"Sure you will," answered the genial Irish student, who was nothing if not encouraging. Perhaps it was because he was sure himself of playing on the first team that he was so confident. "What did you think of Gerhart at quarter?" asked Tom, for the benefit of his chum. "I didn't notice him much," answered Bricktop, as he ruffled his red hair. "Seemed to me to be a bit sloppy, though; and that won't do." Phil did not say anything, but he looked relieved. "Too bad you're not going to play, Sid, old chap," remarked Tom in the room that night, when the three chums were together. "You don't know what you miss." "Oh, yes, I do," was the answer, and Sid looked up from the depths of the chair, closing his Greek book. "The day has gone by when I want to have twenty-one husky lads trying to shove my backbone through my stomach. I don't mind baseball, but I draw the line at posing as a candidate for a broken neck or a dislocated shoulder. Not any in mine, thank you." "You're a namby-pamby milksop!" exclaimed Phil with a laugh and a pat on the back, that took all the sting from the words. "Worse than that, you're a----" "Well, I don't stick girls' pictures, and banners worked in silk by the aforesaid damsels, all over the room," and Sid looked with disapproval on an emblem which Tom had placed on the wall that day. It was a silk flag of Randall colors, which Madge Tyler had given to him. "You're a misguided, crusty, hard-shelled troglodytic specimen of a misogynist!" exclaimed Tom. "Thanks, fair sir, for the compliment," and Sid arose to bow elaborately. Phil and Tom talked football until Sid begged them to cease, as he wanted to study, and, though it was hard work, they managed to do so. Soon they were poring over their books, and all that was heard in the room was the occasional rattle of paper, mingling with the ticking of the clock. "Well, I'm done for to-night," announced Sid, after an hour's silence. "I'm going to get up early and bone away. Hand me that alarm clock, Tom, and I'll set it for five." "Don't!" begged Phil. "Why not?" "Because if you do it will go off about one o'clock in the morning. Set it at eleven, and by the law of averages it ought to go off at five. Try it and see. I never saw such a clock as that. It's a most perverse specimen." Phil's prediction proved, on trial, to be correct, so Sid set the clock at eleven, and went to bed, where, a little later, Tom and Phil followed. There was more football practice the next afternoon, and also the following day. Tom was doing better than he expected, but his speed was not yet equal to the work that would be required of him. "We need quick ends," said the coach in talking to the candidates during a lull in practice. "You ends must get down the field like lightning on kicks, and we're going to do a good deal of kicking this year."