summoned a smile as he shook hands with Neil and
complimented him on his playing in Hillton's last game with St. Eustace.
Neil replied with extraordinary politeness. He was always
extraordinarily polite to persons he didn't fancy, and his dislike of
Cowan was instant and hearty. Cowan looked to be fully twenty-three
years old, and owned to being twenty-one. He was fully six feet two, and
apparently weighed about two hundred pounds. His face was rather
handsome in a coarse, heavy-featured style, and his hands, as Neil
observed, were not quite clean. Later, Neil discovered that they
never were.

After listening politely for some moments to Cowan's tales of former
football triumphs and defeats, in all of which the narrator played,
according to his words, a prominent part, Neil broke into the stream of
his eloquence and told Paul of his meeting with Foster, and of their
talk regarding the freshman presidency.

"Well," answered Paul, smiling at Cowan, "you'll have to get out of that
promise to Foster or whatever his name is, because we've got a plan
better than that. The fact is, Neil, I'm going to try for the
presidency myself!"

"I suppose you're fooling?" gasped Neil.

"Not a bit! Why shouldn't I have a fling at it? Cowan here has promised
to help; in fact, it was he that suggested it. With his help and yours,
and with the kind assistance of one or two fellows I know here, I dare
say I can pull out on top. Anyhow, there's no harm in trying."

"I think you'll win," said Cowan. "This chump Livingston that Foster is
booming is a regular milksop; does nothing but grind, so they say; came
out of St. Mathias with all kinds of silly prizes and such. What the
fellows always want is a good, popular chap that goes in for athletics
and that will make a name for himself."

"Foster said Livingston was something of a dab at baseball," said Neil.

"Baseball!" cried Cowan. "What's baseball? Why not puss-in-the-corner? A
chap with a football reputation like Gale here can walk all round your
baseball man. We'll carry it with a rush! You'll see! Freshmen are like
a lot of sheep--show 'em the way and they'll fall over themselves to
get there."

"Well, we're freshmen ourselves, you know," said Neil sweetly. Cowan
looked nonplussed for a moment. Then--

"Oh, but you fellows are different; you've got sense. I was speaking of
the general run of freshmen," he explained.

"Thanks," murmured Neil. Paul scented danger.

"I'll put the c