When the fellows came out from chapel the contribution-box adorned the top of the radiator under the notice board in the corridor of Academy Hall. It was neatly covered with pink paper, there was a slot in the cover and these words in large black letters explained its purpose:

AID FOR THE HELPLESS!
DROP YOUR PENNIES HERE FOR THE
FOOTBALL TEAM!

The joke won instant approval and penny after penny went through the slot. The School was vastly amused and the contribution-box remained on the radiator until the middle of the forenoon, at which time Edgar Prentiss, having heard of it, descended upon it in wrath and kicked it across the corridor, wrecking it completely and strewing the floor with coppers which were ultimately recovered by some of the younger boys, for whom they undoubtedly did as much good as they would have done the football team. Rob never acknowledged himself to have been the perpetrator of the joke, and Evan never told, but for some reason suspicion attached itself to him, and Hopkins and Prentiss, neither of whom had loved him very well before, found new grounds for dislike. Prentiss even made public display of his resentment.

Rob was standing on the steps of Academy after dinner with Malcolm and Wright when Prentiss came along. They all nodded to him and Prentiss responded, but as he reached the door he turned back and addressed Rob.

“Say, Langton, you think you’re smart, don’t you?” he sneered.

Rob looked at once surprised and pained.

“I do? Why do you say thus?”

“Putting that fool box in there. If you don’t want the school to have a foot-ball team that’s your affair, I suppose. But you might act like a gentleman and not try to ridicule the team.”

“Do you suspect me of that?” asked Rob sorrowfully.

“I don’t suspect; I know,” responded Prentiss warmly. “Any one would think you were a prep, doing such fool stunts as that!”

“I don’t see what you’re mad about, though,” said Rob innocently. “I’ll bet there was as much as sixty cents in that box.”

“I’ll bet you didn’t give any of it, then!” Prentiss sneered.

“You wrong me. I gave a whole bright, new penny.”

“That’s more than you gave at the meeting last night.”

“I didn’t have a penny with me then,” answered Rob sweetly. “If I had I’d have given it, really and truly. I don’t see how you can expect fellows to give money if you scatter it around the floor the way you did this morning. Why, there was enough in that contribution-box to buy half a dozen ice-cream sodas for the captain and manager!”

“Look here,” demanded Prentiss angrily, “do you mean to insinuate that I spend the football funds on soda water?”

“Of course not. How could you when you keep a nice itemized account of all expenditures? Let me see, you didn’t read the accounts last night, did you?”

“I’m not required to; but if you mean to accuse me of stealing the football money, Langton, you’d better come right out and say so.”

“He doesn’t,” interposed Wright soothingly. “He’s just talking, aren’t you, Rob?”

“Am I? Just as you say. All right, then, Prentiss, I’m just talking. It’s a habit I have.”

“You talk too much,” growled Prentiss wrathfully. “You’re a sore-head, that’s what you are. You’re always trying to make trouble for Hop and me. Just because you tried for the team last year and didn’t make it you do nothing but knock. You make me tired.”

“That’s all right. You’re not the only one that’s tired. You’ll find that there are a whole lot of others who are tired, too. Tired of giving their money to a football team that never makes good from one year to the next, tired of having you and Hopkins run the whole thing yourselves. Oh, you’re not the only tired one, Prentiss!”

“I suppose you think you ought to manage it?”

“Well, I’m naturally modest,” drawled Rob, “but I have had suspicions that way.” Prentiss laughed derisively.

“You’d make a dandy manager, you would. Maybe you’d like to be captain, too?”

“Not of that team, thanks.”

“Is that so? Why, you don’t know the first thing about football, Lanky; you’re a joke!” And Prentiss disappeared laughing hugely.

Rob smiled as he looked after him.

“What did you mean by that ice-cream soda remark?” asked Malcolm.

“Nothing much. Only last fall I was in Webster’s buying some fountain-pen ink when Hop and Prentiss came in. They didn’t see me, because I was at the back of the store and there was a wire rack filled with sponges in front of me. ‘What will you have?’ asked Hopkins. ‘Oh, ice-cream soda, I guess,’ Prentiss answered. ‘Might as well take the best. It doesn’t come out of our pocket, Hop.’ And Hop laughed and said he guessed that was about right; ‘Incidentals, eh, Ed?’ he asked. Oh, of course, I don’t know anything,” ended Rob dryly, “but I sort of suspect!”

“Well, you made Prentiss mad, all right,” chuckled Mal.

“I thought he was going to light into you,” said Wright.

“Did you? I didn’t. I know him. He wouldn’t light into a flea!” Rob smiled. “Say, why do you suppose he thinks I put that old box in there?”

“Well, didn’t you?” asked Wright. “Every one says you did.”

“How extremely absurd,” murmured Rob. “It was a cigar-box, and every one knows I don’t smoke cigars. Let’s go in and take a fall out of English. Mal, have you any idea what the lesson’s about? I quite forgot to look at it last night. I—er—I was busy.”

There was much speculation as to what steps Hopkins and Prentiss would take to secure the balance of the money needed for the team. Perhaps I should say wanted instead of needed, for the consensus of opinion was to the effect that eighty-odd dollars was quite as much as past performances warranted. But curiosity was soon satisfied, for the next morning, Saturday, the following notice appeared in Academy Hall:

Then followed the list of names, and that list caused not a little commotion all day, for there were numerous cases where fellows had given cash at the meeting and had not been credited, since Hopkins and Prentiss, aided by the four fellows who had passed the hats, had been forced to substitute knowledge with surmise pretty frequently. That notice witnessed many scenes of indignation.

“Well, what do you think of that?” some youth would ejaculate after finding his name. “I gave two dollars to their punk old football team and now they say I didn’t give a red! Where’s that chap Prentiss? I’ll tell him what I think of him, you bet!”

And the indignant one would hurry away in search of the manager and vindication.

The appeal landed a few more contributions, but was, on the whole, a failure. Rob inveighed eloquently against it at the dinner-table that noon.

“It’s a bare-faced attempt at intimidation and extortion,” he declared.

“Those are dandy words, Rob,” said Pierce.

“It’s—it’s blackmail, that’s what it is! If you don’t give money you are publicly posted as mean-spirited and miserly and unpatriotic. No one is bound to contribute to athletics of any sort, and that’s understood. Lots of fellows can’t give money to the football team and that list over there in Academy will show that they haven’t given and they’ll either be shamed into doing what they can’t afford to or will know that other chaps are despising them for being mean.”

“Oh, nonsense, Rob,” Wright protested, “it isn’t as bad as that. I’ll acknowledge that they haven’t any business doing a stunt of that sort, but every fellow takes it as a sort of joke; just as they’re beginning to take Hop and Prentiss and the team, too. I wouldn’t care a rap whether my name had a red line through it or not.”

“Maybe you wouldn’t, but there are plenty who would; young fellows in the prep class, for instance. Lots of them don’t have more than a quarter of a dollar a week for pocket-money and to ask them to contribute to the football team is rank foolishness. There’s one name on that list that hasn’t got a red line through it, though, and it won’t have; and that’s the name of Robert Langton, Esquire.”

“Langton, you’re a dandy hater, aren’t you?” said Peterson with a laugh.

“I wasn’t going to give anything,” said Jelly, “but every one was looking, and so—”

“You conceited little fat rascal!” exclaimed Wright. “Why, I don’t suppose any one knew you were in the hall!”

“That’s all right,” answered Jelly imperturbably. “Anyway, I gave them a dollar and I wish I hadn’t.”

“Isn’t it worth that to keep your place on the Second?” asked Rob. “You know very well, Jelly, you’d get fired if you didn’t pay up. I’m not sure that, as a member of the Second Team, you shouldn’t have given a good deal more than a dollar.”

“I’ll give them another dollar when Gus Devens puts me in the first line-up,” said Jelly shrewdly. “One’s enough for a substitute, though.” The others laughed.

“For my part,” said Wright, “I feel rather sorry for Hop. He really wants to win this year and I dare say he’s doing the best he knows how, although it may not be a very good best. Seems to me we ought to give him enough money to go ahead with.”

“Rot! They’ve got enough now!” Rob helped himself to another potato. “It doesn’t need new jerseys and sweaters to win from Adams; it needs football sense. And that’s something neither Hop nor Prentiss has got. Why, I’d be willing to wager anything I’ve got that Mountfort will make our team look like a set of cripples this afternoon.”

“Mountfort? Nonsense!” jeered Peterson. “Why, Mountfort’s only a high school!”

“All right; you wait and see. As you say, Mountfort’s only a high school and consequently we ought to beat her by two or three scores; isn’t that so?”

“Well, two scores, maybe,” hedged Peterson. “After all, Langton, it’s pretty early yet and we haven’t got under way.”

“It’s early for Mountfort, too, isn’t it? But we’ll say two scores, then, Peterson. Now I’ll tell you what I’ll do. If Riverport wins from Mountfort this afternoon by a margin of two scores—no, by Jove, by one score!—neither Jelly nor I will eat any supper to-night!”

“What!” shrieked Jelly in alarm. “You speak for yourself, Rob. I’m not coming in on any silly arrangement like that. I need my supper.”

“Oh, be a sport, Jelly,” Evan laughed. “What do you care about supper if we win?”

“We won’t win,” answered Jelly. “Pass the gravy, please.”

“Then you’re safe, aren’t you? I mean your supper’s safe.”

“I don’t believe in taking risks,” replied Jelly with a wise shake of his head.

“Well, if Jelly throws me down,” said Rob smilingly, “I’ll go it alone.”

“Never be it said that I deserted you in your hour of need, Rob,” Evan declared. “I will starve with you.”

“Look here, though, you two,” said Pierce. “No crackers and jam and stuff in your room afterwards.”

“We haven’t any,” laughed Evan. “The only thing we might eat is some of Rob’s nails and screws and such. No, this is straight, isn’t it, Rob?”

“Absolutely! If Hop’s team wins from Mountfort this afternoon Evan and I go supperless.”

“Well, I call that a sporting proposition,” said Peterson admiringly. “Much as I’d hate to have you go without supper, Rob, I must say I’d like our team to win.”

“It hasn’t a show to win,” said Rob confidently. “Why, my dear, misguided friend, our team hasn’t shown a single flash of football yet.”

“Well, we’ll see later,” responded Peterson, pushing back his chair. “That’s right, Jelly, eat all you can now, for you’re not likely to get anything more to-day.”

“Me?” sputtered Jelly. “I tell you I’m not in that bargain! I refuse to have anything to do with it! I don’t have to, do I, Rob?”

“No, you may eat as much as usual, Jelly, no matter what may be the fortunes of war. And just think, Jelly! If Evan and I do lose you’ll have two other suppers to eat!”

“Say, may I have your preserves, Rob?” asked Jelly eagerly. “May I have yours, Evan?”

“Yes,” Rob replied laughingly, “but I wouldn’t count on it, Jelly. I rather fancy we’ll need our suppers ourselves.”

Faculty agreed with Rob in his judgment of the foot-ball notice and it disappeared that afternoon. Mr. Holt, the school secretary, stopped and read it on his way through the corridor to dinner and later brought it to the attention of Doctor Farren.

“That,” said the Doctor, “scarcely agrees with the principles of the school, Holt. It savors too much of compulsion. Kindly remove it and return it to Prentiss with an explanation. It seems to me,” he added musingly, “that athletics are growing more expensive every year. I don’t recall that in my day we required any such sums to run our teams. And, as I recollect, Holt, we won just about as often as we do now.”

“Quite possible,” answered the secretary cynically.