Alton played her first game two days later, against the local High School team. The latter had suffered quite as much as the Academy from graduations, and the eleven that took the field to oppose the Gray-and-Gold knew very little football. Alton fairly ran High School off her feet in the first half, scoring three touchdowns and missing two excellent opportunities to kick goals from the field because of the Coach’s instructions to play only a rushing game. Along in the third period Mr. Cade began to send in substitutes, and ere the brief contest was ended Alton had tried out just twenty-one players. There was only one score in the last half, the result of a blocked kick on Alton’s thirty-two yards. High School, held for downs, had attempted a goal, but a plunge of eager Alton substitutes had borne down the defense and the ball had bounded aside from some upstretched arm to be gobbled up by Harmon and borne fleetly down the field. There was little opposition, for the nearest High School pursuer reached the final white line a good two yards behind the swift-footed left half-back. Harmon, rather tuckered, was taken out and Mawson replaced him, and it was Mawson who strove to add another point to the Academy’s total of 26. But his attempt was weak and the ball never threatened the cross-bar. That was in the third period. In the fourth the playing on both sides became amusingly ragged, and fumble followed fumble and signals were mixed and the spectators fairly howled with glee at times. Twice over-eagerness was penalized under the visitor’s goal and so two more probable touchdowns were averted. High School showed one brief session of determined offensive in the third quarter and, taking advantage of Crocker’s sleepy game at right end, managed two long runs which, together with a rather flukey forward pass, landed the pigskin on Alton’s twenty-two yards. There, however, the attack petered out and, after losing seven yards in three downs, High School faked a try-at-goal and tossed forward over the line, where the ball landed untouched on the turf.

Considered even as a first contest, the afternoon’s performance wasn’t encouraging from an Alton standpoint, for the line had been slow and had played high, the backs had worked every man for himself, with no semblance of team-play, and even Ned Richards’ generalship had been particularly headless. Against an equally green and much lighter team, Alton had failed to show any real football. However, one swallow doesn’t make a summer, nor one game a season, and so Coach Cade had little to say after the contest, and the audience, taking itself lazily away through the warm sunlit afternoon, chose to view the humorous aspects of the encounter and disregard its faults. Harley McLeod did fairly well at right end until he gave way to Billy Crocker, and Jimmy played at right half during a brief and glorious third quarter and retired with a bruised and ensanguined nose.

In the Coach’s room, across Academy street from the Green, Mr. Cade and Captain Mart Proctor conferred long that evening and in the end reached the conclusion, among other less certain ones, that the task of building a team this fall was going to be a man-sized job!

Jimmy had determined that he would drop in at the Sign of the Football and look the shop over at the first opportunity. By that he meant the first occasion when he was in want of something that might reasonably be expected to be on sale there. But it didn’t seem that the opportunity would come, for, with the football management supplying everything from head harness to shoe-laces, there wasn’t anything he stood in need of. Nor, between the reading of the advertisement to Stanley that Thursday afternoon and the hour of eleven on the following Tuesday, did he even get as far from the Green as West street. He had heard, though, many comments on the Sign of the Football. Among his acquaintances the store was treated as something of a sensation, while Russell Emerson and his partner in the enterprise were both scoffed at and commended. The idea of an Alton student descending to shop-keeping disturbed many fastidious ones, while others thought it rather a joke—though they couldn’t seem to put their finger on the point of it!—and still others declared that it was a corking good stunt and they hoped Emerson and his pal would make it go. Jimmy lined up with the latter when the matter was discussed in his hearing, and so did Harley McLeod, as, for instance, on Monday night when a half-dozen fellows were gathered in Harley’s room in Haylow. The number included Jimmy and Stanley, Ned Richards, Harley’s room-mate, Billy Crocker and Cal Grainger, the Baseball Captain. It was the latter who introduced the subject when, apropos of something Ned Richards had said regarding his finances, he informed them that anything approaching financial depression wouldn’t bother him hereafter as he and Brand Harmon were going to open a tea shop in the town.

“Keeping a shop is getting to be all the rage,” he explained airily, “and those that get into it early are going to reap the shekels. Brand and I have got it all doped out. Some swell little joint we’re going to have, too. Rose and gray is to be the—the color motif. We’re going to have three kinds of tea: hot, cold and Oolong; and a full line of sandwiches and cakes. Wait till you see us swelling around there with the High School girls! Fine moments, boy, believe me!”

“Better stock up with chewing gum,” suggested Ned Richards. “From what I see, I guess that’s about all those High School girls ever eat!”

“You’re jealous because you didn’t think of it yourself,” retorted Cal untroubledly.

“Hope you get more trade than those fellows who opened the sporting goods store are getting,” said Billy Crocker. He was a rather large, though not heavy, youth, with black hair and thick eyebrows that met above his nose. The latter, being beak-like, gave him an unattractively parrotish look. Billy lived at home, in the town, but spent most of his evenings at the Academy. He wasn’t especially popular, and fellows sometimes found themselves wondering why it was he was so frequently in evidence at such gatherings as to-night’s. The explanation, however, was very simple. Billy Crocker took his welcome for granted and didn’t wait for a formal invitation. Being a football player, he affected the company of the football crowd, and although many protested him as a nuisance he was allowed to tag along. “I’ve looked in there twenty times,” continued Billy, not too truthfully, “and I’ve never seen any one there yet. They’re a couple of nuts!”

“As a member of the Alton Academy Merchants’ Association,” began Cal protestingly.

“They must have some money they don’t need,” interrupted Ned Richards enviously. “I heard they’d put a thousand dollars into the thing.”

“A thousand dollars!” scoffed Billy Crocker. “More like a hundred! Why, those fellows haven’t any money, Ned. They’re on their uppers. Patterson wears clothes that were made when Grant took Richmond!”

“What scandal is this?” murmured Jimmy. “Who’s Grant?”

“Well, that’s what I heard,” replied Ned coldly. “Of course, if the gentlemen are personal friends of yours, Crocker—”

“They’re not, thanks,” answered Billy emphatically. “I don’t—”

“They’re friends of mine, though,” cut in Harley. “At least, Emerson is. And I wish him luck. He’s got courage, that chap. Guess it’s so about his being poor, though, for we came across him two or three weeks ago waiting on table at a hotel at Pine Harbor. He was a good waiter, too.”

Jimmy rather wished that Harley hadn’t told that, for, while he had only admiration for the deed, he doubted that Ned and Cal and Billy Crocker would view it in the same way. However, no one looked other than faintly interested; no one, that is, save Billy Crocker. Billy laughed scornfully. “Those fellows would do anything to get a bit of money,” he said. “It was Patterson who wore Irv Ross’s suit up and down West street a couple of years ago, with a placard on him like a sandwich man, and all for a dollar and a half. You fellows remember.”

“Yes, but it was Stacey Ross’s suit, and not Irv’s,” said Stanley. “Girtle charged Stacey ten or twelve dollars more than he charged another chap for the same thing. Girtle said it was because the other fellow paid cash and Stacey didn’t, but Stacey was mad clean through and got Patterson to put the suit on and walk up and down in front of the store with a placard saying ‘Bought at Girtle’s.’ Of course the clothes hung all over Patterson—”

“That’s all ancient history, Stan,” said Harley.

“Well, what I was getting at is that, as I remember it, this fellow did it for a joke and wasn’t paid for it.”

“He certainly was paid,” exclaimed Billy. “I know!”

“He ought to have been,” remarked Ned. “Anyway, Stan, there’s no sense in arguing with Crocker about what his friends do or did. He’s in the know, aren’t you, Crocker?”

“I told you they aren’t my friends,” answered Billy gruffly. “I don’t know either of them, except by sight.”

“Then why,” asked Ned, yawning, “persist in talking about ’em?”

“I only said they wouldn’t make that store pay,” replied the other defensively. “And they won’t.”

“Say, Crocker,” inquired Jimmy, “isn’t it your father or uncle or something who runs the hardware store?”

“Father,” said Billy in a tone that suggested reticence.

“Thought so. Maybe you’re a bit prejudiced then. You folks sell the same line of stuff as Emerson and Patterson do, eh? Guess you don’t like the idea of a rival almost next door.”

“All those fellows will sell won’t affect my father any!”

“Say!” This explosive exclamation came from Stanley, who suddenly sat up very straight on Ned’s bed and fixed Billy with a baleful glare. “Say, is that your store, Crocker?”

“My father’s,” answered Billy with dignity.

“Well, say, let me tell you something then. You sell the punkest stuff that ever came out of the ark! Honest, Crocker, you do! Say, if Patterson’s clothes were made by Grant at Richmond, or whatever it was you said, the baseball gloves you take good money for were made by Mrs. Cleopatra the day she got bitten by the snake!”

“They’re just as good as you can get anywhere,” protested Billy indignantly. “Baseball gloves aren’t made as well as they used to be, since the War, and if you got a bum one you ought to have brought it back, Hassell, and—”

“There wasn’t enough of it to bring back,” said Stanley grimly, “after the third time I put it on! And I’m blamed if I see what the War’s got to do with baseball gloves. The trouble with you folks is that you got stocked up about twenty years ago and the moths have got busy!”

The rest, with the notable exception of Billy Crocker, were laughing and chuckling at Stanley’s tirade. Billy was flushed and sulky. “We can’t help it,” he muttered, “if the sewing on a glove gives way sometimes. That’s the way they come to us, and we buy the best we can find—”

“Listen,” said Stanley impressively. “The sewing was the only part of that glove that held together! It was the leather that was rotten, and if I—”

“Have you still got it?” demanded Billy, goaded to desperation. “If you have, bring it to the store and I’ll see that you get another.”

“Of course I haven’t got it,” answered Stanley disgustedly. “I bought it last spring, and the last I saw of it, it was hanging over the wire netting back of the home bench, where I pitched the blamed thing!”

“Well, the next time, you bring it back,” said Billy. “We don’t want any one dissatisfied.”

“There ain’t going to be no next time,” answered Stanley significantly. He subsided on the pillows again. “No hard feelings, Crocker,” he added apologetically, “but your store certainly does carry a bum lot of athletic goods.”

There was more laughter, and Billy decided to join in, which he did with what grace he might, and the troublesome subject lapsed.

Crocker left some twenty minutes later with Cal Grainger, although the latter showed no overmastering desire for his company, and when the door was closed Stanley asked: “What do you see in that fellow, Mac?”

“How do you mean?” asked Harley. “He isn’t my pal. He comes to see Ned.”

“What?” demanded his room-mate. “Gosh, I never asked him here! I thought maybe you had. I’m not keen for him, let me tell you. I’ve hardly spoken a hundred words to him, and then only on the field, and did you hear him calling me Ned? Cheeky bounder! I was tickled to death when you pitched into him about your old glove, Stan. He was as sore as a poisoned pup!”

“Old glove!” exclaimed Stanley, in arms again. “It was a new glove, gosh ding it! And I wore it just three times and—”

“Oh, sweet odors of Araby!” groaned Jimmy. “You’ve gone and got him started again! Listen, you fellows! I have to hear the history of that glove ten times a day, and it does seem that when I get out in society, as ’twere, I might—might—”

“Glove?” broke in Harley gravely. “What glove is that? Did you have a glove, Stan?”

“Oh, dry up,” muttered Stanley. “I’m going home. But I’ll tell you chumps one thing,” he went on with returned animation. “Those fellows who have the new store are going to get my trade!”

“Ha! Their success is assured!” cried Jimmy. “Stan buys a fielder’s glove every spring, and all they’ve got to do is hold until maybe April or May—”

“Any one been in there yet?” asked Harley.

No one had, it appeared. “I haven’t even seen the place,” said Ned. “I hear they’ve got a real jazzy sign, though; a football, you know, hanging on a whatyoucallit.”

“Sounds mighty effective,” mused Jimmy. “Just what is a whatyoucallit?”

“Oh, a—one of those things that stick out—”

“A sore thumb?”

“—From a wall. A crane, isn’t it?”

“I think that’s a bird,” replied Jimmy, “but I know what you mean. A—a sort of—of iron projection—”

“Brilliant conversation, I’ll say,” interrupted Stanley. “Come on, you dumb-bell. The best place for an intellect like yours is a pillow.” He propelled Jimmy, still struggling for expression, to the door. “So long, fellows! What he means is an arm.”

“But I don’t!” wailed Jimmy as the door closed. “I don’t!”