With Mask and Mitt

some calamity threatened which could only be averted by the timely arrival of a regiment of candidates. The spirit of the exhortation was worthy of Demosthenes. Igno

come out and try for it. So he asked Strong, the captain of the track team, for information; and S

g

n. Some other events besides this race were open to Seaton, and a considerable interest in the meeting had been worked up by Strong and Collins the trainer. Salter, a fat, good-natured senior, the butt of many a joke, but at

to find Collins, leaving the runner to take care of himself. This circumstance, taken with the physical reaction which promptly set in, and the frigidity of the wind which whistled past his bare legs and bellied out his thin run[Pg 88]ning trousers

ing so as to get back to the tricky geometry original which had caught him in its time-consu

and tell him what good time you made. It's

od. I was making up my mind to cut the w

you were just the man he was looking for to make out the team with Strong, Benton,

g

"No, I thank you. On a short dash I might do something,—I used to be prett

better than any other new ma

the old ones?"

enton probably, but that was your fir

ere, let me through! I've got to

e way. "What is it? Tell me

ulous. "You could

ook here, will you drop this quitter's t

now the whole four hundred and fifty originals in the plane geometry, and if Salter was like the average sport he couldn't k

d distinctly, so as to take no unfair advantage. "Want it repeated?" he asked, leering triumphantly into the

uddenly breaking into a satisfied gr

ther, with a single flourish of the pen made an almost perfect circle o

prove, isn't it? Well, th

g

d blushing to think that he had made so much of a simple matter, w

an that you're sure of the team, but you've got a mighty good

pointments with Collins. Startlingly sudden as had been his precipitation into the ranks of the relay men, he felt less elation on this account than amazement at the quickness with which the senior had opened a rift in the obscurity of the geometry. How could a fellow like Salter, who didn't look

me was not equivalent to a minute of another's, h

fect shark at lessons. You couldn't expect a man of his b

r shamefacedly that he suspecte

sh through all sorts of obstacles that we have to take a lot of time to work around. You can imagine what an awfully discouraging fell

g

He evidently wasn't

with abstracts and dates and all that sort of thing written out on about three hundred separate cards in the neatest kind of a hand. He might have made a smal

. Strong says I've a show to make the team. Do you think it's worth while? I can

our chances for baseball, and it's worth a lot to beat Hillbury at anything. They have mighty p

Lindsay's name. Rob handled it with reverence and y

ear a watch charm, it's hardly useful. If it w

there which he had never seen before. Lindsay's gaze follo

eek. Got them both last summer. The two-handled one was f

en, taking up the heavy, orna

a fast yacht can win a sailing prize. I had to beat seven men to win that little swimming cup.

n, in the tone a poor man might use

two feet square, just thatched with medals, to say nothing of the cups all around. Just imagine what it must be to go to a great meet like the intercoll

would not serve. It was like see

"I suppose I may as well go in for the re

iadne's thread for the labyrinth;[Pg 96] in ten minutes he was writing Q.E.D. at the foot of his sheet of

ing of a Peck; but to-day he fancied it lacking in assurance, and he looked up at the door in a momentary thrill of curi

giving way frankly to the

nally fixed upon as Duncan, grinned sheepish

pigs!

uncan, trying hard to be jocose. "They are

of the box a finger's

7] Owen. "What are you going to do with them? I t

came in on us while we had 'em on the table,—caught us with the goods on us, she thought,—and jawed us like a stepmother for defying the school rules. When we said some one

th them," interrupted Du

on which was written in p

eans what it sa

e more plague

es

w m

g

aimed Rob, derisively. "How man

. "I say there were three, and Don sa

better join Dr. Norton's Bibl

odus in which the plagues are described. "The first was turning the river into blood,

harrow our feelings with all that. How many were th

Rob, curtly, rep

other blankly, each seekin

ugh to put all those on us, do you?" Duncan

g

to draw from, if he's cus

sitors sought information, not judicial criticism; b

e moment Donald was like an unfortunate victim of c

e is sending the plague

can. "We're up against it all right

"Let him bring on his plagues—a bunch of

tion in their own quarters, and later to endeavor to sell the guine