Ira escaped that night from the gratitude of those in charge of the meeting, but he had to face it next day. Fred Lyons was almost tearful and Gene slapped him on the back repeatedly and Manager Lowell shook hands with him earnestly on three separate occasions. And at least three of the class presidents if not all of them—Ira became a bit confused eventually—congratulated him and told him he had saved the meeting. Later, between recitations, he was waylaid on the steps of Parkinson by a youth with glasses and a long, thin nose and asked to join the Debating Society.

“But I couldn’t make a speech to save my life,” declared Ira.

“You’d learn very soon, Rowland. Any fellow who can tell a story as you did last night has the making of a public speaker. In my own experience—” and the president of the Debating Society managed to give the impression that he had spent a lifetime on the rostrum—“I have found it much more difficult to tell a story or anecdote effectively than to deliver an argument.”

Ira managed to escape by agreeing to “think it over” and let the other know his decision when the football season was done.

For several days he experienced the treatment that falls to one who becomes suddenly prominent. He had the feeling that fellows looked after him as he passed and spoke his name in lowered tones. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it made him a little self-conscious, and Ira didn’t exactly like to feel self-conscious. Fellows who usually nodded to him on campus or gridiron now fell into casual conversations, during which mention was generally made of the football meeting, if not of his share in it. At the field, too, there were signs of a new consideration, or else Ira imagined them. Coach Driscoll, who never referred to the meeting in Ira’s hearing, nevertheless gave more attention to the substitute guard, and the same was true of Fred Lyons. It seemed to Ira that one or the other always had an eye on him, was always offering criticisms or suggestions. It was flattering, no doubt, but it made him a little nervous at first, and his playing suffered a bit. Even Billy Goode got the habit of hovering over him like a fussy old Mother Hen, just as he hovered over such celebrities as Captain Lyons or “The” Dannis or Billy Wells or numerous others whose welfare might be considered a matter of importance. Several times Ira was “pulled” from play merely because he was a little short of breath or had developed a momentary limp. He usually protested weakly, but Billy never listened to protests. He was an extremely decided trainer.

Another event traceable to Ira’s participation in the football meeting occurred the Tuesday evening following. Neither Fred nor Gene had so far accepted Ira’s invitation to his room at Maggy’s, nor had Mart Johnston repeated his visit, but on the evening mentioned Fred, Gene, Mart and Brad turned up, and, as Humphrey was also at home for some inexplicable reason, the room’s seating accommodations were severely tested. Mart displayed the famous window seat and told humourously of their bewilderment when, on putting it together, they had discovered that it formed a right angle. Ira saw that the visitors viewed Humphrey both curiously and, perhaps, a trifle dubiously at first, but Humphrey was quite at his best tonight and by the time Gene had disappeared down the stairs and subsequently returned with a supply of rye bread sandwiches and hot frankfurter sausages the entente cordial was firmly established. They had a very merry evening, and talked of more subjects than could be set down here. Once Gene asked Ira about the story of Old Bess, and Ira explained that he had heard it told several times in a lumber camp.

“‘Fritzy’ Smart used to tell it,” he said. “‘Fritzy’ is about seven feet tall and all angles, and he talks out of one side of his mouth—like this.” Ira mimicked him. “‘Fritzy’ could make that story last a quarter of an hour and used to get up and give an imitation of Old Bess trotting down the track so you could almost see her. I was afraid I strung it out too much, although, at that, I left out most of the details that ‘Fritzy’ gets in.”

“It wasn’t a bit too long,” said Fred. “You had us sitting on the edges of our chairs. I guess as a story it doesn’t amount to so much, Rowland, but it was certainly corking the way you told it.”

“Half of the fun,” chuckled Brad, “was the way he hit off the Down-East dialect. The fellows around me were doubled up half the time.”

“Anyway, it did the business,” declared Mart. “It was just the thing for the moment. I had a nice little speech all framed up myself, but——”

“You!” scoffed Brad. “You couldn’t make a speech if your worthless life depended on it!”

“Run around! Run around! I taught Cicero and Billy Sunday all they ever knew! William Jennings Bryan was one of my first pupils!”

“Making a speech is no fun, anyway,” sighed Fred. “I made a awful mess of it the other night, and I knew it all the time and couldn’t seem to help it.”

“Well, you did sound a bit sepulchral,” agreed Gene. “I wanted to stick a pin into you or something.”

“You made a nice little address,” said Mart kindly. “I liked your speech, Gene. It was so short.”

“It would have been shorter if I’d had my way,” Gene grumbled. “For that matter, every fellow that spoke sounded as though he was just back from a funeral and didn’t expect to live long himself! We were a merry lot!”

“If those slips had been passed around before Rowland here leaped nimbly into the breeches—I mean the breach—you’d have collected the munificent sum of nine dollars and thirty-seven cents,” said Mart. “I already had my hand on the seven cents.”

“And I’ll bet you kept it there,” laughed Brad.

“You guess again! I subscribed for such a vast sum that I won’t get square with my allowance until Spring. And it was all your fault, Rowland. You and your Old Bess! If I run short I’ll be around here to borrow, so keep a little something handy.”

“Seen any more of ‘Old Earnest,’ Rowland?” asked Fred.

Ira replied that he hadn’t, and Mart was for inviting him up. “He’s a good old scout, Hicks is, and he’d love to sit in and listen to our enlightening discourse I should think.” But the others vetoed the proposal and shortly after the party broke up.

Humphrey was somewhat impressed with the visitors, although he pretended to make fun of them when they had gone. “That fellow Johnston is a regular village cut-up, isn’t he?” he asked. “I guess a fellow would get fed up with him pretty quick. Does Bradford room with him?”

“Yes, in Goss. They have a corking room. We’ll go around some night, if you like.”

“Oh, I haven’t time for those ‘screamers,’ thanks.” “Screamers” was a word evidently of Humphrey’s own devising and was used by him to indicate anyone who “put on side.”

“I don’t think you can call those chaps ‘screamers,’” said Ira mildly. “They aren’t snobs, anyway.”

“Lyons acts as if he wanted to be,” Humphrey sniffed. Then, after a few moments of silence, he said: “I don’t see how you got acquainted with that bunch, anyway. I don’t. I never meet up with anyone at school except pills!”

“Want to know the real reason?”

“Yes,” answered Humphrey, with a trace of suspicion, however.

“Well, you don’t give yourself a chance, Nead. You train with that bunch of loafers in the town and it takes all your time.”

“Loafers! Don’t call my friends names, please. They aren’t loafers. Every one of them has a steady, respectable job, Rowland.”

“Y-yes, when they work, but it seems to me they’re a lot like a fellow who used to live in my town. He sat in front of the grocery most all day, or, if it was Winter, he sat inside. He had a steady, respectable job, too, but he didn’t work at it much. He was a maker of wooden shoes.”

“Oh, piffle,” grunted Humphrey. “The fellows I know work just as hard as anyone.”

“All right, but they always seem to be able to get away for a game of pool,” answered Ira drily. “If you’ll cut loose from them, Nead, and get acquainted with fellows of your own age and—and class, you’ll be a lot better off. Why, thunderation, you might as well be a day scholar for all the school life you get!”

“I get all the school life I need,” answered Humphrey grumpily. “All those fellows like Lyons and Johnston and Goodloe talk about is football and baseball and rot like that. They make me tired.”

“No, they don’t, and you know it,” replied Ira calmly. “You’d be glad to know a dozen fellows like them. And you’re going to, too.”

“How am I?”

“Why, you’re going to cut down your evenings at the Central Billiard Palace, or whatever it’s called, to two a week, for one thing. And you’re going to keep away from there entirely in the daytime, for another thing. And you’re going to pay a few visits with me for a third thing.”

“Like fun I am!” But Humphrey couldn’t disguise the fact that the programme held attraction for him. “I don’t talk their sort of baby talk,” he added sourly.

“You’ll learn. It isn’t hard. We’ll run over tomorrow evening and see Johnston and Bradford.”

Humphrey was silent a minute. Then: “I promised to do something tomorrow night,” he said doubtfully.

“All right, we’ll make it Thursday, then. One night’s as good as another for me. By the way, how did it happen you were around here tonight?”

“Oh, I thought I’d stay at home.” Then, after a moment: “Fact is,” he went on, “I’m broke, and there’s no fun going down there and just looking on.”

Ira pushed himself back from the table, crossed his legs and observed his roommate thoughtfully, drumming gently on his teeth with the pen in his hand. Humphrey grinned back a trifle defiantly.

“Know what I think?” asked Ira finally. “I think you need a financial agent, Nead, a sort of guardian to look after your money affairs. How much do you get a month?”

“Fifteen dollars regularly. If I want more I usually get it. My mother ponies up now and then and dad is generally good for an extra fiver.”

“Then you have at least twenty a month, eh? Seems to me you ought to be able to scrape along on that.”

“It does, does it? Well, it isn’t so easy. Food costs a lot, for one thing.”

“But you don’t have to pay for your food out of your allowance, do you?”

“Some of it. I get seven a week for board, but eating around at restaurants costs a lot more than eating in hall or at a boarding house, you see.”

“Then why not go to Alumni or come with me to Trainor’s? That’s what you’d better do, I guess. Then, when you get your allowance you hand it across to me——”

“Help!” laughed Humphrey. “I can see myself doing that!”

“Why not? I’ll hand a quarter of it back to you every week. If you need more than that I’ll advance it, but I’ll take it out of the next month’s allowance. Then you won’t have to write home for extra money every ten days or two weeks. Yes, I guess that’s what we’ll have to do, Nead. I’ll put your money in bank with mine and you’ll find that it will last twice as long. Tomorrow you come around to the boarding house and I’ll get you started.”

Humphrey stared dubiously. At last: “Oh, well, I’ll try it,” he said. “But if I don’t like it I don’t have to keep it up.”

“No, but you will like it. Meanwhile, how much do you need?”