Every year about this time there would be quite a gathering at the University of old Lowell graduates. They came to see the team work, in one or two games and in practice, and once each year the graduates would make up a nine of the old timers who had come, and challenge the new Varsity to a game. It was one of the traditions of the University that the old graduates’ team always won this game, notwithstanding their stiff knees, and other joints, to say nothing of their poor throwing arms. The occasion was more of a reunion than anything else, generally. Yet at the same time the old fellows were often able to give valuable pointers to the new team, and, on the whole, aside from the fun of the occasion, and the good it did the youngsters, it served to bring the sons of Lowell more closely together.

Of course, the occasion was always too good a one to be missed by the practical jokers, and the old graduates, with the aid of some of the Juniors and Seniors, always picked out the good-natured young freshmen, to play these jokes upon. In the meantime the fact that these practical jokes were played was carefully withheld from them. The evening before the game, the graduates had announced the team which would play next day.

All of them were old time stars at Lowell, and though out of the game were never forgotten by the boys at school, because they each had a sure place in the Lowell Hall of Heroes. The youngsters were all on hand to see them and hear again the stories of their remarkable playing. On this occasion there was always a “fanning bee,” as the boys call it, and reviews of Lowell victories of the past.

As Hal was on his way home alone that night, having stayed around longer than Hans, he heard some one following close behind him, and after he had gone a couple of blocks someone touched him on the shoulder and said, “Hello, Case, what’s the hurry?” Turning round he saw that it was Johnny McGrew, the old timer who was a great second baseman and who was on the team which would play the next day. After they had walked a little way, McGrew suddenly said: “Case, I want you to do something for me. We old fellows are no match for the wonders, including yourself, which Hughie has on the Varsity this year, and we’ve just got to win to keep up the old team’s reputation. You just write down the signals which Hughie uses, and that will enable us to lick the spots off you. Nobody will know about it, and I’ll see that you get a hundred and twenty-five dollars for it.”

Naturally Hal became very indignant, and proceeded to show it by preparing to fight.

“Now don’t get mad, kid,” said McGrew. “Nobody need know. Think it over and I’ll call around at your room in the morning and fix it up with you.” Then without another word he turned on his heel and went back. Hal was so mad he did not know what to do for several minutes. His first thought was to go back to the hotel where these old fellows were staying and where he knew he would still find a large number of his student friends and denounce Johnny. Finally he thought of Hughie and he became almost sick at the thought that anyone would take him for that kind of a lad.

“I’ll go to see Hughie and tell him all about it,” said Hal to himself. “As they have approached me and found I wouldn’t do what they wanted, they will probably tackle some one else who may fall.” So he hunted up Jenkins whom he found in his rooms with Everson and Larke, laying out the campaign for the game next day. By this time Hal was so angry he didn’t wait to see Hughie alone, but blurted out his story to the three of them. They were very much surprised, and thanked Hal for coming to them with the warning.

“I wonder,” said Larke, “if that’s the way they win from us youngsters.”

“What’s the matter with putting up a job on McGrew?” said Everson.

“Say, that would be a slick idea,” said Hughie. “I’ve got the scheme. You go home, Hal, to-night and say nothing. When McGrew comes in the morning you tell him you’ll do it, but that I never give out the signals until after morning practice, and that you will get them for him and hand them to him when the teams are dressing for the afternoon game. Also that he can hand you the money later.

“What you really give him, though, is a blank sheet of paper. He’ll walk off with that, thinking he has the signals, and the real joke will be on him and he won’t dare peep while we can enjoy it secretly.”

Hal did everything as he was instructed. McGrew called, and when Hal told him about how he would do it he said, “That will be all right.”

Hal promptly met him in the dressing room and handed him the paper at the proper time, and he stuck it in his pocket. Hughie was, of course, watching, but instead of laughing to himself and enjoying the joke on McGrew he ran over, stuck his hand in McGrew’s pocket and pulled out a paper.

“What are you fellows up to,” he asked, and then he opened the paper and looked at Hal in surprise. He started to read and his eyes bulged almost out of his head. “Why, these are the day’s signals,” said Hughie. “What does this mean?”

“It means that one youngster on the Lowell team hasn’t stood the test of loyalty which is required of our Alma Mater. I arranged with Case last night to tip me off to the signals to-day in this way. I paid him a hundred and twenty-five dollars last night,” said McGrew.

“Is this true?” asked Hughie. “Did you write this?” as he handed Hal a sheet of paper of the same kind he had handed McGrew. Hal took the paper and almost collapsed. On the paper was the following written in a very good imitation of his writing:

It was an exact copy of the signals which Hughie had given out in the morning. Hal was mad. He never was so mad before in all his life. He was mad enough to kill some one.

“I can lick any fellow that suggests such a thing, and I am going to start in right now on the bunch of you.”

The first fellow he started for was Hughie. Just then Hughie winked at him, and he stopped and looked at McGrew. McGrew was laughing and so were all the rest, for by this time the room had filled up with old graduates, and it suddenly began to filter through Hal’s brain that this was one of those harmless practical jokes that he had heard about. He thought it was cruel, of course, but McGrew said he had heard a lot about Hal and among other things it was said that he was so even tempered that he wouldn’t fight with anybody, and they wanted to see what it would take to make him fight. They were satisfied now that he could be depended upon to fight at the drop of the bat, whenever there was anything worth fighting about.

Then they showed him that each fellow on the graduates team had a type-written copy of the signals, anyhow, furnished by Hughie. That was one of the rights which every player on the Alumni team could enjoy for one day in the year. The old graduates’ club was expected always to win its game with the Varsity, and how on earth would they have any show against these modern Lowell teams, with their inside baseball and their new trick plays, if they didn’t have the signals?

Then they all shook hands with Hal and told him he was a member of the “Tried and True Club” of Lowell, and made him understand that this was an honor very rarely given to a freshman, but that they wanted him to have it because of the wonderful work he was doing as a first baseman. When he shook hands with McGrew, however, he got another bump.

“Better give me back my one hundred and twenty-five dollars now, old boy. I suppose you have it with you.”

Hal thought of his half of the story money which had come from the magazine, and it was in his trousers pocket that moment. Was this another one of their jokes, and how did they know he had it, was what he thought. What he said was, “What do you know about my one hundred and twenty-five dollars, brother,” and they all laughed at Hal’s quick guess this time.

“Well,” said Fielder James, “you don’t know perhaps that I am connected with the Out Door Weekly, but the other boys do. The editor, knowing that I was coming up here, showed me a story in a recent issue of the magazine and asked me to look up the author of the story, Harold Case, and arrange with him for some more of them. I had seen your name mentioned in the Reporter every week, but I didn’t connect you with the author chap, because they have called you Hal lately in the paper. So when I arrived I was looking for Harold Case, the author. I found only one person in the town by that name, yourself, so I asked my friend, Jimmie Hamilton, the cashier of the bank, to help me find the author, he having been here for twenty years, and I told him why.

“He said it must have been you, as you were in the bank a few days before cashing a check from the Out Door Weekly for two hundred and fifty dollars, and dividing it with Hagner. He saw you give some of it to Hagner, and then Hagner deposited one hundred and twenty-five dollars to his own credit in the bank and he guessed you must have divided with him. That was the first time I got the idea that Hans might have been a real live person, because in the college news he is of course referred to as Hagner. We just guessed you probably had the one hundred and twenty-five dollars in your pockets, and so we arranged the practical joke to fit what we knew. Now is it a real story or not?”

“Let’s go and ask Hans,” was all Hal would say. When they did get to Hans they made him tell the whole story over and McGrew said, “If you come to New York again let me know and I’ll lend you my auto.”

Hal was happy. It meant a great deal to him to be recognized by these older graduates as their equal, and he had a right to be happy. It was recognition of his merit by those whose opinion was valuable, because they had enough practical experience of the world to enable them to recognize true worth. None of the other Freshmen on the team were let into the secret of how the old graduates were able to beat them so badly. They marveled at the fact that the old timers were on to every play that the boys attempted, and they had a great respect for the old crowd that licked the Varsity that day by the one-sided score of 11 to 2.

But in the evening the old graduates’ club gave the team a little dinner at which this tradition of the university was explained for the benefit of the other youngsters, Hans, Ty, Tris and Radams, Ross and Huyler. Then they were all initiated into the mysteries of the Lowell O. K. Club, which meant that the team had been inspected by the old boys who had won laurels for Lowell in the past, and was good enough in their minds to go against Jefferson.