton, an irrepressible, black eyed, black haired youth, proposed a fresh song and started to bellow it forth, but the boys were keen for talk and promptly smothered him with sofa pillows—an assault that was resented so violently that in much less time than it takes to tell Jimmie’s attractive rooms were in that sad condition, technically known as “rough-house.” In the midst of the hubbub a stentorian voice made itself heard, “Here stop this nonsense!” And Jack Stenton, the hardy popular athletic director, came in. “Don’t make nuisances of yourselves, children. Pick up those sofa pillows, compose yourselves, and listen to words of wisdom from an older and wiser man.”“Hear, hear!” came in boisterous good-nature from a dozen throats. Rush gathered himself together from the pile of cushions, made an absurd bow, and indicated Mr. Stenton with a pompous wave of the hand. “Gentlemen, I yield the center of attention (and the center of gravity,” he addedsotto voce) “to our beloved athletic director. Mr. Athletic Director, we are all ears.”“Good! You are all Third Formers, eh?” said Stenton, with a smile, as he looked them over good-naturedly. “I fancied that I might find you congregated in this den of iniquity. Well, I have come up here to tell you fellows how much I appreciate Kit Wilson’s spirit in cheerfully giving his best formplayers to the scrub. He has set an example to the other forms that is bound to be a fine thing for the athletics of the school. And I want to tell you also that the form, this time, is going to get something out of it—an honor that I don’t think has fallen to the Third Form previous to this in the history of Deal School. After due consideration Captain Maclaren and I have decided to play Deering at left end in to-morrow’s game.”For a moment there was silence, due to the overwhelming surprise, for they had hardly dared hope that Tony would be given a chance except as a substitute; and this meant that he had won out against Marsh who had played on the team last year. Deering himself looked in helpless amazement, first at Stenton, then at his form mates. Jimmie broke the stillness at last by exclaiming in a shrill voice, “Come to my arms, my frabjous boy,” and clasped Tony wildly about the waist. Then the cheers rang forth, despite Stenton’s protest, until Mr. Morris came running out of his study to find out what the racket was.“Come, come,” Mr. Stenton cried at last, “cut this now; and you, young ‘un, get to bed and don’t celebrate any more to-night. Hello, Mr. Morris, we have decided to put Deering in the game to-morrow—hence this bedlam.”“That’s fine!” exclaimed Morris heartily, as he shook Tony’s hand. “But you boys had better get out now and join the procession; they are meeting before the Chapel.”i50AFTER DUE CONSIDERATION CAPTAIN MACLAREN AND I HAVE DECIDED TO PLAY DEERING AT LEFT END IN TO-MORROW’S GAME.At last they were gone, having wrung Tony’s hand two or three times each, and Deering and Lawrence were left alone. For a moment neither boy spoke, but stood looking at each other, their eyes glistening with friendliness that had been heightened by the excitement and the common joy. Jimmie was as unaffectedly glad as if the honor had come to him. Then Tony slipped into a chair by the window, and putting his head upon his hands stared out upon the campus, which was beginning to be covered with groups of boys, converging toward the Chapel. “I wish old Jack had let me go out and help celebrate,” he said, with a little laugh. “I can’t sleep if I do go to bed.”Jimmie sat down on the chair, and slipped his arm about Tony’s neck. “You must, dear old boy, all the same; ‘cause you’ve got to win for us.”Tony laughed, and clasping Jimmie’s hand, he looked up at him with a sudden seriousness that in after days Jimmie was to recall as having been profoundly significant. “Jim,” he said, “I know that Sandy and Larry Cummings and Chapin and the rest of ‘em can play football a thousand times better than I will ever do, but just the same there’s something that kind of tells me that I am going to have my chance to-morrow in a special way. I must do something to prove to Jack and Sandy that they aren’t making a mistake. Oh, Jim, you don’t know how I feel—awfully puffed up and absurdly small. I wish it were you.”“You’re all right, old boy; and Sandy and Jack know their business a blame sight better than we do. Now cut it for bed, and I’ll go out and help make the night hideous.”In his own rooms, where Tony went as soon asJimmie left him, he found Carroll deep in a Morris chair and the pages of a French novel. “Hello, Reggie,” he cried, “aren’t you going to p-rade?”“Not I, kiddo,” answered Carroll, indifferently. “I fancy I’ve reached that patriarchal age, in spirit if not in the flesh, when one puts away childish things. I am mildly moved, however, to go and tell Stenton and Maclaren that I approve of them, but I’ll content myself with saying that to you. It is worth while to have swift-moving pedalities, isn’t it?”“So it seems,” Tony muttered, a little disappointed by the coolness of his friend’s tone. “Well, good-night,” he added, “I am going to turn in.”Carroll had not meant to be supercilious, and for a moment after Tony left him, avoiding his glance as he had, he laid down his novel and started toward Deering’s bedroom. His hand was almost on the knob, the generous hearty words on his lips, but he hesitated, and at last turned back and took up his book. The study door was open, and at that moment Mr. Morris paused at it, evidently on his way to the campus.“Not celebrating, Reginald?” he enquired.“No, Mr. Morris,” answered Carroll, rising.A momentary wave of anger swept over Morris’s strong kindly face. “Is it that your school spirit is so slack or that your French novel is so absorbing?”Carroll bowed with an icy politeness. “I am afraid, Mr. Morris,” he said at last, with compressed lips, “that whichever explanation I gave would mean the same to you.”“I am afraid it would, Reginald,” said Mr. Morris,as he turned away, with something like a sigh. “Good-night.”“Good-night, sir.”Carroll sat for a long time without reading, listening to the shouts upon the campus. At length he picked up his novel, went into his bedroom, and undressed. Before getting into bed, he darkened his transom, lighted a small electric night-lamp, and laid a pad and pencil on the table by his bedside. For an hour or more, long after the excitement had ebbed without and the boys had got back and gone noisily to bed, long after he had heard the watchman make his stealthy midnight rounds, Carroll sat there in bed, gazing dreamily out of his window upon the moonlit sea and the misty outlines of Lovel’s Woods and at the ruby intermittent glow of Deigr Light, and now and then he jotted down a line or word upon the pad. This was what he wrote:The pure stars shine above the flowing sea,The strand is gleaming in the moon’s soft light,The south wind blows across the murky lea,The lamps of Monday glimmer in the night.The moon sags slowly in the violet west,A yellow crescent, cloud-hung all about,As though in weariness it sinks to rest,And one by one the glowing lamps go out.So flutter all the little weary soulsIn trembling dreams a moment and are still;The school is wrapped in darkness; on the shoalsThe tide turns; night enfolds the silent hill.*********The day of the game turned out bright and fair,after a dull gray morning, with ozone and freshness in the nippy air of early November. Recitations of a sort were held in the morning, though to be sure most of the masters fell into reminiscent vein and àpropos of nothing at all told their classes stories of the bygone heroes of the School—of Nifty Turner’s mighty kick and Pard’s immortal run from the enemy’s ten-yard line. Mr. Roylston alone had the ability and the temerity to hold his form down to an unrelieved discussion of the sequence of tenses inCæsarand mercilessly put Kit Wilson into detention for misconstruing an obvious Imperfect with the remark, “I guess to-day it is an Historical Present.” Kit served his detention and passed into history.The team, including Tony in a brand-new red sweater with a gorgeous black “D” across the breast, were excused from school at noon, and had dinner in the Refectory with the Boxfordians, who had coached across the hills in the morning. By two o’clock the teams were on the field, passing footballs, catching punts and kicking goals in regulation fashion.The boys poured out of the Schoolhouse after two o’clock call-over, and crowded the side lines, while the faculty and their wives and distinguished visitors from Boxford and Monday Port filled the line of wooden bleachers which had been run up the day before.Doctor Forester and the Head Master of Boxford walked up and down within the lines, repeating the same amiable courtesies and remarks about the weather and the view and the condition of the teams that they had made for years, as though this were thefirst instead of the twentieth struggle in which Deal and Boxford had been engaged. It was a specially important game, as the score in games between the two schools was a tie.The present scribe, who was not a football player, cannot undertake to describe that eventful game in technical language. The intricacies of formation and mass play were beyond his humble abilities at school, as he has no doubt they are to the majority of people who nevertheless follow the game with as keen interest as if they knew it. That is to say, it is inconceivable to him, that anything could be quite as exciting to a Deal boy or a Kingsbridge man as to see his school or college team pressing nearer and nearer the coveted goal, or to watch a fleet-footed boy dodge through a broken field, sprint as though the fate of empires hung upon his fleetness, and sprawl gloriously at last behind the enemy’s line on top of the ball. The technically curious are referred to Vol. LX, No. 2 of theDeal Literary Magazine, where they will find a more accurate account than they certainly will find in the pages of this chronicle. They will miss there, however, an incident, which impresses the scribe as having been the most important of the game.Suffice it, the ball was kicked off at three o’clock by the Boxford center, and went sailing down the field into the arms of Sandy Maclaren on the ten-yard line, and eleven blue-garbed Boxfordians went chasing after it lipity-cut. Here one described a graceful parabola as his knees encountered the hardy back of Arthur Chapin, another went flying offinvoluntarily in a reverse direction as he caught Deering’s hand in his ribs, but one, surer than the rest, dived for a tackle and laid Sandy low just as he was crossing the thirty-yard line. Cheers rang out indiscriminately from both sides of the field, until the scattered teams had run together, and, kneeling face to face, with hands clenched, faces grimly set, the muscles a-quiver, waited while Kid Drayton, Deal’s little quarter-back, gave the signals in his high shrill voice, “Forty-nine, eleven, sixteen.” Then the ball was snapped, and Chapin, the half-back, was hurled through a hole in Boxford’s line for a gain of seven yards. Once, twice, thrice, the Deal boys made their distance to the indescribable joy of their supporters. Then the Boxford team, recovering from the unexpected strength of the first onslaught, stiffened and became as a stone wall, and held Deal for three downs, so that Thorndyke, the full-back, dropped behind for a kick. The oval went spinning through the air, Tony speeding away almost under it, dodging the player who tried to intercept him, so that as the Boxford half leaned back to catch the ball, he downed him in his tracks. For the first time Tony heard theSis,Boom,Ah!of the rippling cheer ring out with his own name tacked on to the end of it.Back and forth, now tucked tight under the arm of a red or a blue sweater, now sailing luxuriously in the air, the ball was worked over the field; near Boxford’s goal, near Deal’s; or worried like a rat by a pack of terriers in the middle of the gridiron. The two teams were almost equally matched, and the first half ended without a score.“You are doing well, young ‘un,” said Stenton to Tony, as he stood in the center of the Deal team in the locker-rooms under the Gymnasium between the halves. “Give him a chance, Drayton, and send him around right end. I think it will work.”“All right, sir,” the little quarter-back squeaked. “I’ve been counting on Chapin mostly, but toward the end he seemed to be completely tuckered.”Chapin looked up from the bench where he was sitting. “You were so blame winded yourself that you could hardly give the signals,” he snarled.“Drop that kind of talk!” exclaimed Stenton. “You have been playing like a tackling dummy for the last ten minutes. If you want to lose the game for us keep that up.”“I am playing the best game I know,” Chapin answered surlily. “If you don’t like it,” he muttered, though Stenton did not hear him, “go get another of your Third Form pets. You chucked Marsh, one of your best players.”The second half opened, and each team seemed to come back fresher to the fray. With a few trifling exceptions there had been no injuries. Chapin seemed the only boy on whom the strain was telling, and Stenton correctly surmised that that was because he had not been keeping training. And as a matter of fact at a fatal moment his form told. The ball had been worked down well toward Deal’s goal line, and each time through Chapin. Suddenly the Boxford full-back dropped back for a kick: the center sent the ball spinning to him, and a second later he made a drop kick that sent the ball like a great bird sailingmajestically between the Deal goal posts. And the score was 4 to 0 in favor of Boxford.Pandemonium broke loose on the visitors’ side-lines, while the home boys were still with apprehension and disappointment. Soon the ball was back in the center of the field in Deal’s possession, and was being pushed, inevitably it appeared, toward Boxford’s goal, and the strident cries of “Touchdown, touchdown, touchdown!” rang across the campus from the throats of three hundred Deal boys. “How much time?” cried Sandy. “Three minutes to play!” called the time-keeper, and his ominous words were taken up and repeated by the referee. Tony felt as if his heart would break. Why, why, why, he wondered, did not Drayton give him a chance? And Jack Stenton, anxiously pacing the side-lines, wondered too. And then suddenly Tony heard Kid’s squeaky voice ring out, “Sixteen, twenty-two, one,”—his signal! And bracing nerves and sinews, he waited breathlessly as the left half received the ball, and, dodging the arms of the Boxford player who had broken through, thrust the smooth little pigskin into Tony’s arms. Away he dashed, with Chapin, Maclaren, and Thorndyke interfering, round right end. He thrust his hand into the shoulder of the opposing tackle, successfully dodged a heavy Boxford boy who had dived to tackle, and with Chapin by his side, went tearing down the field, which was perfectly open save for the frantic quarter-back of the Boxford team, who was dashing forward to intercept him. Thirty yards more and the game was won! but the quarter-back was almost upon him. “Keep ahead! keep ahead!” he screamed at Chapin, who seemed for the instant to be lagging behind. Twenty yards!—and he could see the Boxford quarter dashing diagonally across the field toward him, and almost feel his arms pinioning his legs. An instantaneous glance—yes, yes, he could make it if Chapin would only keep up with him and ward off that quarter as he made his lunge. Then, just as the Deal boys rose to a man, with a frantic cheer, the supreme moment was come. The line was reached, but suddenly Deering felt a jolt; the quarter’s arms were about his waist, as they went sprawling toward the goal-line; but another arm clothed in aredsweater had thrust itself next Tony’s body and given the ball a terrific shove. In an agony of horror, as he fell heavily to earth, he saw the football fall out of his arms, bound to the ground in front of them, and Chapin and the Boxford quarter lunge together, as they all went down in the mêlée. But the Boxford boy was on the ball and had scored a touchback!There was a shrill whistle, and the crowd of players were about them, the Deal boys uttering harsh cries of anger and disappointment; the Boxford boys cheering in delirious joy, and above it all a hoarse voice screaming “Time! time!” Tony pulled himself together. “What’s that?” he exclaimed in bewildered fashion. “Deal this way,” yelled Sandy Maclaren; and then to him in a contemptuous aside, “The game’s over, you fool; get up and cheer.”Suddenly he realized the whole situation, realized much more than any one else did at that strenuous moment, for he remembered the red-clothed arm that was responsible for the catastrophe of his losing theball, and he gave a long look full into Chapin’s face, but held his tongue. With a sudden overwhelming bitterness he realized that Chapin had had his revenge.As soon as the cheer was over he ran across the field toward the Gymnasium, passing Jack Stenton on the way, who gave him a glance of unmitigated disgust. “Couldn’t you have kept from fumbling for one second when the game was in your hands?” he hissed at him, forgetting himself in his bitter disappointment. Tony bent his head and ran on—not back to the lockers, but to his own room in Standerland, where he locked himself in. He refused to open even to Jimmie Lawrence, who came knocking there presently, loyal despite his grief, anxious only to commiserate his friend, whom he knew was suffering more keenly than any of the rest of them.

THE BOXFORD GAME

The first cold snap gave way again to Indian summer with just enough northwest wind to make good football weather. The practice went on diligently. Lesser rivals came week by week to Deal and literally and metaphorically bit the dust ere the great Boxford game drew near. The school was a-quiver with excitement. The form leaders marshalled the boys onto the field in the bright clear afternoons and stimulated them to cheer until they were hoarse. Theprosandconsof winning were the principal theme of conversation during recreation times, and hours and minutes were counted as the great day came nearer and nearer.

The day before the game a mass meeting was held in the Gymnasium, and the Head and Mr. Stenton and such other masters as had athletic proclivities were called upon for speeches, while the boys cheered everything enthusiastically without discrimination. Sandy Maclaren, the doughty captain of the eleven, mounted the rostrum amongst others, and delivered his sentiments in a terse series of twelve stammering words, “Boys, we’ve got to win; and that’s all I have to say,” which was greeted with an applause that more skilled orators seldom evoke. The form games were over, and the form teams had disbanded; alleffort was concentrated now upon the chief game of the year.

Tony, from his place amongst the scrub players, heard it all with tingling ears and beating heart, absorbing that intangible energy—school spirit—as air into his lungs. This unexpected and vehement stirring of his emotions bewildered him. He thought he was just beginning to understand what love of school might mean. Then they sang “Here’s to good old Deal” and “There’s a wind that blows o’er the sea-girt isle” in a fashion that brought the heart to the throat and tears of exquisite happiness to the eyes. And at last Doctor Forester dismissed them with a few encouraging words that sounded very much like a blessing.

Jimmie Lawrence sought Tony’s side, as the boys poured out of the Gymnasium. “Hey, Tony, ain’t it grand?” he exclaimed, as he twined his arms around his friend’s neck. “Oh, say, boy, we’vegotto win.”

Tony gave a little gulp and squeezed Jimmie’s hand. “Oh, Jimmie, I never felt so great in all my life.”

The night before the game they were in Jimmie’s rooms in Standerland and a crowd of Third Formers came trooping in. “No school to-night,” cried Kit Wilson, “there’s to be a P-rade around the campus at eight-thirty sharp. Tony, you lucky dog, don’t it feel good even to be a despised scrub?”

Tony laughed. “Say, fellows, you don’t know how it all strikes a greenhorn like me. Why, it makes me feel bully to be alive.” And as he stood there in the center of the room, with smiling friendly faces abouthim, health and excitement glowing in his cheeks and a happy smile playing on his boyish lips, there was an unconscious feeling within them all that it was bully for him to be alive.

Rush Merton, an irrepressible, black eyed, black haired youth, proposed a fresh song and started to bellow it forth, but the boys were keen for talk and promptly smothered him with sofa pillows—an assault that was resented so violently that in much less time than it takes to tell Jimmie’s attractive rooms were in that sad condition, technically known as “rough-house.” In the midst of the hubbub a stentorian voice made itself heard, “Here stop this nonsense!” And Jack Stenton, the hardy popular athletic director, came in. “Don’t make nuisances of yourselves, children. Pick up those sofa pillows, compose yourselves, and listen to words of wisdom from an older and wiser man.”

“Hear, hear!” came in boisterous good-nature from a dozen throats. Rush gathered himself together from the pile of cushions, made an absurd bow, and indicated Mr. Stenton with a pompous wave of the hand. “Gentlemen, I yield the center of attention (and the center of gravity,” he addedsotto voce) “to our beloved athletic director. Mr. Athletic Director, we are all ears.”

“Good! You are all Third Formers, eh?” said Stenton, with a smile, as he looked them over good-naturedly. “I fancied that I might find you congregated in this den of iniquity. Well, I have come up here to tell you fellows how much I appreciate Kit Wilson’s spirit in cheerfully giving his best formplayers to the scrub. He has set an example to the other forms that is bound to be a fine thing for the athletics of the school. And I want to tell you also that the form, this time, is going to get something out of it—an honor that I don’t think has fallen to the Third Form previous to this in the history of Deal School. After due consideration Captain Maclaren and I have decided to play Deering at left end in to-morrow’s game.”

For a moment there was silence, due to the overwhelming surprise, for they had hardly dared hope that Tony would be given a chance except as a substitute; and this meant that he had won out against Marsh who had played on the team last year. Deering himself looked in helpless amazement, first at Stenton, then at his form mates. Jimmie broke the stillness at last by exclaiming in a shrill voice, “Come to my arms, my frabjous boy,” and clasped Tony wildly about the waist. Then the cheers rang forth, despite Stenton’s protest, until Mr. Morris came running out of his study to find out what the racket was.

“Come, come,” Mr. Stenton cried at last, “cut this now; and you, young ‘un, get to bed and don’t celebrate any more to-night. Hello, Mr. Morris, we have decided to put Deering in the game to-morrow—hence this bedlam.”

“That’s fine!” exclaimed Morris heartily, as he shook Tony’s hand. “But you boys had better get out now and join the procession; they are meeting before the Chapel.”

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AFTER DUE CONSIDERATION CAPTAIN MACLAREN AND I HAVE DECIDED TO PLAY DEERING AT LEFT END IN TO-MORROW’S GAME.

AFTER DUE CONSIDERATION CAPTAIN MACLAREN AND I HAVE DECIDED TO PLAY DEERING AT LEFT END IN TO-MORROW’S GAME.

AFTER DUE CONSIDERATION CAPTAIN MACLAREN AND I HAVE DECIDED TO PLAY DEERING AT LEFT END IN TO-MORROW’S GAME.

At last they were gone, having wrung Tony’s hand two or three times each, and Deering and Lawrence were left alone. For a moment neither boy spoke, but stood looking at each other, their eyes glistening with friendliness that had been heightened by the excitement and the common joy. Jimmie was as unaffectedly glad as if the honor had come to him. Then Tony slipped into a chair by the window, and putting his head upon his hands stared out upon the campus, which was beginning to be covered with groups of boys, converging toward the Chapel. “I wish old Jack had let me go out and help celebrate,” he said, with a little laugh. “I can’t sleep if I do go to bed.”

Jimmie sat down on the chair, and slipped his arm about Tony’s neck. “You must, dear old boy, all the same; ‘cause you’ve got to win for us.”

Tony laughed, and clasping Jimmie’s hand, he looked up at him with a sudden seriousness that in after days Jimmie was to recall as having been profoundly significant. “Jim,” he said, “I know that Sandy and Larry Cummings and Chapin and the rest of ‘em can play football a thousand times better than I will ever do, but just the same there’s something that kind of tells me that I am going to have my chance to-morrow in a special way. I must do something to prove to Jack and Sandy that they aren’t making a mistake. Oh, Jim, you don’t know how I feel—awfully puffed up and absurdly small. I wish it were you.”

“You’re all right, old boy; and Sandy and Jack know their business a blame sight better than we do. Now cut it for bed, and I’ll go out and help make the night hideous.”

In his own rooms, where Tony went as soon asJimmie left him, he found Carroll deep in a Morris chair and the pages of a French novel. “Hello, Reggie,” he cried, “aren’t you going to p-rade?”

“Not I, kiddo,” answered Carroll, indifferently. “I fancy I’ve reached that patriarchal age, in spirit if not in the flesh, when one puts away childish things. I am mildly moved, however, to go and tell Stenton and Maclaren that I approve of them, but I’ll content myself with saying that to you. It is worth while to have swift-moving pedalities, isn’t it?”

“So it seems,” Tony muttered, a little disappointed by the coolness of his friend’s tone. “Well, good-night,” he added, “I am going to turn in.”

Carroll had not meant to be supercilious, and for a moment after Tony left him, avoiding his glance as he had, he laid down his novel and started toward Deering’s bedroom. His hand was almost on the knob, the generous hearty words on his lips, but he hesitated, and at last turned back and took up his book. The study door was open, and at that moment Mr. Morris paused at it, evidently on his way to the campus.

“Not celebrating, Reginald?” he enquired.

“No, Mr. Morris,” answered Carroll, rising.

A momentary wave of anger swept over Morris’s strong kindly face. “Is it that your school spirit is so slack or that your French novel is so absorbing?”

Carroll bowed with an icy politeness. “I am afraid, Mr. Morris,” he said at last, with compressed lips, “that whichever explanation I gave would mean the same to you.”

“I am afraid it would, Reginald,” said Mr. Morris,as he turned away, with something like a sigh. “Good-night.”

“Good-night, sir.”

Carroll sat for a long time without reading, listening to the shouts upon the campus. At length he picked up his novel, went into his bedroom, and undressed. Before getting into bed, he darkened his transom, lighted a small electric night-lamp, and laid a pad and pencil on the table by his bedside. For an hour or more, long after the excitement had ebbed without and the boys had got back and gone noisily to bed, long after he had heard the watchman make his stealthy midnight rounds, Carroll sat there in bed, gazing dreamily out of his window upon the moonlit sea and the misty outlines of Lovel’s Woods and at the ruby intermittent glow of Deigr Light, and now and then he jotted down a line or word upon the pad. This was what he wrote:

The pure stars shine above the flowing sea,The strand is gleaming in the moon’s soft light,

The south wind blows across the murky lea,The lamps of Monday glimmer in the night.

The moon sags slowly in the violet west,A yellow crescent, cloud-hung all about,

As though in weariness it sinks to rest,And one by one the glowing lamps go out.

So flutter all the little weary soulsIn trembling dreams a moment and are still;

The school is wrapped in darkness; on the shoalsThe tide turns; night enfolds the silent hill.

*********

The day of the game turned out bright and fair,after a dull gray morning, with ozone and freshness in the nippy air of early November. Recitations of a sort were held in the morning, though to be sure most of the masters fell into reminiscent vein and àpropos of nothing at all told their classes stories of the bygone heroes of the School—of Nifty Turner’s mighty kick and Pard’s immortal run from the enemy’s ten-yard line. Mr. Roylston alone had the ability and the temerity to hold his form down to an unrelieved discussion of the sequence of tenses inCæsarand mercilessly put Kit Wilson into detention for misconstruing an obvious Imperfect with the remark, “I guess to-day it is an Historical Present.” Kit served his detention and passed into history.

The team, including Tony in a brand-new red sweater with a gorgeous black “D” across the breast, were excused from school at noon, and had dinner in the Refectory with the Boxfordians, who had coached across the hills in the morning. By two o’clock the teams were on the field, passing footballs, catching punts and kicking goals in regulation fashion.

The boys poured out of the Schoolhouse after two o’clock call-over, and crowded the side lines, while the faculty and their wives and distinguished visitors from Boxford and Monday Port filled the line of wooden bleachers which had been run up the day before.

Doctor Forester and the Head Master of Boxford walked up and down within the lines, repeating the same amiable courtesies and remarks about the weather and the view and the condition of the teams that they had made for years, as though this were thefirst instead of the twentieth struggle in which Deal and Boxford had been engaged. It was a specially important game, as the score in games between the two schools was a tie.

The present scribe, who was not a football player, cannot undertake to describe that eventful game in technical language. The intricacies of formation and mass play were beyond his humble abilities at school, as he has no doubt they are to the majority of people who nevertheless follow the game with as keen interest as if they knew it. That is to say, it is inconceivable to him, that anything could be quite as exciting to a Deal boy or a Kingsbridge man as to see his school or college team pressing nearer and nearer the coveted goal, or to watch a fleet-footed boy dodge through a broken field, sprint as though the fate of empires hung upon his fleetness, and sprawl gloriously at last behind the enemy’s line on top of the ball. The technically curious are referred to Vol. LX, No. 2 of theDeal Literary Magazine, where they will find a more accurate account than they certainly will find in the pages of this chronicle. They will miss there, however, an incident, which impresses the scribe as having been the most important of the game.

Suffice it, the ball was kicked off at three o’clock by the Boxford center, and went sailing down the field into the arms of Sandy Maclaren on the ten-yard line, and eleven blue-garbed Boxfordians went chasing after it lipity-cut. Here one described a graceful parabola as his knees encountered the hardy back of Arthur Chapin, another went flying offinvoluntarily in a reverse direction as he caught Deering’s hand in his ribs, but one, surer than the rest, dived for a tackle and laid Sandy low just as he was crossing the thirty-yard line. Cheers rang out indiscriminately from both sides of the field, until the scattered teams had run together, and, kneeling face to face, with hands clenched, faces grimly set, the muscles a-quiver, waited while Kid Drayton, Deal’s little quarter-back, gave the signals in his high shrill voice, “Forty-nine, eleven, sixteen.” Then the ball was snapped, and Chapin, the half-back, was hurled through a hole in Boxford’s line for a gain of seven yards. Once, twice, thrice, the Deal boys made their distance to the indescribable joy of their supporters. Then the Boxford team, recovering from the unexpected strength of the first onslaught, stiffened and became as a stone wall, and held Deal for three downs, so that Thorndyke, the full-back, dropped behind for a kick. The oval went spinning through the air, Tony speeding away almost under it, dodging the player who tried to intercept him, so that as the Boxford half leaned back to catch the ball, he downed him in his tracks. For the first time Tony heard theSis,Boom,Ah!of the rippling cheer ring out with his own name tacked on to the end of it.

Back and forth, now tucked tight under the arm of a red or a blue sweater, now sailing luxuriously in the air, the ball was worked over the field; near Boxford’s goal, near Deal’s; or worried like a rat by a pack of terriers in the middle of the gridiron. The two teams were almost equally matched, and the first half ended without a score.

“You are doing well, young ‘un,” said Stenton to Tony, as he stood in the center of the Deal team in the locker-rooms under the Gymnasium between the halves. “Give him a chance, Drayton, and send him around right end. I think it will work.”

“All right, sir,” the little quarter-back squeaked. “I’ve been counting on Chapin mostly, but toward the end he seemed to be completely tuckered.”

Chapin looked up from the bench where he was sitting. “You were so blame winded yourself that you could hardly give the signals,” he snarled.

“Drop that kind of talk!” exclaimed Stenton. “You have been playing like a tackling dummy for the last ten minutes. If you want to lose the game for us keep that up.”

“I am playing the best game I know,” Chapin answered surlily. “If you don’t like it,” he muttered, though Stenton did not hear him, “go get another of your Third Form pets. You chucked Marsh, one of your best players.”

The second half opened, and each team seemed to come back fresher to the fray. With a few trifling exceptions there had been no injuries. Chapin seemed the only boy on whom the strain was telling, and Stenton correctly surmised that that was because he had not been keeping training. And as a matter of fact at a fatal moment his form told. The ball had been worked down well toward Deal’s goal line, and each time through Chapin. Suddenly the Boxford full-back dropped back for a kick: the center sent the ball spinning to him, and a second later he made a drop kick that sent the ball like a great bird sailingmajestically between the Deal goal posts. And the score was 4 to 0 in favor of Boxford.

Pandemonium broke loose on the visitors’ side-lines, while the home boys were still with apprehension and disappointment. Soon the ball was back in the center of the field in Deal’s possession, and was being pushed, inevitably it appeared, toward Boxford’s goal, and the strident cries of “Touchdown, touchdown, touchdown!” rang across the campus from the throats of three hundred Deal boys. “How much time?” cried Sandy. “Three minutes to play!” called the time-keeper, and his ominous words were taken up and repeated by the referee. Tony felt as if his heart would break. Why, why, why, he wondered, did not Drayton give him a chance? And Jack Stenton, anxiously pacing the side-lines, wondered too. And then suddenly Tony heard Kid’s squeaky voice ring out, “Sixteen, twenty-two, one,”—his signal! And bracing nerves and sinews, he waited breathlessly as the left half received the ball, and, dodging the arms of the Boxford player who had broken through, thrust the smooth little pigskin into Tony’s arms. Away he dashed, with Chapin, Maclaren, and Thorndyke interfering, round right end. He thrust his hand into the shoulder of the opposing tackle, successfully dodged a heavy Boxford boy who had dived to tackle, and with Chapin by his side, went tearing down the field, which was perfectly open save for the frantic quarter-back of the Boxford team, who was dashing forward to intercept him. Thirty yards more and the game was won! but the quarter-back was almost upon him. “Keep ahead! keep ahead!” he screamed at Chapin, who seemed for the instant to be lagging behind. Twenty yards!—and he could see the Boxford quarter dashing diagonally across the field toward him, and almost feel his arms pinioning his legs. An instantaneous glance—yes, yes, he could make it if Chapin would only keep up with him and ward off that quarter as he made his lunge. Then, just as the Deal boys rose to a man, with a frantic cheer, the supreme moment was come. The line was reached, but suddenly Deering felt a jolt; the quarter’s arms were about his waist, as they went sprawling toward the goal-line; but another arm clothed in aredsweater had thrust itself next Tony’s body and given the ball a terrific shove. In an agony of horror, as he fell heavily to earth, he saw the football fall out of his arms, bound to the ground in front of them, and Chapin and the Boxford quarter lunge together, as they all went down in the mêlée. But the Boxford boy was on the ball and had scored a touchback!

There was a shrill whistle, and the crowd of players were about them, the Deal boys uttering harsh cries of anger and disappointment; the Boxford boys cheering in delirious joy, and above it all a hoarse voice screaming “Time! time!” Tony pulled himself together. “What’s that?” he exclaimed in bewildered fashion. “Deal this way,” yelled Sandy Maclaren; and then to him in a contemptuous aside, “The game’s over, you fool; get up and cheer.”

Suddenly he realized the whole situation, realized much more than any one else did at that strenuous moment, for he remembered the red-clothed arm that was responsible for the catastrophe of his losing theball, and he gave a long look full into Chapin’s face, but held his tongue. With a sudden overwhelming bitterness he realized that Chapin had had his revenge.

As soon as the cheer was over he ran across the field toward the Gymnasium, passing Jack Stenton on the way, who gave him a glance of unmitigated disgust. “Couldn’t you have kept from fumbling for one second when the game was in your hands?” he hissed at him, forgetting himself in his bitter disappointment. Tony bent his head and ran on—not back to the lockers, but to his own room in Standerland, where he locked himself in. He refused to open even to Jimmie Lawrence, who came knocking there presently, loyal despite his grief, anxious only to commiserate his friend, whom he knew was suffering more keenly than any of the rest of them.

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