I think the experiences of the past week had cleared the air in Myron’s case. Perhaps Andrew’s curtain lecture at the hotel that Sunday morning had its effect. Perhaps, too, the knowledge that Joe and Andy had cared enough to go to all that scheming and effort to bring him back and save him from his own folly bucked him up. At all events, he went to work hammer-and-tongs and by Wednesday night had Steve Kearns looking worried. Chas, viewing events interestedly, chuckled to himself. Things were working his way. Not only was he secretly aiding and abetting the career of Myron, but there were three others among the first and second choice fellows who were under his care and who, willingly or unwillingly, followed his instructions. Had Chas cared to he could have taken a pencil and paper and written down the line-up for next season’s first important contest. Needless to say, against the position of left guard would have been the name of Cummins.

Chas was not without his qualms of uneasiness, though, for Brodhead was now pushing him hard for his place. Attending to the duties of next year’s captain in anticipation somewhat detracted from his playing qualities, and when, on Thursday, he found himself left on the bench while Brodhead was sent into the game against the second at left guard, he realised dismayedly that he would have to let next season look after itself for the present and reinstate himself in the coach’s good graces. Chas’ plans revolved on his election to the captaincy, and it wasn’t usual to elect to that position a fellow who had not played in the big game. Chas studied his scarred knuckles thoughtfully and wondered to just what extent Mr. Driscoll would let his personal feelings rule when it came to a choice between him and Brodhead for the Kenwood game. Chas knew perfectly well that the coach, without disliking him, held it in for him on one or two scores, and one must allow for a certain amount of human nature, he reflected, in even a football coach! Mentally he shook his head and acknowledged that he would have to mend his ways. He wasn’t certain, for that matter, that it was not already too late, that, to use his own expression, he had not already “spilled the beans”!

That Thursday Myron got himself talked about. He went in at full-back in the second half, vice Kearns, and showed himself a remarkably proficient player at that position. Coach Driscoll watched him in genuine surprise, although, as usual, he hid his feelings. “He’s just about four times as good as he was before he was laid off,” he said to himself, “and at least twice as good as I ever thought he would be. Why, the chap’s a born full-back! Give him a few more pounds for line-bucking and he will size up with any of them. Next year he ought to be All-American material, by Jupiter! But I mustn’t spoil him. He’s too good. And if he gets to knowing how good he is, he’s likely to get fond of himself and fizzle out. I think he’s the sort to do that. No, I guess we’ll keep your spurs trimmed down pretty close, Foster, my lad!” And in furtherance of that plan the coach strode across to the first team backfield and metaphorically ripped Myron up the back, to the bewilderment of Myron and the puzzlement of Jud and Joe and Katie and some others! Myron ended the game in a chastened mood, conscious of having made two touchdowns, one by a wide run behind good interference and one by downright grit from the four yards when the advance had seemed at an end, but equally conscious that he had not done as well as he should have. He had Coach Driscoll’s word for the latter, although the coach had somehow failed to specify very exactly wherein Myron had failed. There had been talk about “getting low” and “using your legs,” but Myron didn’t really see how he could have struck the line much lower without going into it on his head or how he could have got another ounce of push out of those wearied legs of his. In the end, having been refreshed with food and having listened to hearty praise from his friends, he decided that coaches were strange persons not always to be taken seriously. But he didn’t get a swelled head over the day’s performance, which was what the coach had guarded against.

There was no practice on Friday for the first team players, and so when Myron found a note in the mail that morning signed Maurice Millard saying that the writer would be in Warne that noon and asking Myron to meet him at the hotel at two o’clock, the latter was able to promise himself an enjoyable afternoon. Unfortunately, he had a recitation at two, but he left a note for Millard at the hotel in the forenoon postponing the meeting until a quarter to three. He recalled Millard very pleasantly and was glad he was to meet him again. He liked that name, too, Maurice Millard: it had a swing to it, he thought, even if it did sound rather like the name of a moving-picture artist! He wished that Millard had chosen to look him up at his room, for he would have liked to introduce him to Joe. Joe had seemed somehow rather sceptical as to Millard’s charms. But he could bring the visitor to Sohmer later on, for of course he would want to see the school and visit the football field and so on.

But, rather strangely—or so Myron thought,—Millard declared in favour of taking a drive into the country. “We can look around the school when we get back,” he explained. “It’s a wonderful day for a drive and I’m much fonder of the country than I am of towns. And we can have a jolly chat, too, and you won’t have to interrupt yourself every ten seconds to say ‘That’s Smith Hall, built in 1876 and used by General Washington as headquarters during the football game between Parkinson and Kenwood,’ or some other such dope.”

As to its being a wonderful day for driving, Myron had his doubts, for summer had returned and the weather was decidedly hot in spite of the fact that November was two weeks old. Still, driving might be pleasanter than walking, and the guest had the right to choose his entertainment, and Myron capitulated. To find a conveyance, however, was not so easy, for no Jehus slept along the curb in front of the little hotel when they went in search of one. Myron suggested walking to the station, only a block or so distant, and Millard consented. The difficulty was solved before they got that far, however, for a new, highly varnished taxi-cab darted toward them from a side street and a dimly remembered youth on the driver’s seat hailed Myron by name. He proved to be the fellow who had conveyed Myron to Sohmer that first day of school, and by the time the latter had ended negotiations for the hiring of the cab by the hour he remembered that the sandy-haired young man was named Eddie Moses. The cab appeared to be brand-new and was certainly a vast improvement over the former one. They went briskly out of the town toward Sturgis, and, with all windows open, the drive promised to be as enjoyable as Millard had predicted.

The visitor was as smartly, if quietly, dressed as when Myron had seen him last, and Myron was secretly glad that he had gone to extra pains in the matter of his own attire. Myron asked about business and Millard reported everything fine, and said that he had managed to get a small order from the local dealer in athletic supplies that morning. “Not much, you know, but enough to let us show him that we have the goods he wants and can sell to him cheaper than that New York house. It’s a wedge, Foster.”

In spite of Millard’s expressed love of the country, he didn’t seem to pay much attention to its beauties. Before they had gone a mile he had switched the conversation from athletic goods to football, of which he appeared to know a great deal. Myron wondered if he had played when at school, and what that school had been, but somehow he never got around to asking. He was glad enough to talk about football, and he managed before long to let Millard know that he was now a member of the Parkinson first team. Millard was clearly delighted with his friend’s good fortune, and congratulated him warmly.

“I’ll bet anything you’ll make good, too, Foster, when you fellows meet Kenwood. I hear they’ve got only a fair team over there this year. I was talking to a fellow from there only a couple of days ago. ‘We aren’t telling it around, Art’—my name’s Maurice Arthur, you know, and some fellows call me Art,” he explained parenthetically. “‘We aren’t telling it around, but between you and me we’ve got a pretty punk outfit this year. We’re trying to keep Parkinson guessing, but if they play the sort of game they played against Chancellor they’ll have us on the run from the beginning.’ Maybe I oughtn’t to tell this to a Parkinson fellow, but he didn’t tell me not to, and you and I are friends, so I guess there’s no harm. Besides, I’d like mighty well to see you fellows lick that Kenwood bunch. They’re too stuck-up for me.”

“I won’t say anything about it to any one,” said Myron virtuously. “Probably your friend wouldn’t want it to get to our team.”

“Oh, never mind what he wants. If telling your fellows’ll do them any good, you go ahead and tell them. I’ll stand for it. How is the team getting along, by the way? That was certainly a peach of a licking you gave Chancellor. I was reading about it in the paper last Sunday.”

Myron replied that the team was getting on famously, and went into rather intimate details to prove it. Millard was flatteringly interested and encouraged Myron to talk, which Myron was nothing loath to do since he was on a subject that appealed to him vastly. Millard had many questions to ask, questions which showed conclusively that he had a close understanding of football and a wide acquaintance among players. With such a listener Myron found it easy to pursue his subject. Millard introduced debate by throwing doubt on the ability of the Parkinson ends. He said he thought Cousins and Leeds, the Kenwood ends, would have the better of the argument, and was only convinced to the contrary after Myron had very thoroughly explained Stearns’ and Norris’ methods, both on offence and defence. There was simply no end to Millard’s interest in football, and once—they were running through the town of Sturgis at the moment—when Myron feared that he was boring the other, in spite of apparent willingness to listen, and sought to change the subject, it was Millard who soon brought it back again.

How the matter of signals came up, Myron didn’t afterward recall, but it did, and it was exhaustively dealt with. Millard spoke of a case he knew of where the intricacy of the signals had lost an important game for a certain high school team. “I always think that the more simple the signal system is the better it is. You take the big colleges, now, Foster. They don’t ball the men all up with double numberings and ‘repeats’ and all those silly tricks. They select a simple system, one that’s easy to learn and remember. Why, I’ve seen quarter-backs stutter and fumble around for whole minutes trying to get their signals straightened out. And as for the number of times that backs have spoiled a play because they didn’t get the signals right——” Millard whistled eloquently.

“Guess we won’t have any trouble that way,” answered Myron complacently. “Our system’s as simple as simple.”

“That so? Holes and players numbered from left to right, eh?”

“No, we begin at the ends.”

“Yes, that’s a better scheme. Left end is 1, left tackle, 3, and so on, I suppose.”

“No, we don’t number the players that way. The openings——”

The taxi-cab stopped so suddenly that Myron bit his tongue over the last word as he pitched forward. Of course Millard described much the same gymnastic feat, but it is doubtful if Millard heard, or thought he heard, what Myron did in the brief instant that his head protruded through a front window, for Eddie Moses’ neck stayed Myron’s forward flight and Eddie’s mouth was but a few inches from Myron’s ear. And in the part of a second that it remained there it got the impression that some one, presumably Eddie, had distinctly said: “Shut up!” That impression did not register on his brain, however, until he was back in his seat and Eddie had released his emergency brake. Then, while Eddie, in reply to Millard’s somewhat incensed question, was apologetically explaining something about a dog that had run almost under the wheels, he stared startledly at the back of Eddie’s head. That told him nothing, though, and he harked back to the interrupted conversation to discover what could have brought such a fiercely voiced admonition from the driver, if, indeed, that admonition had not been imagined. The shaking-up, however, had jostled memory as well as body, and it was Millard who supplied the information he sought.

“I didn’t see any dog,” he said huffily to Eddie. “Guess you imagined it. Now, then, Foster, you were explaining about that numbering.”

“What numbering?” asked Myron blankly.

“Forgotten?” laughed Millard. “Why, we were talking about signals, don’t you remember?”

“Oh, yes,” answered Myron thoughtfully. “So we were. How would it do to take the Princeville Road back, Eddie? That’ll give us more of a drive.”

As a matter of fact, it would do nothing of the sort, and Myron knew it, and Eddie Moses knew it when he added cheerfully, “All right, boss!” Only Millard didn’t know it, although it is likely that he suspected it later when, in far less time than it had taken them to reach Sturgis, they were back again in Warne. During that journey back, made at a greater speed than the trip away, Millard tried vainly to swing the conversation back to the topic of football, and football signals in particular, but Myron seemed to have suddenly wearied of the subject and wouldn’t stay put a minute. He pointed out features of the landscape for Millard’s admiring observation and invented quite a few interesting legends about passing houses or farms. After a while Millard managed to display some enthusiasm for nature and for the legends and was quite the entertaining and charming youth he had been before that shaking-up. But Myron thought that there had been a quarter of an hour subsequent to it when the visitor had sounded out of patience and even a trifle short-tempered. He might have simply imagined it, though. They were back in town long before five, and Millard’s train didn’t leave until after six, and there was plenty of time to visit the school, but Millard recalled a forgotten appointment at the hotel and was set down there accordingly. He was most apologetic and thanked Myron for a good time and begged to be allowed to go halves on the cab bill. This privilege Myron indignantly denied. Millard promised to look Myron up again shortly.

“I want to see the school and all that, you know, Foster,” he declared. “Wish I could run up there now, but I’ll be tied up until train time. The next time I come you must come down and have dinner with me.”

They shook hands and parted, Myron returning to the cab and bidding Eddie drive him to Sohmer. But out of sight of the hotel Myron leaned over and addressed the back of Eddie’s freckled neck. “Did you say anything to me the time I went through the window?” he asked.

“Yeah, I said ‘Shut up!’ You was doing a lot of fancy talking to that guy, seemed to me. ’Course, he might be a friend of yours and all, but you was telling him things about the football team that you hadn’t ought to, see? That’s why I jammed on the ’mergency. There wasn’t no dog at all!”

“Oh,” murmured Myron, “I see. Maybe you’re right. Anyway, I’m much obliged. Of course, Millard is perfectly square, but he might talk.”

“Yeah, he might,” agreed Eddie. “Or he might let some one else do the talking. Here you are, sir! Sohmer Hall, home of the rude rich! Thank you, sir.” Eddie winked knowingly. “I’m not talking any. Don’t you worry about me, sir. So long!”

Myron made his way up the steps of the dormitory, under the envious regard of three third class youths, and climbed the stairs somewhat thoughtfully. Certainly, Maurice Millard was all right, but he was awfully glad that Eddie had imagined that dog. Millard had repeated what the Kenwood chap had told him about the Kenwood team, information plainly not intended for publicity, which showed that he was not exactly close-mouthed. On the whole, decided Myron, he had come horribly near to making an utter fool of himself. He decided to say nothing about it to Joe. Joe must already have a good enough opinion of his common sense!