llows, attempting to sketch the view across the yard to
send home to his sister. West was splicing a golf shaft and whistling
blithely over the task.

"Hello, Sophy," cried that youth, "have you come to initiate us into the
Sacred Order of Hullabalooloo? Dump those books off the chair and be
seated. March is such a beastly untidy chap," he sighed; "he _will_
leave his books around that way despite all I can say!"

"These books, Out," replied Blair, "bear the name of one West on their
title pages, and, in fact, on a good many other pages, too. What say
you?" A look of intense surprise overspread the face of Outfield.

"How passing strange," he muttered. "And is there a chemistry note-book
among them?"

"I think so. Here is one that contains mention of C2H6O, H2SO4, and
other mystic emblems which appear very tiresome; it also contains
several pages filled with diagrams of the yard and plans of Pompeii
before the devastation."

"Yes," answered West, "that's my chem. note-book. It's been missing ever
since Tuesday. But those are not diagrams of the yard, my sophomoric
friend; they're plans of the golf course."

"Well, just as you say. Catch! Say, March, I've just heard that you've
made the Varsity. I'm most splendidly glad, my young friend. You make
three Hillton fellows on the team. There's Selkirk, and you, and yours
tenderly; and we'll show them what's what when Yates faces us. And I'll
tell you a little fact that may interest you. Prince won't last until
the Yates game, my lad. He's going silly in his ankle. But don't say I
told you, for of course it's a dead secret. And if he gives out you'll
get the posish. And then if you can make another one of those
touch-downs in the Yates game--"

"Shut up, please, Blair!" groaned Joel.

"Nonsense, you're all right. I heard Button saying last week that
nothing short of a ten-story house could have stopped you that day."

"He must think me an awful fool," responded Joel. "The idea of not
remembering that I was off-side!"

"Pshaw; why, the first time I played against Eustace at Hillton I
tackled the referee in mistake for the man with the ball! And threw him,
too! And sat on his head!" West grinned.

"And they _did_ say, Blair, that you were feeling aggrieved against that
referee because he had called you down for holding. And I _have_ heard
that you weren't such a fool as you looked."

"Nothing in it, my boy," answered Wesley Blair airily. "Mere calumny. Am
I one to