Tuesday and Wednesday rushed by. Thursday lagged. Friday stood still, quite as though Time had stopped doing business. Saturday—

Practice had been secret since the Tuesday following the New Falmouth game. That is to say, patriotic lower class fellows had daily, between the hours of three and five, patrolled the outskirts of Alton Field, warning away inquisitive townsfolk and intrusive small boys. Since it was quite possible to stand on Meadow street and see from a distance the players moving about on the gridiron, the word secret in relation to practice was an exaggeration. Also, any resident of senior or freshman dormitory whose window looked westward could, had he wished, have solved the most puzzling of the plays in which the Gray-and-Gold team was seeking to perfect itself. However, protracted occupancy of dormitory windows overlooking the field was frowned upon during the latter part of the season, and, on the whole, Coach Cade was well enough satisfied with the concealment allowed him and his works. Since the same conditions had prevailed so long as football had been played at Alton and no precious secret had ever reached the enemy the coach’s confidence seemed well founded.

Tuesday and Wednesday saw long sessions for the squad, the emphasis being laid on precision and smoothness. Tuesday evening it was rumored that the first team had scored four times on the scrub, and the school found new cause for enthusiasm. Thursday witnessed a let-up in the work. Individual instruction occupied much of the time. Later there was a period of formation drill, a long practice for the kickers and, finally, a short tussle with the second team in which no effort was made to run up the score. There was, so report had it, much aerial football that day. Practice was over early and some thirty youths, unaccustomed to finding themselves foot-loose at half-past four, wondered what to do with themselves. Of course the usual evening sessions—“bean-tests” the players called them—were continued right up to and including Friday.

Friday was, from the football man’s point of view, a day without rime or reason. Save that the players reported in togs at four o’clock and trotted around a while in signal drill, what time the rest of the school looked on and practiced cheers and songs, there was nothing to do and too much time to do it. The second team made its final appearance and staged a ten-minute scrimmage with an eleven composed of its own substitutes and a few first team third-stringers. Then it performed the sacred rites incident to disbanding, cheered and was cheered, marched in solemn file around a pile of discarded—and incidentally worthless—apparel and at last, followed by the audience, still noisy, cavorted back to the gymnasium.

With nothing to do save await the morrow and what it might bring, Jim, like most of the other players, felt suddenly let-down. Although not of a nervous temperament, he found it extremely difficult to sit still and even more difficult to fix his thoughts on any one subject for more than a half-minute at a time. Supper was hectic, marked by sudden outbursts of laughter and equally sudden lapses to silence. Every one made a great pretense of hunger, but only a few of the veterans ate normally. Coach Cade seemed more quiet and thoughtful than usual. At Jim’s end of the long table Lowell Woodruff, ably aided by Billy Frost, managed to keep things enlivened, but even so Jim was relieved when he could push back his chair and return to Number 15. Pending the “bean-test,” he tried to study and failed, tried to write a letter to Webb Todd and again failed. Perhaps had he been able to find the letter that Webb had written to him, enclosing the two-dollar bill, he might have obtained sufficient inspiration, but that letter had mysteriously disappeared. At seven-thirty he went around to the gymnasium, but even Coach Cade failed him to some extent, for the Coach had little to say about plays and a good deal about playing and sent them away at eight with instructions to keep their minds off football and go to bed promptly at ten o’clock; advice far easier to give than to act on.

Jim, realizing how futile was the effort to think of anything save football, got his rules book and began to turn the well-thumbed leaves. If there was anything contained therein that he didn’t know by heart and couldn’t have recited almost word for word he failed to find it, and he was very glad when Clem’s hurried steps sounded in the corridor and the door flew open before him. Any sort of companionship, even unharmonious, was welcome to-night.

Clem closed the door behind him and gave a triumphant grunt that sounded like “Huh!” Jim, looking up inquiringly, thought that his room-mate looked awfully funny. By funny, Jim, of course, meant strange. Still keeping what amounted to an accusing glare on Jim, Clem advanced in a peculiarly remorseless manner to his side of the table, threw one leg over his chair, lowered himself into place and folded his elbows on the table edge. Then:

“You’re a fine piece of cheese, aren’t you?” he demanded.

There was no insult in the words as Clem said them. On the contrary they seemed to have an undertone of affection, and Jim was more puzzled than ever, and found the other’s gaze increasingly disconcerting. The fact must have shown on his countenance, for Clem went on triumphantly: “No wonder you look guilty, you—you blamed old fraud!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” grumbled Jim, uncomfortable from the fact that he knew he was looking guilty in spite of a clear conscience.

“I’ll soon tell you,” announced Clem. “I went over to Art’s after supper; Art Landorf, you know. Woodie was there. When I was coming away he asked me to give you a piece of paper. Said Johnny Cade had given it to him a week ago to hand to you. Something you’d left at Johnny’s one night. I asked him what it was and he said he didn’t know, but he pulled it out of a mess of other truck in a pocket and handed it to me.”

Jim flushed a little. “What was it?” he asked uneasily.

“I guess you know what it was, you poor prune. It was a letter from that yegg friend of yours, Webb Todd.”

“Oh!” murmured Jim.

“Yes, ‘oh’!” mimicked Clem unfeelingly. “It had some sort of a crazy cubist drawing on one side and I naturally opened it. Of course when I saw it was a letter I tried not to read it, but I had to read some of it because my eyes lighted right on it.” Clem looked so defiant as to appear almost threatening. Jim nodded.

“That’s all right,” he muttered.

“You bet it’s all right!” Clem was getting truculent. “And now I’m going to read the whole of it, and you’re going to sit still and listen to it!” He drew the somewhat soiled rectangular object from his pocket and shook it challengingly at the other.

“I’d rather you didn’t,” objected Jim weakly.

Clem’s laugh was derisive. “You go to thunder! Anyway, I read the part that matters, so—” He hesitated and tossed the letter across the table. Jim picked it up without more than a glance and buried it under a blue book. “He says there ‘I wasn’t meaning to swipe that money, like I told you, kid, and I’m sorry I done it. I ain’t a thief—’ and a lot more guff. Now, then, what about it?”

“Well, what about it?” asked Jim with returning spirit. “I told you, but you wouldn’t believe me.”

“Yes, I know,” acknowledged Clem somewhat shamefacedly. “Gosh, I wanted to, Jim, but it looked awfully fishy. And I asked Old Tarbox if a stranger had been up here that afternoon and he didn’t remember one. He said he might have got by without his noticing, but it didn’t seem to me that any one could fail to notice that queer-looking guy! But, hang it, why didn’t you show me that letter when you got it? Think I’ve had a jolly time with you treating me like dirt? Why—”

“Isn’t that the way you treated me?” asked Jim, smiling faintly.

“No, sir, I treated you decently! Anyway, I tried to, but you wouldn’t let me, confound you. Didn’t you intend to show me that letter at all, Jim?”

Jim shook his head.

“Well,” exclaimed Clem in outraged tones, “then all I can say is that you’re the doggonedest, meanest, false-pridest—”

“You’re another!” Jim was grinning now, suddenly feeling very warm and happy, and somewhat foolish. Clem grinned back. Then he laughed uncertainly.

“You blamed old idiot!” he said affectionately.

Jim blinked. “Guess I was to blame, Clem,” he said reflectively. “Maybe I’d ought to have made you believe me; licked you until you did or—or something. But it didn’t seem right you should think I was a thief, even if it did look like I was, and so I—I got sort of uppity and—and—”

“Don’t blame you,” growled Clem. “Ought to have punched my head. Wish you had. I don’t know what made me so rotten mean. Anyhow, I’m mighty sorry and—and I beg your pardon, old son.”

“Aw, shut up,” said Jim. “Guess we both acted loony. Let’s forget it.”

Clem nodded. “Hope you will. I wouldn’t care to think that you were holding it in for me, Jim. Funny thing is,” he went on in tones that held embarrassment, “I don’t know whether I got to thinking you didn’t—didn’t do it or whether I got to not caring whether you did or didn’t, but I’d have called quits long ago, two or three days after, I guess, if you’d given me a chance.”

“Well, as long as you were thinking me a thief—”

“But I could see how most any fellow might make a foozle like that,” interrupted Clem eagerly. “I said that here was that fellow you’d known and been fond of nagging you for money, and you not having any, and there was that money in the suit-case which you knew mighty well I’d give you if you asked for it—”

“I suppose you’d do it yourself?” inquired Jim innocently.

“Sure! That is—” Then Clem found Jim grinning broadly. “Well, I might. How do I know? How does any one know what he will do when faced by—er—by sudden temptation and all that sort of thing?”

“No, you wouldn’t,” answered Jim. “Neither would I. Webb could have starved. But, just the same, and I think it’s sort of funny, too, I didn’t think anything about lying! Seems like stealing and lying aren’t much different, don’t it?”

“Well, yes, but, gosh, a fellow’s got to tell a whopper sometimes to protect a friend, hasn’t he? And that’s what you did.”

“I guess a lie’s a lie, just the same,” responded Jim regretfully, “and I didn’t feel right about telling that one to the police captain that time. Only, I didn’t want Webb to go to jail. Gee, I don’t know!”

“You needn’t have told him you gave the money to Webb, as far as that goes. They couldn’t have proved it on him if I hadn’t said I’d lost it.”

“Gee, I never thought of that, Clem! But it was all so sort of sudden that I didn’t have much time to think. Lying comes mighty easy, don’t it?”

Well, it was just like old times in Number 15 that evening. There was a lot to be said, things that ought to have been said days and days ago and things that had been unthought of before, and almost before Jim knew that it was as late as nine the ten o’clock bell rang. Even after they were in bed the talk kept on, as:

“Say, Jim, it’s a shame to keep you awake, but—”

“Gee, I ain’t sleepy. I’d rather talk than not.”

“Well, about Janus. You know we were speaking of it a while back. You’ll join, eh?”

“I don’t know, Clem. I ain’t—I’m not much for society doings. Gee, I don’t even own a dress-suit!”

“You don’t need a dress-suit, you gump! I’m going to put you through next week, and there’s an end to it.”

“Well, if you want me to, all right. Father got rid of some timberland the other day that he’s been trying to sell for three or four years. He didn’t get quite all he wanted, but he did pretty well. So I guess I can afford this Janus thing.”

Still later: “Jim, you asleep?”

“Yes. What’ll you have?”

“Listen. About Mart coming back—”

“I know. That’s all right.”

“How do you mean, all right?”

“Why, you fellows can have this room or I’ll find some one else to come in here. Just as long as I don’t have to pay the whole rent—”

“You make me sick! I never had any notion of going in with Mart. He doesn’t expect me to. I just said that because you made me mad, you silly ass!”

“Oh! Well, I didn’t—understand. Still, you mustn’t feel like you’ve got to turn Mart down, Clem.”

“I don’t. I’m not turning him down because he hasn’t even suggested it. If you can’t talk sense you’d better go to sleep.”

“All right,” chuckled Jim. “Good night.”

Some time later Clem awoke in the darkness to find groans and heart-breaking gasps coming from Jim’s bed. After a moment of sleepy concern Clem went across and shook his chum into consciousness. “Hey, wake up! What’s the matter, old son? Got the nightmare?”

“Gee!” muttered Jim. “That you, Clem? Was I making a row?”

“Were you! Well, rather! What—”

“Gee, it was awful! Sam threw the ball to me and I was all set for it when the crazy thing began running around my head in circles and making a noise like—like an automobile and I couldn’t catch it! Every time I’d make a grab it would dodge out of the way! And about a hundred fellows with big white mittens on stood and laughed at me. Gee, it was fierce!”

“White mittens?” chuckled Clem. “Well, you did have the Willies for fair! Calm yourself, old son, and nuzzle down again. It must be mighty close to daylight.”