STOVER had never been on the Yale field except through the multitudinous paths of his imagination. Huddled in the car crowded with candidates, he waited the first glimpse as Columbus questioned the sky or De Soto sought the sea. Three cars, filled with veterans and upper classmen, were ahead of him. He was among a score of sophomores, members of third and fourth squads, and a few of his own class with prep school reputations who sat silently, nervously overhauling their suits, adjusting buckles and shoe-laces, swollen to grotesque proportions under knotted sweaters and padded jerseys.

The trolley swung over a short bridge, and, climbing a hill, came to a slow stop. In an instant he was out, sweeping on at a dog-trot in the midst of the undulating, brawny pack. In front --- a thing of air and woodrose the climbing network of empty stands. Then, as they swept underneath, the field lay waiting, and at the end two thin, straight lines and a cross-bar. No longer were the stands empty or the breeze devoid of song and cheers. The goal was his --- the goal of Yale --- and, underfoot at last, the field more real to him than Waterloo or Gettysburg!

He camped down, one among a hundred, oblivious of his companions, hands locked over his knees, his glance strained down the field to where, against the blue sweater of a veteran, a magic Y was shining white. For a moment he felt a plunging despair ---he was but one among so many. The whole country seemed congregated there in competition. Others seemed to overtop him, to be built of bone and muscle beyond his strength. He felt a desire to shrink back and steal away unperceived, as he had that awful moment when, on his first test at school, he had been told that he must stand up and fill the place of a better man.

Then he was on his feet, in obedience to a shouted command, journeying up the field to where beyond the stands a tackling dummy on loose pulleys swung like a great scarecrow.

"Here, now, get some action into this," said a fiery little coach, Tompkins, quarter-back a dozen seasons before. "Line up. Get some snap to it. First man. Hard --- hit it hard!"

The first three --- heavy linesmen, still soft and short of breath --- made lumbering, slipping attempts.

Tompkins was in a blaze of fury.

"Hold up! What do you think this is? I didn't ask you to hug your grandmother; I told you to tackle that dummy! Hit it hard --- break it in two! If you can't tackle, we don't want you around. Tackle to throw your man back! Tackle as if the whole game depended on it. Come on, now. Next man. Jump at it! Rotten! Rotten! Oh, squeeze it. Don't try to butt it over---you're not a goat! Half the game's the tackling! Next man. Oh, girls --- girls! What is this bunch, anyhow --- a young ladies' seminary? Here! Stop---stop! You're up at Yale now. I'll show you how we tackle!"

Heedless of his street clothes, of the grotesqueness of the thing, of all else but the savage spark he was trying to communicate, he went rushing into the dummy with a headlong plunge that shook the ropes.

He was up in a moment, forgetting the dust that clung to him, shouting in his shrill voice:

"Come on, now, bang into it! Yes, but hold on to it! Squeeze it. Better--- more snap there! Get out the way! Come on! Rotten! Take that again --- on the jump!"

Stover suddenly felt the inflaming seriousness of Yale, the spirit that animated the field. Everything was in deadly earnest; the thing of rags swinging grotesquely was as important as the tackle that on a championship field stood between defeat and victory.

His turn came. He shot forward, left the turf in a clean dive, caught the dummy at the knees, and shook the ground with the savageness of his tackle.

"Out of the way, quick --- next man!" cried the driving voice.

There was not a word of praise for what he knew had been a perfect tackle. A second and a third time he flung himself heedlessly at the swinging figure, in a desperate attempt to win the withheld word of approbation.

"He might at least have grunted," he said to himself, tumbling to his feet, "the little tyrant."

In a moment Tompkins, without relaxing a jot of his nervous driving, had them spread over the field, flinging themselves on a dozen elusive footballs, while always his voice, unsatisfied, propelling, drove them:

"Faster, faster! Get into it---let go yourselves. Throw yourself at it. Oh, hard, harder!"

Ten minutes of practise starts under his leash, and they ended, enveloped in steam, lungs shaken with quick, convulsive breaths.

"Enough for to-day. Back to the gymnasium on the trot; run off some of that fatty degeneration. Here, youngster, a word with you."

Stover stepped forward.

"What's your name?"

"Stover."

To his profound disappointment, Tompkins did not recognize that illustrious name.

"Where from?"

"Lawrenceville. Played end."

Tompkins looked him over, a little grimly. "Oh, yes; I've heard something about you. Look here, ever do any punting?"

"Some, but only because I had to. I'm no good at it."

"Let's see what you can do."

Stover caught the ball tossed and put all his strength into a kick that went high but short.

"Try another."

The second and third attempts were no better.

"Well, that's pretty punk," said Tompkins. "Dana wants to give you a try on the second. Run over now and report. Oh, Stover!"

Dink halted, to see Tompkins' caustic scrutiny fixed on him.

"Yes, sir."

"Stover, just one word for your good. You come up with a big prep school reputation. Don't make an ass of yourself. Understand; don't get a swelled head. That's all."

"Precious little danger of that here," said Dink a little rebelliously to himself, as he jogged over to the benches where the varsity subs were camped. Le Baron waved him a recognition, but no more. It was as if the gesture meant:

"I've started you. Now stand on your own feet. Don't look to me for help."

For the rest of the practise he sat huddled in his sweater, waiting expectantly as each time Captain Dana passed down the line, calling out the candidates for trials in the brief scrimmages that took place. The afternoon ended without an opportunity coming to him, and he jogged home, in the midst of the pulling crowd, with a sudden feeling of his own unimportance.

He had barely time to get his shower, and run into the almost deserted eating club for a quick supper, when Gimbel appeared, crying:

"I say, Stover, bolt the grub and hoof it. We assemble over by Osborne."

"Where's the wrestling?"

"Don't know. Some vacant lot. Ever do any?"

"Don't know a thing about it."

"We're going to call out a chap called Robinson from St. Paul's, Garden City, for the lightweight, and Regan for the heavy," said Gimbel, who, of course, had been busy during the afternoon. "Thought of you for the middleweight."

"Lord! get some one who knows the game," said Stover, following him out.

"Have you thought of any one you'd like to run for secretary and treasurer?" said Gimbel, locking arms in a cordial way.

"I've got the whole thing organized sure as a steel trap."

"You haven't lost any time," said Stover, smiling.

"That's right ---heaps of fun."

"What are you going to run for?" said Stover, looking at him.

"I? Nothing now. Fence orator, perhaps, later," said Gimbel frankly. "It's the fun of the game interests me --- the organizing, pulling wires, all that sort of thing. I'm going to have a lot of fun here."

"Look here, Gimbel," said Stover, yielding to a sudden appreciation of the other's openness. "Isn't this sort of thing going to get a lot of fellows down on you?"

"Queer me?" said Gimbel, laughing.

The word was still new to Stover, who showed his perplexity.

"That's a great word," added his companion. "You'll hear a lot of it before you get through. It's a sort of college bug that multiplies rapidly. Will politics 'queer' me---keep me out of societies? Probably; but then, I couldn't make 'em anyway. So I'm going to have my fun. And I'll tell you now, Stover, I'm going to get a good deal more out of my college career than a lot of you fellows."

"Why include me?"

"Well, Stover, you're going to make a sophomore society, and go sailing along."

"Oh, I don't know."

"Yes, you do. We don't object to such men as you, who have the right. It's the lame ducks we object to."

"Lame ducks?" said Stover, puzzled as well as surprised at this spokesman of an unsuspected proletariat opposition.

"’Lame ducks' is the word: the fellows who would never make a society if it weren't for pulls, for the men ahead the cripples that all you big men will be trying to bolster up and carry along with you into a senior society."

"I'm not on to a good deal of this," said Stover, puzzled.

"I know you're not. Look here." Gimbe!, releasing his arm, faced him suddenly. "You think I'm a politician out to get something for myself."

"Yes, I do."

"Well, I am --- I'm frank about it. There's a whole mass of us here who are going to fight the sophomore society system tooth and nail, and I'm with them. When you're in the soph crowd you mightn't like what l'in saying, and then again you may come around to our way of thinking. However, I want you to know that I'm hiding nothing--- that I'm fighting in the open. We may be on opposite sides, but I guess we can shake hands. How about it?"

"I guess we can always do that," said Stover, giving his hand. The man puzzled him. Was his frankness deep or a diplomatic assumption?

"And now let's have no pretenses," continued Gimbel, on the same line, with a quick analytical glance. "You're going with your crowd; better join one of their eating-joints."

Stover was genuinely surprised.

"Have you already arranged it?" said Gimbel, laughing.

"Gimbel," said Stover directly, "I'm not quite sure about you."

"You don't know whether I'm a faker or not."

"Exactly."

"Stover, I'm a politician," said Gimbel frankly. "I'm out for a big fight. I know the game here. I wouldn't talk to every one as I talk to you. I want you to understand me-- -more, I want you to like me. And I feel with you that the only way is to be absolutely honest. You see, I'm a politician," he said, with a laugh. "I've learned how to meet different men. Sometime I'm going to talk over things with you---seriously. Here we are now. I've got a bunch of fellows to see. McCarthy's probably looking for you. Don't make up your mind in a hurry about me---or about a good many things here. Ta-ta!"

Stover watched him go gaily into the crowd, distributing bluff, vociferous welcomes, hilariously acclaimed. The man was new, represented a new element, a strange, dimly perceived, rebellious mass, with ideas that intruded themselves ungratefully on his waking vision.

"Is he sincere?" he said to himself --- a question that he was to apply a hundred times in the life that was beginning.

HELLO, there, Stover! " " Stover, over here!"

"Oh, Dink Stover, this way!"

Over the bared heads of the bobbing, shifting crowd he saw Hunter and McCarthy waving to him. He made his way through the strange assorted mass of freshmen to his friends, where already, instinctively, a certain picked element had coalesced. A dozen fellows, cleancut, steady of head and eye, carrying a certain unmistakable, quiet assurance, came about him, gripping him warmly, welcoming him into the little knot with cordial acknowledgment. He felt the tribute, and he liked it. They were of his own kind, his friends to be, now and in the long reaches of life.

"Fall in, fall in!"

Ahead of them, the upper classes were already in rank. Behind, the freshmen, unorganized, distrustful, were being driven into lines of eight and ten by seniors, pipe in mouth, authoritative, quiet, fearfully enveloped in dignity. Cheers began to sound ahead, the familiar brek-e-kek-kex with the class numeral at the end. A cry went up:

"Here, we must have a cheer."

"Give us a cheer." Start her up."

"Lead a cheer, some one."

"Lead a cheer, Hunter."

"Lead the cheer, Gimbel."

"Lead the cheer, Stover."

"Come on, Stover!"

A dozen voices took up his name. He caught the infection. Without hesitating, he stepped by Hunter, who was hesitating, and cried:

"Now, fellows, all together ---the first cheer for the class! Are you ready? Let her rip!"

The cheer, gathering momentum, went crashing above the noises of the street. The college burst into a mighty shout of acclaim---another class was born!

Suddenly ahead the dancing lights of the senior torches began to undulate. Through the mass a hoarse roar went rushing, and a sudden muscular tension.

"Grab hold of me."

"Catch my arm."

"Grip tight."

"Get in line."

"Move up."

"Get the swing."

Stover found himself, arms locked over one another's shoulders, between Schley, who had somehow kept persistently near him, and a powerful, smiling, blond-haired fellow who shouted to him:

"My name's Hungerford --- Joe Hungerford. Glad to know you. Down from Groton."

It was a name known across the world for power in finance, and the arm about Stover's shoulder was taut with the same sentimental rush of emotion.

Down the moving line suddenly came surging the chant:

"Chi Rho Omega Lambda Chi!
We meet to-night to celebrate
The Omega Lambda Chi!"

Grotesquely, lumberingly, tripping and confused, they tried to imitate the forward classes, who were surging in the billowy rhythm of the elusive serpentine dance.

"How the deuce do they do it?"

"Get a skip to it, you ice-wagons."

"All to the left, now."

"No, to the right."

Gradually they found themselves; hoarse, laughing, struggling, sweeping inconsequentially on behind the singing, cheering college.

Before Dink knew it, the line had broken with a rush, and he was carried, struggling and pushing, into a vacant lot, where all at once, out of the tumult and the riot, a circle opened and spread under his eyes.

Seniors in varsity sweaters, with brief authoritative gestures, forced back the crowd, stationed the fretful lights, commanding and directing:

"First row, sit down."

"Down in front, there."

"Kneel behind."

"Freshmen over here."

"Get a move on!"

"Stop that shoving."

"How's the space, Cap?"

In the center, Captain Dana waited with an appraising eye.

"All right. Call out the lightweights."

Almost immediately, from the opposite sophomores, came a unanimous shout:

"Farquahar! Dick Farquahar!"

"Come on, Dick!"

"Get in the ring!"

Out into the ring stepped an agile, nervous figure, acclaimed by all his class.

"A cheer for Farquahar, fellows!" One, two, three!"

"Farquahar!"

"Candidate from the freshman class!" Candidate!

"Robinson!"

"Teddy Robinson!" Harris!

"No, Robinson --- Robinson!"

Gimbel's voice dominated the outcry. There was a surging, and then a splitting of the crowd, and Robinson was slung into the ring.

In the midst of contending cheers, the antagonists stripped to the belt and stood forth to shake hands, their bared torsos shining in high lights against the mingled shadows of the audience.

The two, equally matched in skill, went tumbling and whirling over the matted sod, twisting and flopping, until by a sudden hold Robinson caught his adversary in a half nelson and for the brief part of a second had the two shoulders touching the ground. The second round likewise went to the freshman, who was triumphant after a struggle of twenty minutes.

"Middleweights!"

"Candidate from the sophomore class!"

"Candidate from the freshman!' Fisher!

"Denny Fisher!"

The sophomore stepped forth, tall, angular, well knit. Among the freshmen a division of opinion arose:

"Say, Andover, who've you got?"

"Any one from Hotchkiss?"

"What's the matter with French?"

"He doesn't know a thing about wrestling."

"How about Doe White?"

"Not heavy enough."

The seniors began to be impatient.

"Hurry up, now, freshmen, hurry up!"

"Produce something!"

Still a hopeless indecision prevailed.

"I don't know any one."

"Jack's too heavy."

"Say, you Hill School fellows, haven't you got some one? "

"Some one's got to go out."

The sophomores, seizing the advantage, began to gibe at them:

"Don't be afraid, freshmen!"

"We won't hurt you."

"We'll let you down easy."

"Take it by default."

"Call time on them."

"I don't know a thing about it," said Stover, between his teeth, to Hungerford, his hands twitching impatiently, his glance fixed hungrily on the provokingly amused face of the sophomore champion.

"I'm too heavy or I'd go."

"I've a mind to go, all the same."

McCarthy, who knew his impulses of old, seized him by the arm.

"Don't get excited, Dink, old boy; you don't know anything about wrestling."

"No, but I can scrap!"

The outcry became an uproar: Quitters!

"'Fraid cats!"

"Poor little freshmen!"

"They're in a funk."

"By George, I can't stand that," said Stover, setting his teeth, the old love of combat sweeping over him. "I'm going to have a chance at that duck myself!"

He thrust his way forward, shaking off McCarthy's hold, stepped over the reclining front ranks, and, springing into the ring, faced Dana.

"I'm no wrestler, sir, but if there's no one else I'll have a try at it."

There was a sudden hush, and then a chorus: Who is it?"

"Who's that fellow?"

"What's his name?"

"Oh, freshmen, who's your candidate?"

"Stover!"

"Stover, a football man!"

"Fellow from Lawrenceville!"

The seniors had him over in a corner, stripping him, talking excitedly.

"Say, Stover, what do you know about it?"

"Not a thing."

"Then go in and attack."

"All right."

"Don't wait for him."

"No."

"He's a clever wrestler, but you can get his nerve."

"His nerve?"

"Keep off the ground."

"Off the ground, yes."

"Go right in; right at him; tackle him hard; shake him up."

"All right," he said, for the tenth time. He had heard nothing that had been said. He was standing erect, looking in a dazed way at the hundreds of eyes that were dancing about him in the living, breathing pit in which he stood. He heard a jumble of roars and cheers, and one clear cry, McCarthy crying:

"Good old Dink!"

Some one was rolling up his trousers to the knee; some one was flinging a sweater over his bared back; some one was whispering in his ear:

"Get right to him. Go for him --- don't wait!"

"Already, there," said Captain Dana's quiet, matter-of-fact voice.

"Already, here."

"Shake hands!"

The night air swept over him with a sudden chill as the sweaters were pulled away. He went forth while Dana ran over the rules and regulations, which he did not understand at all. He stood then about five feet ten, in perfect condition, every muscle clearly outlined against the wiry, spare Yankee frame, shoulders and the sinews of his arms extraordinarily developed. From the moment he had stepped out, his eyes had never left Fisher's. Combat transformed his features, sending all the color from his face, narrowing the eyes, and drawing tense the lips. Combat was with him always an overmastering rage in the leash of a cold, nervous, pulsating logic, which by the very force of its passion gave to his expression an almost dispassionate cruelty --- a look not easy to meet, that somehow, on the instant, impressed itself on the crowd with the terrific seriousness of the will behind.

"Wiry devil."

"Good shoulders."

"Great fighting face, eh?"

"Scrapper, all right."

"I'll bet he is."

"Shake hands!"

Stover caught the other's hand, looked into his eyes, read something there that told him, science aside, that he was the other's master; and suddenly, rushing forward, he caught him about the knees and, lifting him bodily in the air, hurled him through the circle in a terrific tackle.

The onslaught was so sudden that Fisher, unable to guard himself, went down with a crash, the fall broken by the bodies of the spectators.

A roar, half laughter, half hysteria, went up.

"Go for him!"

"Good boy, Stover!"

"Chew him up!"

"Is he a scrapper!"

"Say, this is a fight!"

"Wow!"

Dana, clapping them on the shoulders, brought them back to the center of the ring and restored them to the position in which they had fallen. Fisher, plainly shaken up, immediately worked himself into a defensive position, recovering his breath, while Stover frantically sought some instinctive hold with which to turn him over.

Suddenly an arm shot out, caught his head in chancery, and before he knew it he was underneath and the weight of Fisher's body was above, pressing him down. He staggered to his feet in a fury, maddened, unreasoning, and went down again, always with the dead weight above him.

"Here, that won't do," he said to himself savagely, recovering his clarity of vision; "I mustn't lose strength."

All at once, before he knew how it had been done, Fisher's arm was under his, cutting over his neck, and slowly but irresistibly his shoulders, were turning toward the fatal touch. Every one was up, shouting:

"Turn him over!"

"Finish him up!"

"Hold out, freshman!"

"Hold out!

"Flop over!"

"Don't give in!"

"Stick it out!"

With a sudden expenditure of strength, he checked the turning movement, desperately striving against he cruel hold.

"Good boy, Stover!"

"That's the stuff!"

"Show your grit!"

"Holdout!"

"Show your nerve!"

In a second he had reasoned it out. He was caught ---he knew it. He could resist three minutes, five minutes, slowly sinking against his ebbing strength, frantically cheered for a spectacular resistance---and then what? If he had a chance, it was in preserving every ounce of his strength for the coming rounds.

"All right; you've got me this time," he said coldly, and, relaxing, let his shoulders drop.

Dana's hand fell stingingly on him, announcing the fall. He rose amid an angry chorus:

"What the deuce!"

"Say, I don't stand for that!"

"Thought he was game."

"Game nothing!"

"Lost his nerve."

"Sure he did."

"Well, I'll be damned."

"A quitter --- a rank quitter!"

He walked to his seconds, angry at the misunderstanding.

"Here, I know* what I'm doing," he said in short, quick breaths, forgetting that he, a freshman, was addressing the lords of creation. He was a captain again, his own captain, conducting his own battle. "I'll get him yet. Rub up this shoulder, quick."

"Keep off the ground," said one mentor.

"You bet I will." "Why the deuce did you give in so easily?"

"Because there are two more rounds, and I'm going to use my head --- hang it!"

"He's right, too," said the first senior, rubbing him fiercely with the towel. "Now, sport, don't monkey with him until you've jarred him up a couple of times!"

"That's what I'm going to do!"

"Time!" cried the voice of Dana.

This time he retreated slowly, drawing Fisher unwarily toward his edge of the ring, and then suddenly, as the sophomore lunged at him, shot forward again, in a tackle just below the waist, raised him clear off the ground, spun him around, and, putting all his force into his back as a wood-chopper swings an ax, brought him down crashing, clear across the ring. It was a fearful tackle, executed with every savage ounce of rage within him, the force of which momentarily stunned him. Fisher, groggy under the bruising impact, barely had time to turn on his stomach before Stover was upon him.

Dink immediately sprang up and back, waiting in the center of the ring. The sophomore, too dazed to reason clearly, yielding only to his anger at the sudden reversal, foolishly struggled to his feet and came staggering toward him. A second time Stover threw all his dynamic strength into another crashing tackle. This time Fisher went over on his back with a thump, and, though he turned instinctively, both shoulders had landed squarely on the turf, and, despite his frantic protests, a roar went up as Dana allotted the fall to Stover.

This time, as he went to his corner, it was amid pandemonium:

"You're a corker, freshman!"

"Oh, you bulldog!"

"Tear him up!"

"You're the stuff!"

"Good head, freshman!"

"Good brain-work!"

Several upper classmen came hurriedly over to his corner, slapping him on the back, volunteering advice.

"Clear out," said his mentor proudly. "This rooster can take care of himself."

Fisher came up for the third round, visibly groggy and shaken by the force of the tackles he had received, but game. Twice Stover, watching his chance, dove under the groping hands and flung him savagely to the ground. Once Fisher caught him, as they lay on the ground, in a hold that might have been decisive earlier in the match. As it was, Stover felt with a swift horror the arm slipping under his arm, half gripping his neck. The wet heat of the antagonistic body over his inflamed all the brute in him. The strength was now his. He tore himself free, scrambled to his feet, and hurled Fisher a last time clean through into the scattering crowd, where he lay stunned, too weak to resist the viselike hands that forced his shoulders to the ground.

Dana hauled Stover to his feet, a little groggy.

"Some tackling, freshman! Bout's yours! Call out the heavyweights!"

Scarcely realizing that it was his captain who had spoken, Dink stood staring down at Fisher, white and conquered, struggling to his feet in the grip of friends.

"I say, Fisher," he said impulsively, "I hope I didn't shake you up too much. I saw red; I didn't know what I was doing."

"You did me all right," said the sophomore, giving his hand. "That tackle of yours would break a horse in two. Shake!"

"Thank you," said Stover, flustered and almost ashamed before the other's perfect sportsmanship. "Thank you very much, sir!"

He went to his corner, smothered under frantic slaps and embraces, hearing his name resounding again and again on the thunders of his classmates. The bout had been spectacular; every one was asking who he was.

"Stover, eh, of Lawrenceville!"

"Gee, what a fierce tackler!"

"Ridiculous for Fisher to be beaten!"

"Oh, is it? How'd you like to get a fall like that?"

"Played end."

"Captain at Lawrenceville."

"He ought to be a wonder."

"Say, did you see the face he got on him?"

"Enough to scare you to death."

"It got Fisher, all right."

While he was being rubbed down and having his clothes thrust upon him, shivering in every tense muscle, which, now the issue was decided, seemed to have broken from his control, suddenly a hand gripped his, and, looking up, he saw the face of Tompkins, ablaze with the fire of the professional spectator.

"I'm not shaking hands on your brutal old tackling," he said, with a look that belied his words. "It's the other thing ---the losing the first fall. Good brain-work, boy; that's what'll count in football."

The grip of the veteran cut into his hand; in Tompkins's face also was a reminiscent flash of the fighting face that somehow, in any test, wins half the battle.

The third bout went to the sophomores, Regan, the choice of the class, being nowhere to be found. But the victory was with the freshmen, who, knit suddenly together by the consciousness of a power to rise to emergencies, carried home the candidates in triumph.

McCarthy, with his arms around Stover as he had done in the old school days after a grueling football contest, bore Dink up to their rooms with joyful, bearlike hugs. Other hands were on him, wafting him up the stairs as though riding a gale.

"Here, let me down will you, you galoots!" he cried vainly from time to time.

Hilariously they carried hint into the room and dumped him down. Other freshmen, following, came to him, shaking his hand, pounding him on the back.

"Good boy, Stover!"

"What's the use of wrestling, anyhow?"

"You're it!"

"We're all for you!"

"The old sophomores thought they had it cinched."

"Three cheers for Dink Stover!"

"One more!"

"And again!"

"Yippi!"

McCarthy, doubled up with laughter, stood in front of him, gazing hilariously, proudly down.

"You old Dink, you, what right had you to go out for it?

"None at all."

"How the deuce did you have the nerve?"

"How?" For the first time the question impressed itself on him. He scratched his head and said simply, unconscious of the wide application of what he said: "Gee! guess I didn't stop to think how rotten I was."

He went to bed, gorgeously happy with the first throbbing, satisfying intoxication of success. The whole world must be concerned with him now. He was no longer unknown; he had emerged, freed himself from the thralling oblivion of the mass.

STOVER fondly dreamed, that night, of his triumphal appearance on the field the following day, greeted by admiring glances and cordial handshakes, placed at once on the second eleven, watched with new interest by curious coaches, earning an approving word from the captain himself.

When he did come on the field, embarrassed and reluctantly conscious of his sudden leap to world-wide fame, no one took the slightest notice of him. Tompkins did not vouchsafe a word of greeting. To his amazement, Dana again passed him over and left him restless on the bench, chafing for the opportunity that did not come. The second and the third afternoon it was the same --- the same indifference, the same forgetfulness. And then he suddenly realized the stern discipline of it all --- unnecessary and stamping out individuality, it seemed to him at first, but subordinating everything to the one purpose, eliminating the individual factor, demanding absolute subordination to the whole, submerging everything into the machine --- that was not a machine only, when once accomplished, but an immense idea of sacrifice and self-abnegation. Directly, clearly visualized, he perceived, for the first time, what he was to perceive in every side of his college career, that a standard had been fashioned to which, irresistibly, subtly, he would have to conform; only here, in the free domain of combat, the standard that imposed itself upon him was something bigger than his own.

Meanwhile the college in all its activities opened before him, absorbing him in its routine. The great mass of his comrades to be gradually emerged from the blurred mists of the first day. He began to perceive hundreds of faces, faces that fixed themselves in his memory, ranging themselves, dividing according to his first impression into sharply defined groups. Fellows sought him out, joined him when he crossed the campus, asked him to drop in.

In chapel he found himself between Bob Story, a quiet, self-contained, likable fellow, popular from the first from a certain genuine sweetness and charity in his character, son of Judge Story of New Haven, one of the most influential of the older graduates; and on the other side Swazey, a man of twenty-five or six, of a type that frankly amazed him --- rough, uncouth, with thick head and neck, rather flat in the face, intrusive, yellowish eyes, under lip overshot one ear maimed by a scar, badly dressed, badly combed, and badly shod. Belying this cloutish exterior was a quietness of manner and the dreamy vision of a passionate student. Where he came from Stover could not guess, nor by what strange chance of life he had been thrown there. In front of him was the great bulk of Regan, always bent over a book for the last precious moments, coming and going always with the same irresistible steadiness of purpose. He had not been at the wrestling the opening night, he had not been out for football, because his own affairs, his search for work, were to him more important; and, looking at him, Stover felt that he would never allow anything to divert him from his main purpose in college --- first, to earn his way, and, second, to educate himself. Stover, with others, had urged him to report for practise, knowing, though not proclaiming it, that there lay the way to friendships that, once gained, would make easy his problem.

"Not yet, Stover," said Regan, always with the same finality in his tone. "I've got to see my way clear; I've got to know if I can down that infernal Greek and Latin first. If I can, I'm coming out."

"Where do you room?" said Stover.

"Oh, out about a mile --- a sort of rat-hole."

"I want to drop in on you."

"Come out sometime."

"Drop in on me."

"I'm going to."

"I say, Regan, why don't you see Le Baron?"

"What for?"

"Why, he might ---might give you some good tips," said Stover, a little embarrassed.

"Exactly. Well, I prefer to help myself."

Stover broke out laughing.

"You're a fierce old growler!"

"I am."

"I wish you'd come around a little and let the fellows know you."

"That can wait."

"I say, Regan," said Stover suddenly, "would you mind doing the waiting over at our joint?"

"My should I?"

"Why, I thought," said Stover, not saying what he had thought, "I thought perhaps you'd find it more convenient at Commons."

"Is that what you really thought?" said Regan, with a quizzical smile.

The man's perfect simplicity and unconsciousness impressed Stover more than all the fetish of enthroned upper classmen; he was always a little embarrassed before Regan.

"No," he said frankly, "but, Regan, I would like to have you with us, and I think you'd like it."

"We'll talk it over," said Regan deliberately. "I'll think it over myself. Good-by."

Stover put out his hand instinctively. Their hands held each other a moment, and their eyes met in open, direct friendship.

He stood a moment thoughtfully, after they had parted. What he had offered had been offered impulsively. He began to wonder if it would work out without embarrassment in the intimacy of the eating-joint.

The crowd that they had joined --- as Gimbel had predicted --- had taken a long dining-room cheerily lighted, holding one table, around which sixteen ravenous freshmen managed to squeeze in turbulent, impatient clamor.

Bob Story, Hunter and his crowd, Hungerford and several men from Groton and St. Mark's, Schley and his room-mate Troutman made up a coterie that already had in it the elements of the leadership of the class.

As he was deliberating, he perceived Joe Hungerford rolling along, with his free and easy slouch, immersed in the faded blue sweater into which he had lazily bolted to make chapel, a cap riding on the exuberant wealth of blond hair. He broached the subject at once:

"Say, Hungerford, you're the man I want."

"Fire away."

Stover detailed his invitation to Regan, concluding.:

"Now, tell me frankly what you think."

"Have him with us, by all means," said Hungerford impulsively.

"Might it not be a little embarrassing? How do you think the other fellows would like it?"

"Why, there's only one way to take it," said Hungerford directly. "Our crowd's too damned select now to suit me. We need him a darn sight more than he needs us.,,"

"I knew you'd feel that way."

"By George, that's why I came to Yale. If there are any little squirts in the crowd think differently, a swift kick where it'll do the most good will clear the atmosphere."

Stover looked at him with impulsive attraction. He was boyish, unspoiled, eager.

"Now, look here, Dink ---you don't mind me calling you that, do you?" continued Hungerford, with a little hesitation.

"Go ahead."

"I want you to understand how I feel about things. I've got about everything in the world to make a conceited, pompous, useless little ass out of me, and about two hundred people who want to do it. I wish to blazes I was starting where Regan is ---where my old dad did; I might do something worth while. Now, I don't want any hungry, boot-licking little pups around me whose bills I am to pay. I want to come in on your scale, and I'm mighty glad to get the chance. That's why my allowance isn't going to be one cent more than yours; and I want you to know it. Now, as for this fellow Regan ---he sounds like a man. I tell you what I'll do. I'll fix it ùp in a shake of a lamb's tail."

"Question is whether Regan will come," said Stover doubtfully.

"By George, I'll make him. We'll go right out together and put it to him."

Which they did; and Regan, yielding to the open cordiality of Hungerford, accepted and promised to change at the end of his week.

In the second week, having satisfactorily arranged his affairs---by what slender margin no one ever knew---Regan reported for practise. He had played a little football in the Middle West and, though his knowledge was crude, he learned slowly, and what he learned he never lost. His great strength, and a certain quality which was moral as well as physical, very shortly won him the place of right guard, where with each week he strengthened his hold.

Regan's introduction at the eating-joint had been achieved without the embarrassment Stover had feared. He came and went with a certain natural dignity that was not assumed, but was inherent in the simplicity of his character. He entered occasionally into the conversation and always, when the others were finished and tarrying over the tobacco, brought his plate to a vacant place and ate his supper; but, that through, though often urged, went his purposeful way, with always that certain solitary quality about him that made approach difficult and had left him friendless.

On the fourth afternoon of practise, as Stover, restraining the raging impatience within him, resolved that at all costs he would not show the chafing, went to his place on the imprisoning bench, watching with famished eyes the contending lines, Dana, without warning, called from the open field:

"Stover! Stover! Out here!"

He jumped up, oblivious of everything but the sudden thumping of his heart and the curious stir in the ranks of the candidates.

"Here, leave your sweater," shouted Tompkins, who had repeated the summons.

"Oh, yes."

Clumsily entangled in the folds of his sweater, he struggled to emerge. Tompkins, amiid a roar of laughter, caught the arms and freed him, grinning at the impetuousness with which Stover went scudding out.

On the way he passed the man he was replacing, returning rebelliously with à half antagonistic, half apprehensive glance at him.

"Take left end on the scrub," said Dana, who was not in the line of scrimmage. "Farley, give him the signals."

The scrub quarter hastily poured into his ears the simple code. He took up his position. The play was momentarily halted by one of the coaches, who was hauling the center men over the coals. Opposite Stover, Bangs, senior, was standing, legs spread, hands on his hips, looking at him with a look Stover never forgot. For three years he had plugged along his way, doggedly holding his place in the scrubs, patiently waiting for the one opportunity to come. Now, at last, after the years of servitude, standing on the coveted side of the line, suddenly here was a freshman with a big reputation come in the challenge that might destroy all the years of patience and send him back into the oblivion of scrubs.

Stover understood the appealing fury of the look, even in all the pitilessness of his ambition. Something sharp went through him at the thought of the man for whose position, ruthlessly, fiercely, he was beginning to fight.

Five or six coaches, always under the direction of Case, head coach, were moving restlessly about the field, watching for the first rudimentary faults. One or two gave him quick appraising looks. Stover, moving restlessly back and forth, his eyes on the ground, too conscious of the general curiosity, awaited the moment of action. The discussion around the center ended.

"Varsity take the ball," called out Dana; "get into it, every one!"

The two lines sprang quickly into position, the coaches, nervous and vociferous, jumping behind the unfortunate objects of their wrath, while the air was filled with shrieked advice and exhortation.

"On the jump, there, Biggs!"

"Charge low!"

"Oh, get down, get down!"

"Break up this play!"

"Wake up I"

"Smash into it!"

Charge!"

"Now!"

"Block that man!"

"Throw him back!"

"Get behind!"

"Push him on!"

"Shove him on!"

"Get behind and shove!"

"Shove!"

"Shove! Oh, shove!"

Attack and defense were still crude. The play had gone surging around the opposite end, but in a halting way, the runner impeded by his own interference. Stover, sweeping around at full speed, was able to down the half from behind, just as the interference succeeded in clearing the way. At once it was a chorus of angry shouts, each coach descending on the particular object of his wrath.

"Beautiful!

"You're a wonder!"

"What are you doing,---growing to the ground?"

"What did I tell you?"

"Say, interference, is this a walking match?"

"WOnderful speed --- almost got away from the opposite end."

"Say, Charley, a fast lot of backs we've got."

"Line 'em up!"

Two or three plays through the center, struggling and squirming in the old fashion of football, were succeeded by several tries at his side. Stover, besides three years' hard drilling, had a natural gift of diagnosis, which, with the savagery of his tackling, made him, even at this period, an unusual end, easily the best of the candidates on the field. He stood on guard, turning inside the attack, or running along with it and gradually forcing his man out of bounds. At other times he went through the loose interference and caught his man with a solid lunge that was not to be denied.

The varsity being forced at last to kick, Bangs came out opposite him for that running scrimmage to cover a punt that is the final test of an end.

Stover, dropping a little behind, confident in his measure of the man, caught him with his shoulder on the start, throwing him off balance for a precious moment, and then followed him down the field, worrying him like a sheep-dog pursuing a rebellious member of his flock, and caught him at the last with a quick lunge at the knees that sent him sprawling out of the play. Up on his feet in a minute, Stover went racing after his fullback, in time to give the impetus of his weight that sent him over his tackle, falling forward.

"How in blazes did that scrub end get back here?" shouted out Harden, a coach, a famous end himself. He came up the field with Bangs, grabbing him by the shoulder, gesticulating furiously, his fist flourishing, crying:

"Here, Dana, give us that play over again!"

A second time Bangs sought to elude Stover, goaded on by the taunts of Harden, who accompanied them. Quicker in speed and with a power of instinctive application of his strength, Stover hung to his man, putting him out of the play despite his frantic efforts.

Harden, furious, railed at him.

"What! You let a freshman put you out of the play? Where's your pride? In the name of Heaven do something! Why, they're laughing at you, Ben,--- they're giving you the laugh!"

Bangs, senior society man, manager of the crew, took the driving and the leash without a protest, knowing though he did that the trouble was beyond him --- that he was up against a better man.

Suddenly Harden turned on Stover, who, a little apart, was moving uneasily, feeling profoundly sorry for the tanning Bangs was receiving on his account.

"Look here, young fellow, you're not playing that right,"

Stover was amazed.

"What's the first thing you've got to think about when you follow down your end?"

"Keep him out of the play," said Stover.

"Never!" Harden seized him by the jersey, attacking with his long expostulating forefinger, just as he had laid down the law to Bangs. "Never! That's grandstand playing, my boy; good for you, rotten for the team. The one thing you've got to do first, last, and always, is to know where the ball is and what's happening to it. Understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Now you didn't do that. You went down with your eyes on your man only, didn't you?"

"Yes, sir."

"You never looked at your back to see if he fumbled, did you?"

"No sir."

"And if he had, where'd you have been? If he holds it all right, knock over your end, but if he fumbles you've got to beat every one to it and recover it. You're one of eleven men, not a newspaper phenomenon --- get that in your head. You didn't know I was trying you out as well as Bangs. Now let it sink into you. Do you get it?"

"Yes, sir, thank you," said Stover, furious at himself, for if there was one thing that was instinctive in him it was this cardinal quality of following the ball and being in every play.

It was a day of the hardest, trying alike to the nerves of coaches and men, when the teams were driven without a rest, when tempers were strained to the snapping point, in the effort to instil not so much the details of the gaine as the inflaming spirit of combat.

It was dusk before the coaches called a halt to the practise and sent them, steaming and panting, aching in every joint, back to the gymnasium for a rub-down.

Climbing wearily into the car to sink gratefully into a seat, Dink suddenly, to his confusion, found himself by the side of Bangs.

"Hello," said the senior, looking up with a grin, "I hope every muscle in your body's aching."

"It certainly is... said Stover, relieved.

Bangs looked at him a long moment, shook his head, and said:

"I wish I could drop a ton of brick on you."

"Why?"

"I've plugged away for years, slaved like a nigger at this criminal game, thought I was going to get my chance at last, and now you come along."

"Oh, I say," said Stover in real confusion.

"Oh, I'll make you fight for it," said the other, with a snap of his jaws. "But, boy, there's one thing I liked. When that old rhinoceros of a Harden was putting the hooks into me, you nevèr eased up for a second."

"I knew you'd feel that way."

"If you'd done differently I'd slaughtered you," said Bangs. "Well, good luck to you!"

He smiled, but back of the smile Stover saw the cruel cut of disappointment.

And this feeling was stronger in him than any feeling of elation as he returned to his rooms, after the late supper. He had never known anything like the fierceness of that first practise. It was not play with the zest he loved, it was a struggle of ambitions with all the heartache that lay underneath. He had gone out to play, and suddenly found himself in a school for character, enchained to the discipline of the Caesars, where the test lay in stoicism and the victory was built on the broken hopes of a comrade. or the first time, a little appalled, he felt the weight of the seriousness, the deadly seriousness of the American spirit, which seizes on everything that is competition and transforms it, with the savage fanaticism of its race, for success.

AFTER a week of grueling practise, the first game of the season came like a holiday. Stover was called out after the first few minutes, replacing Bangs, and remained until the close. He played well, aided by several fortunate opportunities, earning at the last a pat on the back from Dana which sent him home rejoicing. The showing of the team was disappointing, even for that early season. The material was plainly lacking in the line, and at full-back the kicking was lamentably weak. The coaches went off with serious faces; throughout the college assembled on the stands was a spreading premonition of disaster.

Saturday night was privileged, with the long, grateful Sunday morning sleep ahead.

"Dink, ahoy!" shouted McNab's cheerful voice over the banister, as he entered the house.

"Hello, there!"

"How's the boy wonder, the only man-eating Dink in captivity?"

"Tired as the deuce."

"Fine. First rate," said McNab, skipping down. "Forget the past, think only of the bright furniture. We've got a block of tickets for Poli's Daring-DazzlingDelightful Vaudeville to-night. You're elected. We'll end up with a game at Reynolds'. Seen the Evening Register!"

"My boy, you are famous,". said McNab, brandishing a paper. "I'm lovelier, but you get the space. Never mind, I'll be arrested soon--- anything to get in the papers!"

While McNab's busy tongue ran on, Stover was gazing at the account of the game, where, among the secondary headlines, there stared out at him the caption:

The thing was too incredible. He stood stupidly looking at it.

"How do you feel?" said McNab, taking his pulse professionally.

There was no answer Stover could give to that first throbbing sensation at seeing his name --- his own name --in print. It left him confused, almost a little frightened.

"Why, Dink, you're modest," said the irrepressible McNab; and, throwing open the door, he shouted at the top of his voice: "I say, fellows, come down and see Dink blush."

A magnificent scrimmage, popularly known as a "rough house," ensued, in which McNab was properly chastised, though not a whit subdued.

McCarthy arrived late, with the freshman eleven, back from a close contest with a school team. They took a hurried supper, and went down a dozen strong, in jovial marching order.

The sensations of the theater were still new to Stover, nor had his fortunate eye seen under the make-up or his imagination gone below the laughter. To parade down the aisle, straight as a barber's pole, chin carefully balanced on the sharp edge of his collar, on the night of his first day as end on the Yale varsity, delightfully conscious of his own startling importance, feeling as if he overtopped every one in the most public fashion, to be absolutely blushingly conscious that every one in the theater must, too, be grasping a copy of that night's Evening Register, that every glance had started at his arrival and was following in set admiration, was a memory he was never to forget. His shoulders thrown up a little, just a little in accentuation, as behooved an end with a reputation for tackling, he found his seat and, dropping down quickly to escape observation, buried himself in his program to appear modest before the burning concentration of attention which he was quite sure must now be focused on him.

"Dobbs and Benzigger, the fellows who smash the dishes by George, that's great!" cried McNab, joyfully running over the program. "They're wonders.a perfect scream!"

"Any good dancing?" said Hungerford, and a dozen answers came:

"You bet there is!"

"Fanny Lamonte --- a dream, Joe!"

"Daintiest thing you ever saw."

"Sweetest little ankles!"

"Who's this coming--- the Six Templeton Sisters?"

"Don't know."

"Well, here they come."

"They've got to be pretty fine for me!"

Enthroned as lords of the drama, they pronounced their infallible judgments. Every joke was new, every vaudeville turn an occasion for a gale of applause. The appearance of the "Six Templetons" was the occasion of a violent discussion between the adherents of the blondes and the admirers of the brunettes, led by the impressionable McNab.

"I'm all for the peach in the middle!"

"Ah, rats! She's got piano legs. Look at the fighting brunette at this end."

"Why, she's got a squint."

"Squint nothing; she's winking at me."

"Yes, she is!"

"Watch me get her eye!"

Stover, of course, preserved an attitude of necessary dignity, gently tolerant of the rakish sentimentalities of the younger members of the flock. Moreover, he was supremely aware that the sparkling eyes under the black curls (were they real?) were not looking at McNab, but intensely directed at his own person --- all of which, as she could not have read the Register, was a tribute to his own personal and not public charms.

The lights, the stir of the audience, the boxes filled with the upper classmen, the gorgeous costumes, the sleepy pianist pounding out the accompaniments while accomplishing the marvelous feat of reading a newspaper, were all things to him of fascination. But his eye went not to the roguish professional glances, but lost itself somewhere above amid the ragged drops and borders. He was transported into the wonders of Dink-land, where one figure ran a hundred adventures, where a hundred cheers rose to volley forth one name, where a dozen games were passed in a. second, triumphant, dazzling, filled with spectacular conflicts, blurred with frantic crowds of blue, ending always in surging black-hatted rushes that tossed him victoriously toward the stars!

"Let's cut out," said McNab's distinct voice. "There's nothing but xylophones and coons left."

"Come on over to Reynolds's."

"Start up the game."

Reluctantly, fallen to earth again, Stover rose and followed them out. In a moment they had passed through the fragrant casks and bottles that thronged the passage, saluting the statesmanly bulk of Hugh Reynolds, and found themselves in a back room, already floating in smoke. White, accusing lights of bracketed lamps picked out the gray features of a dozen men vociferously rolling forth a drinking chorus, while the magic arms of Buck Waters, his falcon's nose and little muzzle eyes, dominated the whole. A shout acclaimed them:

"Yea, fellows!"

"Shove in here!"

"Get into the game."

"Bartender, a little more of that brutalizing beer!"

"Cheese and pretzels!"

"Hello, Tough McCarthy!"

"Over here, Dopey McNab."

"Get into the orchestra."

"Good boy, Stover!"

"Congratulations!"

"Oh, Dink Stover, have we your eye?"

The last call, caught up by every voice, went swelling in volume, accompanied by a general uplifting of mugs and glasses. It was the traditional call to a health.

"I'd like to oblige," said Dink, a little embarrassed, but I'm in training."

"That's all right ---hand him a soft one."

For the first time he perceived that there was a perfect freedom in the choice of beverage. He bowed, drained his glass, and sat down.

"Oh, Dopey McNab, have we your eye?"

"You certainly have, boys, and I'm no one-eyed man at that," said McNab, jovially disappearing down a mug, while the room in chorus trolled out:

"Drink the wine divine
As long as you can stand it.
Hand the bowl around
As long as you can hand it.
Drink your glass,
Drink your glass,
Dri-i-i-i-ink --- he's drunk it down."

"Oh, Jim Hunter, have we your eye?"

Each new arrival in turn, called to his feet, rose and drained his glass to a hilarious accompaniment, while Stover, to his surprise, noted that fully a third of the crowd were ordering soft drinks.

"Oh, Dink Stover, here's to you/"

From across the table Tommy Bain, lifting his glass of ginger ale, smiled a gracious smile.

"Same to you, Tommy Bain."

The fellow who had addressed him was a leader among the Hotchkiss crowd, out for coxswain, already spoken of for one of the class managerships. He was a diminutive type, immaculately neat, black hair exactly parted and unflurried, well jacketed, turn-down collar embellished with a red-and-yellow four-in-hand, a rather large, bulbous nose, and thin eyes that were never quiet --shrewd, direct, inquisitive, always estimating. He was smiling again, raising his glass to some one else down the table, and the smile that passed easily over his lips had the quality of seeming to come from the heart.

McNab and Buck Waters, natural leaders of the revels, arms locked, were giving a muscular exhibition of joint conducting, while the room in chorus sang:

"Should fortune prove unkind,
Should fortune prove unfair,
A cure I have in mind
To drive away all care."

By George!" said Hungerford, at his side, laughing, "it's good to be in the game at last, isn't it, Dink?"

"It certainly is."

"We've got a great crowd; it's going to be a great class."

"Who's Bain?" said Dink, under his breath.

"Bain --- oh, he's a clever chap, probably be a class deacon. That's another good thing about this place: we can all get together and drink what we want."

"Chorus!" cried McNab and Waters, with a twin flourish of their arms.

"Chorus!" shouted Hungerford and Bain, raising their glasses in accompaniment.

"For to-night we will be merry
As the rosy wine we drink ---
The rosy wine we drink!"

"Yea!"

"A little more close harmony!"

A great shout acclaimed the chorus and another song was started.

Hunter and Bain were opposite each other, surrounded as it were by adherents, each already aware of the other, measuring glances, serious, unrelaxing, never unbending, never departing a moment from the careful attitude of critical aloofness. In the midst of the rising hilarity and the rebellious joy of newly gained liberty, the two rival leaders sat singing, but not of the song, the same placid, maliciously superior smile floating over the perfectly controlled lips of Bain, while in the anointed gaze of Hunter was a ponderous seriousness which at that age is ascribed to a predestined Napoleonic melancholy.

"Solo from Buck Waters!"

"Solo!"

"On the chair!"

"Yea, Buck Waters!"

Yielding to the outcry Waters was thrust upward.

"The cowboy orchestra!"

"Give us the cowboy orchestra!"

"The cowboy orchestra, ladies and gentlemen."

With a wave of his hand he organized the room into drums, bugles, and trombones, announcing:

"The orchestra will tune up and play this little tune,

"'Ta-de-dee-ra-ta-ra-ta-rata,
Ta-de-dee-ra-ta-ra-ta-rata-ta!'

"All ready? Lots of action there --- a little more cyclonic from the trombones. Fine! Whenever I give the signal the orchestra will burst forth into that melodious refrain. I will now give an imitation of a professional announcer at Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show and Congress of Rough Riders. Orchestra:

"Ta-de-dee-rata-rata-rata
Ta-d e-dee-rata-rata-rat a-ta!"

While Waters, with his great comical face shining above the gleeful crowd like a harvest moon rising from the lake, continued endlessly. drawling out his nasal imitations, the crowd, for the first time welded together, rocked and shouted out the farcical chorus. When he had ended, Buck Waters sat down, enthroned forever afterward master of song and revels.

Bain began to cast estimating glances, calculating on the moment to leave. At the other end Waters was fairly smothered under the rush of delighted comrades, patting him on the back, acclaiming his rise to fame. The tables settled down into a sentimental refrain led by Stone's clear tenor.

Dink's glance, traveling down the table, was suddenly attracted by the figure of a young fellow with a certain defiant yet shy individuality in its pose.

"Who's the rather dark chap just beyond Dopey?" he asked Hungerford.

"Don't know; ask Schley."

"Brockhurst --- Sidney Brockhurst," said Schley, not lowering his voice, "from Hill School. Trying for the Lit. Clever chap, they say, but a little long-haired."

Stover studied him, his curiosity awakened. Brockhurst, of all present, seemed the most solitary and the most self-conscious. He had a long head, high, thin cheeks, and a nervous little habit, when intent or conscious of being watched, of drawing his fingers over his lips. His head was thrown back a little proudly, but the eyes contradicted this attitude, with the acute shyness in them that clouded a certain keen imaginative scrutiny.

At this moment his eyes met Stover's. Dink, yielding to an instinct, raised his glass and smiled. Brockhurst hastily seized his mug in response, spilling a little of it and dropping his glance quickly. Once or twice, as if unpleasantly conscious of the examination, he turned uneasily.

"He looks rather interesting," said Stover thoughtfully.

"Think so?" said Schley. "Rather freaky to me."

Suddenly a shout went up:

"Come in!"

"Yea, Sheff!"

"Yea, Tom Kelly!"

The narrow doorway was suddenly alive with a boisterous, rollicking crowd of Sheff freshmen, led by Tom Kelly, a short, roly-poly, alert little fellow with a sharp pointing nose and a great half-moon of a mouth.

"Come in, Kelly!"

"Crowd in, fellows!"

"Oh, Tom, join us!"

"I will not come in," said Kelly, with a certain painful beery assumption of dignity. He balanced himself a moment, steadied by his neighbors; and then, to the delight of the room, began, with the utmost gravity, one of his inimitable imitations of the lords that sit enthroned in the faculty.

"I come, not to stultify myself in the fumes of liquor, but to do you good. Beer is brutalizing. With your kind permission, I will whistle you a few verses of a noble poem on same subject."

"Whistle, Tom?"

The word was whistle," said Kelly sternly. Extending his arm for silence, he proceeded, with great intensity and concentrated facial expression, to whistle a sort of improvisation. Then, suddenly ceasing, he continued:

"And what does this beautiful, ennobling little thing teach us, written by a great mind, one of the greatest, greatest minds -what does it teach us?"

"Well, what does it teach?" said one or two voices, after Kelly had preserved a statuesque pose beyond the limits of their curiosity.

"Ask me," said Kelly, with dignity.

"Mr. Kelly," said McNab rising seriously, "what does this little gem of intellectuality, this as it were psycho-therapeutical cirrhosis of a paleontological state, ---you get my meaning, of course,--- that is, from the point of view of modern introspective excavations, with due regard to whatever the sixth dimension, considered as such, may have of influence, and allowing that a certain amount of error is inherent in Spanish cooking if eggs are boiled in a chafing-dish---admitting all this, I ask you a simple question. Do you understand me?"

"Perfectly," said Kelly, who had followed this serious harangue with strained attention. "And, moreover, I agree with you."

"You agree?" said McNab, feigning surprise.

"I do."

"Sir, you are a congenial soul. Shake hands."

But, in the act of stealing this sudden friendship, Kelly brought forth his hand, when it was perceived that he was tightly clutching a pool-ball, and, moreover, that his pockets were bulging like a sort of universal mumps with a dozen inexplicable companions. A shout went up:

"Why, he's swallowed a frame of pool-balls!"

"He certainly has."

"He's swiped them."

"He's wrecked a pool-room."

"How the deuce did he do it?"

"Why, Tom, where did you get 'em?"

"Testimonial --- testimonial of affection," replied Kelly, "literally showered on me."

" Tom, you stole them."

"I did not steal them!"

"Tom, you stole them!"

"Tom, O Tom!."

Kelly, who had proceeded to empty his pockets for an exhibition, becoming abruptly offended at the universal shouted accusation, repocketed the pool-balls and departed, despite a storm of protest and entreaties, carrying with him McNab.

A number of the crowd were passing beyond control; others, inflexible, smiling, continued in their attitude of spectators, Brockhurst because he could not forget himself, Hunter and Bain because they would not.

"Time for us to be cutting out," said Hunter, with a glance at his watch. "What about it, Stover?"

Dink was annoyed that he had not made the move himself. McCarthy, Hungerford, and one or two of the freshman candidates arose. A shout went up from the noisy end of the table.

"Here! no quitting!"

"Cowards!"

"Comeback!"

"Shut up; it's the football crowd!"

"Oh, football, eh?"

"Right."

"Splendid!"

Stover with a serious face, shook hands with Troutman, a red-haired fellow with sharp advancing features who said impressively:

"Mr. Stover, I wish to express for my friends the gratification, the extreme gratification, the extreme moral gratification we feel at seeing a football --- a football candidate showing such moral courage ---moral-- -it's wonderful --- it moves me. Mr. Stover, I'd like to shake your hand."

Dink laughed and escaped, seeing, in a last glance at the vaporous fitful room, Troutman solemnly giving his hand to Waters, whom he was congratulating on his extreme moral courage in remaining.

Tommy Bain, in the confusion, slipped out unnoticed and joined them. The last swollen burst of the song was shut from them. They went back toward the campus in twos and threes, over the quiet, moist pavement, past the noisy windows of Mory's ---where no freshmen need apply ---to the Common, where suddenly, in the moonlit shadow of a great elm, they found a vociferous group with Tom Kelly and McNab in the midst.

At this moment something fell from the skies within perilous distance.

"What the deuce is that?" said Hungerford, jumping back.

"Why, it's a pool-ball," said Stone, stooping down.

Another fell, just missing Hunter's shoulders.

"It's Kelly," said Bain, "and he's firing at us."

With a rush they joined the group, to find Kelly, determined and enthusiastic, solemnly discharging his ammunition at the great bulbous moon that was set lumberingly above them. They joined the group that surrounded him, expostulating, sober or fuddled:

"Don't be an ass, Tom."

"The cops are coming."

"I say, come on home."

"How many more has he got?"

"Get him home, you fellows."

"Stop him."

Meanwhile, abetted by the admiring, delighted McNab, Tom Kelly, taking the most solicitous aim, was continuing his serious efforts to hit the moon with the pool-balls which he had procured no one knew how.

"I say, McNab," said Stover, drawing him aside, "better get him to stop now. Too many cops around. Use your influence-- -he'll listen to you."

MeNab's sense of responsibility having thus become violently agitated, he wabbled up to the laboring Kelly, and the following historic dialogue took place:

"I say, Tom, old fellow, you know me, don't you? You know I'm a good sort, don't you -one of the finest?"

"I know you, Dopey McNab; I'm proud to know you."

"I want to speak a word with you seriously."

"What?"

"Seriously."

"Say on."

"Now, seriously, Tom, do you think you can hit it?"

"Don't know; going to try's much as in me. Biff!"

"Hold up," said McNab, staying his hand.

"Tom, I'm going to appeal to you as man to man."

"Appeal."

"You understand ---as man to man."

"Sure."

"You're a man; I'm a man."

"The finest."

"Now as man to man, I'm going to tell you the truth."

"The whole truth?"

"Solemn truth."

"Tell on."

"You can't hit it."

"Why not?"

"Tom, it's too --- too far away!"

The two shook hands solemnly and impressively.

"Can't hit it ---too far away," said Kelly, with the pool-ball clutched tight. "Too far away, eh?"

"My dear Tom," said McNab, tearfully breaking the news, "it's too far---entirely too far away. You can't reach it, Tom; believe me, as man to man ---you can't, you can never, never hit it."

"I know I can't, Dopey," said Kelly, in an equally mournful tone, "I know all that. All that you say is true. But, Dopey, suppose I should hit it, suppose I should, just think---think---how my name would go reeling and rocking down to fushure generations! Biff!"

They left McNab overcome by the impressiveness of this argument, busily gathering up the pool-balls, resolved that every opportunity should be given Kelly to rank among the immortals.

Stover would have liked to stay. For the moment, almost a rebellion swept over him at the drudgery to which he had condemned himself in his ambition. He saw again the low table, through the smoke, and Buck Waters's jovial pagan face leading the crowd in lazy, care-free abandon. He felt that liberty, that zest of life, that wild spirit of youth for which he yearned and of which he had been defrauded by Le Baron's hand, that hand which had ruthlessly torn away the veil. Something leaped up within him --- a longing to break the harness, to jump the gate and go heels in the air, cavorting across unfenced meadows. He rebelled against the way that had been marked out for him. He rebelled against the self-imposed discipline, and, most of all, he rebelled against the hundred eyes under whose inspection he must now inevitably walk.

Ahead of them to the left, across by Osborne, came the gay, defiant singing, of a group of upper classmen returning to the campus:

"For it's always fair weather
When good fellows stand together,
With a stein on the table
And a good song ringing clear."

The echo came to him with a certain grim mockery. There would be very little of that for him. It was to be four years, not of pleasure and inclination, but of, seriousness and restraint, if he continued in his decision. For a moment the pagan in him prevailed, and he doubted. Then they passed across High Street, and at their sides the dead shadow of the society tomb suddenly intruded upon them. Which of the group at the end of the long three years would be of the chosen? Which would lead?

"Well, fellows, we go this way," said Bain's methodical voice. "Drop around at the rooms soon. Good night."

Stover, Hunter, and Bain for the moment found themselves together, each striving for the same social honor, each conscious that, whatever an established system might bring to them, with its enforced comradeship, among them would always be the underlying contending spirit of variant ambitions.

Stover felt it keenly, almost with a sharp antagonism that drove from him finally the slumbering rebellion he had felt all that night ---the tugging at the bridle of consciousness which had been imposed upon him. This was a bigger thing, a thing that wakened in him the great instincts of combat. He would be a leader among leaders. He would succeed as success was reckoned.

He gave a little laugh and held out his hand to Hunter.

"Good night, Jim," he said.

"Why-good night," said Hunter, surprised at the laugh and the unnecessary handshake.

But the hand had been offered in challenge, and the laugh marked the final deliberate acceptance of all that

Le Baron had logically exposed to him.

"I'll play the game, and I'll play it better than they will," he said, setting his lips. "I've got my eyes open, and I'm not going to throw away a single chance. We'll see who'll lead!"