John Curtis clapped the book together with a sigh of relief. “That’s the end. Much obliged to you. Going home for vacation next week?”

“No,” said Dick. “Are you?”

“No, sir,” replied John; “no vacation for me. Now that I’ve got into the grinding habit, you can bet I’m not going to slacken up. Do you know what I’ve been doing all winter?”

“Studying, I hope,” answered Melvin. “You’ve not been here very often except on such errands as this.”

“That’s right; and I’m doing a lot better than I did. I’m getting on to a lot of things that used to seem all shut up to me. The Dutch phases me the most; I don’t know why it is, but some way it won’t go down. I swallow hard at it, too. I’ve dropped the Greek, and am taking Latin over again. My French and mathematics are pretty fair, and I’m a regular shark at chemistry.”

Dick hooted; then checked himself suddenly. “They are all sharks in chemistry, I should judge by the reports the fellows give me.”

Curtis smiled grimly. “I’m as good as any; you ask some of them and see. It’s the first thing that I’ve really done well since I entered this old mill. The Dutch is the worst. I don’t think old Moore is just square about it either. He lays himself out on those fellows who know it all, and just skims by us poor dopes who are wallowing.”

“He’s good-natured and easy, isn’t he?” asked Dick.

“That depends. He isn’t savage like Richardson, nor satirical like Wells; but he lets a lot of tomfoolery go on in his class and smiles blandly at it all, and then suddenly gets wild and drops on some one like a hodful of bricks from the top of a ladder. As it’s usually the wrong person, it makes trouble.”

“What fellows are in it?” asked Dick, interested.

“Oh, various ones. Tompkins and Bosworth are the worst. Bosworth isn’t often suspected, because he is a kind of a favorite of the old man, and always lies out if he’s caught. Tompkins is smarter, and he won’t lie,—I like that in him; but he has cheek like a mountain.”

“What does he do?”

“Oh, all sorts of things; I can’t remember them. The other day he came running in from the Gym without changing his clothes. He’d just slipped his coat over his sleeveless shirt, and buttoned it up high in the neck. He unbuttoned it again in the class without thinking, and Moore saw the low neck underneath. ‘I don’t want any half-dressed boys in my classroom,’ he said. ‘Tompkins, go and dress yourself properly!’ Tommy went out and stayed half an hour. When he came back, he had on patent leather shoes with gaiters, a Prince Albert coat, gloves, a standing collar, and a silk hat. Where he got the hat, I don’t know. He stopped a moment in the doorway and all the fellows looked around; then he took off his hat, and walked calmly up to his seat.”

“What did Moore do?” asked Melvin,—“fire him out?”

“No, he just said, ‘Thank you, Tompkins,’ and went on. It was a great get-up, but some way it didn’t seem to have the effect intended. By the way, they say he’ll have to do the pitching this year. Is he any good?”

“Phil thinks so; and Wallace, I believe, spoke well of him.”

“You’d better warn him, then, to be careful. He doesn’t do anything bad, and he seems a nice fellow at bottom, but these little tricks may get him into trouble. They’d fire the pitcher on the nine just as quick as anybody else. You remember they sent off one fellow last year for putting a bonnet on the head of that plaster Diana that stands in the hall.”

“That was for example,” returned Dick, vigorously. “Those casts were the gifts of a lot of the Alumni, and the fooling with them had to be stopped.”

“They stopped it for that fellow, anyway,” said Curtis, dryly. “Is this meeting on Saturday going to be any good?”

“I hope so,” said Dick. “There’ll be the usual indoor events and some short dashes on the wooden track outside. We’ve given good handicaps, and there ought to be some hard races.”

“Then it’ll have to be better than the Faculty Trophy performance last month. That was about as keen as a croquet match.”

“We’ll improve on that,” replied the manager, confidently. “The fellows have been doing better lately.”

There were practical reasons for the existence of the March handicap meeting. It gave an inviting opportunity for boys of every degree of ability to appear without disadvantage in a public contest, and so brought out new material. It was likewise both a formal closing of the winter’s athletic work, and the first account of stock for the greater contests of the spring. With Dickinson and Travers in the sprints, Todd in the hurdles, and Curtis for the hammer and shot, there was still in school a very substantial remnant of last year’s winning team with which to start the spring campaign against Hillbury. Yet gaps remained to be filled, new seconds and thirds had to be provided where firsts seemed fairly safe, and better men had to be found, if better men there were, for the most strongly defended events.

In the jumps and the pole vault was an especial dearth of good material. Melvin had been practicing the high jump in the course of his daily gymnasium exercise hours, though without any idea of excelling in it. With legs full of spring and some intelligence to direct his efforts, the height at which he failed had gradually lifted. A month before, at the Faculty Trophy meeting, he had astonished himself by doing five feet four to the school champion’s five feet five. The practice possessed now for him an additional interest. If he could keep on gaining inches in the same steady way, the spring contests would find him able to clear a very considerable height. Varrell, too, had caught the fever, and was toiling at the pole vault with all the zeal and intelligence which this peculiar boy possessed.

A considerable crowd gathered that Saturday afternoon about the eighth-mile wooden track which lies behind the gymnasium. For the forty-yard dash the contestants came in a flock, four men in a trial, heat after heat, in quick succession; then the winners in sets of semi-finals, and three men in the final heat. The baseball candidates were here almost to a man, for they had been practicing starts and dashes during the winter for base running, and now had their trying out. Dick watched with interest to see what Phil would do with his three feet handicap, and was delighted to see his room-mate get off so sharply and take his heat so easily. The first semi-final the boy ran against Sands, and beat him without difficulty; the second he took from Jordan by a narrower margin. Only in the final heat did he fail, when Jones, a middler, took first, and Travers second, with Phil a poor third.

“Good work, Poole!” said MacRae, a middler rooming in the same entry, who was just coming out for the thousand yards. “I only ask to do as well.”

But MacRae did better. He ran his race with twenty yards handicap, and finished first, close to the school record. The middlers grew enthusiastic.

“What a handicap!” said Dickinson reproachfully to Melvin, as he took his place on the scratch for the three hundred, and looked forward to the front man standing well around the curve. “I may as well not run.”

“It’s not too much for your best, old man,” replied the manager, confidently. “You never know what you can do till you try.”

Dickinson did not answer, for he was already on his mark with the tense, serious expression on his face which Dick liked to see. With the pistol report he was off, making a splendid start—which the manager, in a momentary flash of joy, contrasted with the hesitancy of the year before,—and whipping himself quickly into his stride. He passed Lord on the back stretch, Sandford on the straightaway at the end of the first lap, and then pushed for Von Gersdorf, who had made good use of his twenty yards start, and with his short stout legs flying under him, easily doubled the hard corners that delayed the pursuer. Von Gersdorf struck the final curve with Dickinson at his heels. On the curve short-legs gained. The two plunged into the final stretch with four yards of interval between them, short-legs panting ahead with quick staccato strokes, long-legs swinging again into the wide distance-devouring stride that looked as easy and natural as the piston motion of a fine engine, and yet was challenging muscle and nerve and heart to their utmost.

“Go it Gerty, go it!” shouted the middlers. “It’s yours!” Determined to hold his lead a second longer, Von Gersdorf dug his spikes into the soft board, made a final frantic spurt, and lifted his arms to meet the string with his breast—and found no string to meet. Dickinson had carried it away before him.

“What a race!” exclaimed Tompkins, as he sat with Varrell on the wall. “That’s what I call sport. I’d go miles to see that again!”

“What’s the time?” asked Curtis over the shoulders of the men who held the watches. “Beat it by two seconds? You don’t say so! and he pretended he couldn’t do anything on this track!”

Melvin helped the runner up the bank to the gymnasium, and bothered himself with neither the record nor the race. “How is the ankle?” was his first anxious question. “Did you feel it?”

“Not a bit!” stammered Dickinson, between gasps. “But the corners—are terrible. They stopped me—every time.”

The forty-five yard hurdles and the six hundred yard run came next. Todd won the hurdles from scratch: the six hundred went to Cary, a middler, who ran a steady race from a good start, Dickinson this time succumbing to the corners and the handicap, and finishing third.

The scene now changed to the gymnasium, where the last three events were to come off. “You fellows want to do something,” said Marks, coming over to the seat where Melvin, Varrell, and Curtis were sitting, ready for their events. “The middlers are beginning to crow already.”

“It doesn’t amount to anything,” answered Curtis, with a little sniff of contempt. “Anybody can beat a scratch man, if you give him enough handicap.”

“Of course,” rejoined Marks; “but they always were a fool class. Some of their men have done pretty well, too. It’s a bad thing for middlers to have a high opinion of themselves.”

“It didn’t hurt us last year,” said Melvin.

The pole vault was started, and Varrell nerved himself for his first public appearance. He looked at no one, for he could feel that curious questions were running among the spectators, and he feared to surprise discouraging comments on tell-tale lips. As he faced the bar in the familiar position, this fear vanished. He took his run, stuck his pole firmly into the soft plank, rose with a fine nervous spring, and swung himself lightly over. Even as he dropped, his courage came again. Conscious that his form was undeniably good, and aglow with the sense of reserve force, he now faced the on-lookers squarely, amused as he caught, on this lip and on that, comments not meant for his hearing:

“Not bad, after all.” “Pretty, wasn’t it?” “Corking good!” “Knows how, doesn’t he?” “Too slick to last.”

Others followed. The bar went up, nine feet, nine feet three. Varrell, who had three inches handicap, and Dearborn, scratch man, were now alone. Both men cleared nine feet six, which was four inches higher than Wrenn had ever reached. At nine seven he failed, and Dearborn just touched. The event was Varrell’s on his handicap.

“Fine, Wrenn,” said Melvin, giving his hand a good grip as he sat down. “Think of the little practice you’ve had compared with Dearborn. Your form was bully, too, and that’s important for improvement in pole vaulting. Oh, we two may become great prize winners yet. Here goes for my exhibition.”

He spoke with a smile on his lips, which made it clear that his last words were uttered in jest. Varrell looked after him rather enviously, as he took a few confident steps and went lightly over the bar at its first position. Melvin did not need to consider what the spectators might think of his audacity; nor to struggle to make a name for himself in school. A man with his athletic record and his rank and his general influence could afford to speak slightingly of a prize in a handicap meeting. To Varrell, who had hardly yet divested himself of the notion that he was still a stranger in the school, any prize that gave distinction would have been welcome. To win an important contest, to make a place for himself on some school team, to earn and wear a coveted “S,”—all this was a part of an unconfessed ambition. So he envied Dick, not for the honors which he had won, but for the ability which had enabled him to win them.

The jump took its wearisome course. At five feet the contestants began to drop out. Benson, the scratch man, and Melvin were alone able to clear five feet three. Both went over at five four; then Melvin failed and Benson, with a jump two inches higher, won first place.

“Another middler victory!” growled Marks, whose class patriotism was strident.

“I should have won,” said Dick, contentedly pulling on his sweater, “if I had taken the three inches they were going to give me. As Dickinson and I did the handicapping, we didn’t want to be charged with taking any unfair advantage, and so put ourselves down at scratch.”

“That’s well enough for Dickinson, but simply suicide for you. You’re just learning and Benson’s been at it ever since he’s been in school.”

“I should have liked to see him do six feet,” said Melvin, calmly. Marks muttered something unintelligible, and turned to Curtis. “Don’t you fail us anyway!”

Curtis nodded and grabbed the shot. His first put was close to the record, his second touched it, his third went ten inches beyond. That gave him a new record and the event, and put Marks again in good humor.

“John Curtis is the man for my money, as I’ve always said,” he announced significantly to Melvin. “He never goes back on you.”

“Didn’t Varrell and Dickinson do the same?” asked Melvin, amused for the instant at the peculiar point of view of this non-athletic sport, who was always prating athletic nonsense, and swaggering as an expert.

“Ye-es,” answered Marks, unwillingly; “but Dickinson balked in the six hundred. It’s all due to his folly about the track ends; they wouldn’t stop him if he wasn’t afraid.”

A look of indignation swept over Melvin’s face. His lips parted to let out a savage retort, but he suddenly checked himself, gave a sniff of amused contempt, and replied good humoredly, “Really, Marks, you ought to write a book on athletics to leave to the school when we graduate.”

And Marks went off, furious and voluble, to inform his listeners that Melvin’s athletic successes had entirely turned his head; the fellow was really nothing but a big chump after all.