it, but, as Steve said, if they were careful about
getting up and down they wouldn't disturb it! By this time Number 12
began to look quite sumptuous. They had placed several framed pictures
and many photographs and trinkets against the walls and had draped the
tops of the chiffoniers with towels. They had also made up a list of
things to bring back with them after the Christmas holidays, a list that
included all sorts of articles from a waste-basket to an electric
drop-light. The latter they had not been able to find in their
bargain-hunting and could not purchase in the village even if they had
sufficient money. Their pocketbooks were pretty lean by the time they
had been there a week, for, beside the expenditures for furnishings,
they had, between them, paid two dollars for a year's subscription to
the school monthly, and had made quite an outlay for stationery. Tom, in
fact, was practically bankrupt and had sent an "S. O. S.," as he called
it, to his father.

Meanwhile, every afternoon save Sunday they donned their togs and toiled
on the gridiron. Mr. Robey was already bringing order out of chaos and
the sixty-odd candidates now formed a first, second and third squad.
Steve and Tom both remained in the latter for the present, nor did Tom
entertain much hope of getting out of it until he was dropped for good.
Steve had made something of a reputation as a player at home, and his
former team-mates there firmly expected to hear that he had made the
Brimfield 'varsity without difficulty and was showing the preparatory
school fellows how the game ought to be played. Tom, too, expected no
less for him, and perhaps, if the truth were known, Steve entertained
some such expectations himself! But Tom wasn't deceived as to his own
football ability and was already wondering whether, when he was dropped
from the 'varsity squad, he would be so fortunate as to make his hall
team.

But there was a surprise in store for both of them. The first cut came
about ten days after the opening of school, and the candidates dwindled
from sixty-odd to a scant fifty. Steve's surprise lay in the fact that
he was not promoted to the second squad, Tom's to the even more
startling circumstance that he survived the cut!

Eric Sawyer had been relieved from his superintendence of the awkward
squad and had gone to his old position of right guard on the first team.
The third squad was now under the care of a youth named Marvin, a
substitute quarter-b