It was a gloomy lot of football players that took their shower that night. They dressed in silence. Horton was by no means a mild-spoken coach, yet his method was to get the best out of the players by persuasion and infinite care. But when he occasionally did open up, the words were all the sharper.

"Laid the hot shot into you fellows, didn't he?" said Patterson, sliding up to his classmate, Dixon, as they climbed the slope to the dormitories.

"Yes, Horton has had a grouch for the last two weeks and we can't please him. Better come out and try it yourself."

"You'd please him if you played the game," retorted the Wee One, who never lost a chance of sticking verbal pins into the quarterback. "I noticed a new back to-day, that young Turner fellow. He has Hillard beaten twenty ways for Sunday," he added. "Wouldn't be surprised if he made the team even at this late date."

"I didn't see him do anything wonderful," growled Chip. "Dutton went through him several times. I'll bet he'll be sore to-morrow where those old keen bones of the big fellow hit him. He's new and he probably put all he had into the practice to-day. To-morrow he'll be like putty."

"If I was a betting man," retorted the Wee One, "I'd lay you some good coin on it. He doesn't know much about it, but he has the stuff in him, and Horton will do the rest. I think he will play in the Warwick game, Chip."

"And I say he won't," burst out Chip savagely. "Hillard is worth two of him," and then seeing a sarcastic grin playing on the features of Patterson, he added, "I'll see that he don't play——" and then he stopped short, fearing he had said too much.

"O, is that so, Mr. Dixon, and when did they elect you captain and coach of this daisy eleven of ours?"

"O, dry up," was all the comment he could get from Chip who, having reached the yard by this time, turned abruptly and left his tormentor.

Jimmy, Frank and Lewis were a few rods behind, and the Wee One waited for them to come up. Frank had just been detailing the story of his arrival at the yard that afternoon and Dixon's exhibition of bad temper. Both Jimmy and Lewis were indignant, but Frank laughed about the incident. "It wasn't worth mentioning," he said, "but it shows you what kind of a chap your quarter is."

"I've been here only three weeks," said Jimmy, "and I've heard lots of things about him being a bully, particularly fond of playing on the smaller fellow. I guess he can't do much to me. I'm only a Freshman, but I'll give him a dig in the ribs if he tries any of his tricks on me."

The Wee One was waiting on the flagged walk in front of Warren Hall as the three boys came along.

"We'll be over in a minute and take you to grub," Jimmy was saying to Frank.

"All right," said Frank, "I'll be waiting for you and getting things in such shape that I can comfortably rest myself to-night. My room-mate Gleason's a fearful and wonderful housekeeper, judging from the looks of his effects up to date," and he turned into his entry.

"O, Armstrong, just a minute." Frank stopped and saw his new sophomore friend approaching at a leisurely roll with his hands shoved deep into his trousers' pockets.

"I say," volunteered the Wee One, "that young friend of yours, Turner, looks pretty good to me. But I want to give you a tip. If he plays that way he's sure to get a chance at the team. But for the good of the cause I'm just dropping you a weenty teenty hint. Tell him to keep his weather eye on Chip Dixon."

"Why?" said Frank, showing his surprise very plainly.

"Well, Chip doesn't want him and he'd take any means, fair or unfair, to put him in bad with the coach. It's just a tip from an old fellow. That's all," and the Wee One, having delivered himself of this advice, went whistling on his way.

"I don't see what Chip can do if Jimmy plays well enough to make the team. I can't see what Chip can do to keep him off," murmured Frank to himself as he trudged up the stairs. "But I'll pass along the friendly word of Little Willie, who seems to be a fine little chap and much bigger than his name."

Gleason was in his room this time, curled up on the window cushion, and he slowly unrolled himself as Frank pushed open the door.

"Hello, Armstrong," he said, "you're my wife, I guess."

"Your what?" asked Frank.

"My wife, my better half, my tried and trusty room-mate, for better or for worser."

"I'm all of that," said Frank, smiling in spite of himself at the voluble Gleason who wasn't the sort of chap he had pictured at all. From the tumbled state of the room, he had drawn his conclusion that Gleason would also be in a tumbled state, but here was an immaculate dandy.

Frank looked his room-mate over, and then his gaze involuntarily traveled around the room.

"Yes, I know," said Gleason grinning, "doesn't look right," as he saw that Frank was trying to adjust his notions anew. "You see I haven't time to keep both of us tidy, the room and me, so I put the time on myself and let the room go. I was never made for a housekeeper."

Gleason was very tall and very thin, and had thin, dark hair which he parted in the middle and combed straight back. His collar was of the white wings variety, very high, and encircled a long, lean neck, and his necktie was of the most positive and overpowering lavender. Patent leather pumps and socks to match his cravat, and a suit with a decidedly purple cast to it, completed his attire. Gleason had the appearance of being half divinity student, half gambler, and "the other half," as the Irishman said, "dude."

"Well, don't you like me, wifey?" asked Gleason quizzically, as Frank stood just inside the threshold eyeing this strange mixture of a boy. "Sorry if you don't, for it's going to be no end of a trouble. They're chock-a-block with flowering youth at this blessed institution, and if we fight one of us'll have to go into the cellar."

"O, we're going to get on all right," said Frank grinning, "but you're so different from what I had expected."

"Well, I might be worse. What are you going in for?"

"It will be study for a while for mine. I'm three weeks late. I'm too light for football this year, and I don't know much about it, but I'm going out for baseball in the spring. And maybe I will get a chance at the track meets. I can run a little. What do you go in for?"

"Me? O, I just sit round on the bleachers and take notes. I soak myself in records and they just ooze out of all my pores. Very handy young person to have around, Frank. Don't mind my familiarity, that's your handle—I saw it on your boxes. Good name for the family Bible, but kind of cold for school life. Haven't you got something warmer? They call me 'Codfish' because, forsooth, I came from up Cape Cod way. But the cod is a good fish properly treated, so I don't object. Haven't you something in the way of a name besides your Christian ticket?"

"No, just Frank."

"Well, it isn't right. It isn't cosey and homey enough. All right for the school catalogue, but too chilly for everyday use. What's your 'ponchong' as the French say, your big swipe, in other words?"

"Well, I do a little swimming now and then," said Frank. "How would Fish be?"

"Won't do. Can't have two members of the ichthyosaurus family in one room. Let's see. Eel—no, eel isn't good, he spends most of his time in the mud. Duck—no, the young ladies at the seminary'd be calling you ducky some day. I have it—web-foot, Web-foot Armstrong, how's that?"

"Sounds all right," said Frank, "kind of a paddler, eh?"

"An inspiration, my boy. Web-foot is your name from henceforth, to have and to hold until death do you part—Web-foot Armstrong, thus I christen thee."

A sound was heard on the stairs, and in another moment Jimmy and Lewis appeared at the open doorway. They were already acquainted with Gleason, and nodded to him.

"Welcome to our city," cried Gleason coming forward. "Are you acquainted with my young friend, Web-foot Armstrong? He is my steady for whom I've been waiting for three long weeks."

"It's a new name my room-mate has given me," explained Frank laughing. "He says Frank isn't homey enough."

"Web-foot suits him all right. He's a perfect water-dog, you know," said Jimmy. "One of the rising young swimmers of the generation and all that sort of thing; gave the champion a hard rub down in Florida."

"Ah, yes," said the Codfish, straddling. "I saw something about that; let's see, I have it somewhere—yes, here it is," as he began picking in a big envelope among a number of clippings—"here it is—'Champion Boy Swimmer of Milton hustles the Champion,' copied from the St. Augustine Record," and he began to read an exaggerated account of the affair in the Florida tank.

"That was going some," he concluded. "Darnell's record is 56 and 2-5 seconds for the hundred. He did that at the Olympics in Athens two years ago and repeated it in the New York Athletic Club last winter."

The Codfish reeled off the information with the certainty of knowledge.

"He knows every amateur record that was ever made, I think," Jimmy whispered to Frank, "and can tell you what the score of every league contest was since he was big enough to fall out of the cradle; and he is a great practical joker, so they say. You want to look out for his tricks."

"Stop filling us up on your records, Gleason," said Lewis. "I'm hungry as a bear. Let's fill up on something more substantial."

The boys raced down the stairs with a clatter and headed in the direction of Howard Hall beyond Russell. Howard was the old gymnasium which had been turned into a great dining hall, and there, amid the crash of crockery, Frank sat down to his first school meal, flanked by Jimmy and Lewis. Across the table was the irrepressible Codfish.

"We all mess together here, you see," said Jimmy, waving his hand abroad, "but the upper classes have that end of the hall to themselves. Noisy, isn't it, but you'll get used to it."

Frank nodded. He was taking in this part of his new life, with all his eyes and ears to the exclusion of his stomach. What would his mother think of this rumpus, he thought, and he smiled to himself.

"Hey, Skip, you there, don't hog all the butter, shoot it down here," called the Codfish. "You use as much grease as a six-cylinder transmission." And the butter dish came hurtling down from Skip Congdon, caroming against the pepper and salt dishes and knocking them off their pins.