Next morning Frank made the acquaintance of Dr. Hobart, principal of Queen's School. The Doctor had the reputation of being severe, a terror to wrong doers, but gentle enough withal when things went right. He was a mere wisp of a man, about sixty years old, not over five feet tall, and with a thin, narrow face and parchment-like skin. His shoulders were bowed a little, perhaps with his weight of learning, for Dr. Hobart was considered one of the best of preparatory school leaders. Indeed, his reputation went far and wide, and the excellence of his school brought him pupils from many parts of the country.

The Doctor's distinguishing feature was his eyes, or rather eye, for he only had one which nature gave him. His natural left eye had many years before been injured and removed. It was now replaced by one of glass, and the fixed and unwinking position of it when the Doctor was aroused bored straight through the soul of the culprit before him and came out the other side, or so it seemed to the unfortunate who faced him, accused of misdeeds. It would be a brazen youth, indeed, who could stand before that penetrating glance from under the shaggy brows.

Frank had heard a good deal about the Doctor, and it was with some trepidation that he approached the august presence in his quarters on the first floor, third entry of Warren.

"Old Glass-eye is a ring-snorter," Gleason had told him. "They say he dines off freshmen. I'm a brave man, but I was glad when he was through with me. I was so flim-fazzled when he turned that glass orb of his on me that I couldn't have told whether the amateur hundred-yard record had set at ten seconds or half an hour."

But the Doctor was in one of his most amiable moods when Frank was ushered into his presence.

"This is the late-comer, is it?" he inquired, gently.

Frank interpreted it as a criticism, and hurried to say:

"Yes, sir. But I couldn't very well help being late. I was away for my health, and my parents didn't really intend to have me go to school till after Christmas, but I made such good progress that they thought it best to get me in as early as possible, after all."

"H'm; and I suppose you wanted to come?"

"Oh, yes, sir. I like school, and I hope to go to college if I can keep up my work here and pass the examinations."

"So you're going to college. That's good. We can give you the training here; the rest of it depends on yourself. Where do you expect to go to college, my young friend?" and the Doctor brought his baleful eye to bear on Frank.

"York, sir."

"Very good, very good. You are going in for athletics, Mr. Armstrong?"

"Just a little, sir. Do you advise it?"

"Yes, Mr. Armstrong, I advise athletics—just a little, as you say. But one thing I insist upon, that whatever you go in for, it must be wholeheartedly. The great curse of the present time is the spirit of dabbling. Don't be a dabbler." And the glass eye transfixed his hearer. "Whatever you do, do well. When you are in the class-room, do what you have to do. Make your time count. When you study, study; when you play, play. If you go out on the athletic field, make the most of it, and if you go into any sport, carry it to the highest point of development you can consistent with the time you have to give it. Athletics are only another kind of education, and carried on in the right way they very powerfully supplement the work of the class-room. And, above all things, play fair. Play hard, but play fair. Win if you can, but be a gentleman in your winning, and in your defeat, if you meet defeat, as you will in school and out of it. You have the appearance of quality in your face. You have a chance here to show what you can do in the class-room and on the field. Whatever you do, make yourself felt. Make yourself respected, but also make yourself felt. Respect your schoolmates worthy of respect, and make them respect you by your uprightness.

"I did not mean to make this a lecture, my boy," added the Doctor, pleasantly, the bushy eyebrows drawing into a kindlier line. "I want to help set you straight on this school road, which is not so easy as it may appear to you. If you ever want advice, and you think I can help you, come to me without hesitation. I am not so black, maybe, as I'm painted," and the Doctor's right eye assumed a kindly twinkle. "And now," he continued, "go over to Mr. Parks, whom you will find in Russell, and he will give you an outline of your school work and assign your classes. Good morning."

"By Jove! he's a brick," said Frank, as he hurried across the yard. "I thought I was going to find a bear, and he was nothing more than a kindly human being with a whole reservoir of good advice."

Mr. Parks, the assistant master, inducted Frank into the school routine, and the boy's school life began that morning auspiciously. He felt that he had made a good friend in the Doctor, and he was bent on satisfying his demand as far as studies were concerned. As to how he would make his way with his schoolmates, was another matter, and he approached it with less of a feeling of certainty.

In the early afternoon of that day Frank made a call on his old friend Jimmy, who was industriously working up his history; but when Frank put his head in at the door, the history book was shut with a snap.

"Hello, Web-foot, how did you get along last night? No hazers, I hope."

"Got along finely," said Frank, "in spite of lots of excitement. Took a forced swim in the Wampaug last night, preceded by a young scrap in No. 18, and this morning I had a session with the Doctor, who gave me enough good advice to keep me straight in line through the whole school course."

"The dickens you say!" exclaimed Jimmy. "You don't mean to say that they got you after all?"

"They certainly did, got me good and hard. Started out to stretch my neck down on the meadows somewhere,—that was the sentence they said,—and then changed their minds, not being willing to sacrifice a budding young genius like myself, and gave me the water cure."

"The water cure?"

"Yes, the water cure, which consisted in making me swim the river, after nine o'clock, and back in my bare pelt."

Jimmy was indignant. "By George, that was tough. Who did it?"

"Oh, I don't know; half a dozen fellows were waiting for me in my room, dumped me on the floor, tied my hands, carried me off with a muffler around my face, and then, when I was half way across the Wampaug, skipped and left me."

"Was Chip Dixon in the gang that hazed you?"

"I couldn't tell. The fellows were all masked."

"It's a beastly shame," blurted out Jimmy. "It'll come out, see if it don't, and I wouldn't give a licked postage stamp for the chances of the fellows who did it, if it comes to the Doctor's ears. I've a notion to go out and play detective. To think that I was studying here quietly, and you were being ducked in the river not two hundred yards away!" And Jimmy jumped up and began to walk around the floor, threatening vengeance on the perpetrators of the outrage.

"Oh, don't you bother about it. It gave them lots of fun, and it didn't hurt me," said Frank. "The water sure was chilly when I struck it first, but the swim wasn't long. It made me sleep like a top. And perhaps some good may come out of it."

Jimmy continued to growl, but Frank laughed the incident away, and the talk turned on the afternoon's football practice which Horton had threatened would be a stiff one.

"Speaking of football," said Jimmy, "why don't you go out and do a little something for your newly adopted school?"

"Oh, I wouldn't be any good. I'd like to try it, all right. But I've got my work cut out for me, staying in school without mixing up in football this fall anyway. Maybe by the time hockey comes around I'll do some work if I'm standing well enough to escape the terrible eye of the Doctor. But for this fall at least I'll do most of my football work on the bleachers, and giving the right halfback of the eleven friendly advice."

"No luck like that for me. I guess I'm not much good and I don't stand well enough with the ruling powers. But maybe, bye-and-bye, I'll get a chance. In the meantime I'll keep pushing and learn all I can. Horton knows the game, doesn't he?"

"Yes, the way he spotted the bad play on both teams was a caution. He must have twenty pairs of eyes."

At this moment in the conversation Lewis strolled into the room. "I've decided," he announced with heavy dignity, "to cut out football. I've been getting on pretty well at it, and the coach doesn't want me to drop out now when I'm pretty sure of a place" (Jimmy and Frank exchanged winks), "but I feel my studies need my time. I think I'll go out for the Whitney Fellowship. So you fellows will have to get along without my society down on the gridiron."

"Bad, too bad," murmured Jimmy. "Such a chance, too, for the team, just now when you'd be put in at center. It would be a great thing for Milton, too, to have a representative on the great Queen's School eleven. It would be headlines for the papers. Sorry you can't give it the time."

"And speaking of time," said Frank, "isn't it about time you were getting under way for the gym? I think I see the gathering of the clans from here," he added, looking out of the window in the direction of the field.

"Wonder what Mr. Dixon will feel like when Lewis announces his intention of retiring from the squad," said Jimmy, with a wink, as he prepared to leave.

"And I wonder what Mr. Dixon will do to one James Turner," retorted Lewis.

"Oh, I guess he won't bother him very much," said Frank.

"Is that so? Well, you don't know that youngster as well as we do. You'll hear things about him when you've been here a little longer."

"I've heard some things and seen some others, and perhaps I know Mr. Dixon better than he thinks I do. And I'm not far wrong when I say that that young fellow will not bother Jimmy too much."

"Yes, you'll jump in and hand our lively young quarter a few straight digs in the ribs, I suppose."

"Maybe so, but he had better keep himself to himself."

"Oh, come on here, stop your scrapping. Come on and watch the emaciated Second, now that Lewis has left us, being smeared by the riotous First. Oh, I hate to think of it," cried Jimmy, dashing out of the door.

When the squad reported for practice at four o'clock sharp, Horton had on his business face and he lost no time in getting things moving. "I'm going to see if these two teams know anything about football at all. We've been dodging around here playing tag for a month. Now we've got to begin to play football. Let's have a little punting and see if you backs can hold the ball to-day."

The backs were divided into two squads, and two of the best punters were sent up to the middle of the field, with a center to snap the ball. Boston Wheeler—his Sunday name was Worthington, but Boston was handier, and better described him, as he came from that famous city known as "the Hub"—was punting the ball in long, lazy curves which carried thirty yards, and then dropped head first, much to the disgust of the racing backs.

"Mine," yelled Spud Dudley as with hands outstretched and neck craned he drove for one of Wheeler's high ones.

But he misjudged, as the ball dropped too straight for him and bounced around on the group. The wrath of the coach was drawn upon him instantly.

"What do you think you are catching, Dudley, a featherbed? Get under those high ones. They drop quick when they come spinning with the long axis parallel to the ground. Don't let them catch you napping. And haven't I told you to make a little pocket for the ball between your hands, which must be held closer together, and your chest? Then the ball can't get away from you. That's better, Freshman." This was directed to Jimmy, who took a low end-over-end punt from Dobson, the other punter, at top speed. "I don't know where that Freshman got it, but he has the right idea about catching punts," Horton added.

Punting practice went on for five minutes or so, and then, after a brief signal drill between the First and Second elevens, the coach called both teams to the middle of the field.

"Now, this is the last practice game before the Barrows game, and I want you to do your best. You can win easily if you will only forget about yourselves, and play for the team. Let's see you do it. Come on, every one into it," and the whistle spoke out shrilly for the beginning of the practice game.