* * * * *

A quarter of an hour later Skippy and Snorky with Hippo in tow started
across the campus to show their protege the historic spots, beginning
with Laloo's where the merry hot dogs whistled to one another in
steaming cans, by way of Bill Appleby's where ginger-pop and root-beer
waited, to the Jigger Shop where the Jigger cooled and Conover's where
the pancake sizzled.

Opposite the Jigger Shop the celebrated Doc Macnooder, resplendent in a
varsity sweater, was surveying the hungry Jigger-fed crowd and debating
whether to go right up and pay for his sustenance or wait a little
longer and see what might turn up.

"Well, Skippy, been inventing anything new?" said Macnooder pleasantly
after the introductions.

"I say, Doc, I want to put it up to you," said Skippy hastily, for he
feared any reference to bathtubs or mosquitoes might detract from the
respect which was essential in Hippo. "I'm out for the scrub, you know,
and what I wanted to ask you was do you think training ought to start
now or wait until school opens."

Macnooder's mind scorned subtleties. It moved by the shortest cuts to
the practical issue.

"Has he got the price?" he said looking at Hippo.

"He has."

"Let's eat."

Macnooder looked appraisingly at Hippo, whom Nature had destined to play
at center rush, to be mauled and cuffed and suffocated under scores of
scuffing, struggling bodies. A flicker of sympathy should have stirred,
but it didn't.

"You'll need quite a lot of stuff," he said pensively.

"Nothing doing, Doc," said Skippy, winking hard at his protege. "Hippo's
fitted out."

"How about fountain-pens or crockery sets, or patent nail clippers?"

"I dote on fountain-pens," began Hippo.

"Hippo's under my protection," said Skippy militantly. "We're sort of
related."

"Oh well, let's eat then," said Macnooder with a reluctant look.

"Don't take anything from that fellow even if he gives it to you," said
Skippy in a whisper to Hippo. "Elucidations later."

Al had two attitudes of welcome, according to the record of the books,
one in which the hand advanced impulsively and a smile broke from under
the shaggy yellow bang and another where the hand remained in a
stationary receptive cup, or sometimes caressed the limp ends of the
mustache in a way most discouraging and disheartening to the delinquent
debtor. When Doc Macnooder arrived, however, he paid him the further
honor to carefully close the