The next day the home team met and defeated the local high-school eleven by the one-sided score of 22 to 0, and again Barry watched the game with Peaches. Mill made a third, however, and growled constantly at the idea of any sane fellow going in for such a piffling, uninteresting recreation as football. Clyde played the last two periods at right half and rather disappointed Barry. He was twice stopped behind his line and acted generally as though not fully awake. But then the whole team was logy that day, possibly because of the heat. The three stuck it out to the end, hoping for and rather expecting a turn of the tables toward the last. But it didn’t come. Wessex, playing her first game, had less to offer than Broadmoor. Parting from Mill at the gate, Barry and Peaches entered the house and Peaches proceeded to the little table that held the telephone and the mail. “Nothing for you and nothing for me,” he announced. “Toby gets it all. But――I say!” Peaches lifted a small package and viewed it with deep suspicion. “Something ought to be done about this.” He carefully returned the package to the table, his countenance expressing extreme distaste. “What is it?” asked Barry, from the foot of the stairway. “I don’t know,” said Peaches, mournfully, “but I fear the worst. Toby! Oh, Toby!” A door opened above and Toby answered the hail. “Come down and take it away,” called Peaches. “Take what away where?” asked Toby. “Take this away anywhere! It’s a package for you, dear one, and it smells to heaven!” “Mail?” inquired Toby, eagerly. He came hurrying down. “Let’s have it, Peaches.” “I’ll not touch it again. Come and get it.” Toby finished the descent indignantly and clutched his prize. “It’s the snails!” he chortled gleefully. “Snails!” exclaimed Barry and Peaches in chorus. Toby nodded, studying with a positively thrilled look the inscription on the wrapper. “A fellow I correspond with in South Carolina sent them. They’re salt-water snails.” He turned toward the stairs again, beaming through his spectacles, but Peaches laid a detaining hand on his shoulder. “Toby,” he said gravely, “I’ve bad news for you.” “Huh?” said Toby. “Try to take it like a man, Toby. Bear up, you know, and all that.” “What’s eating you?” demanded Toby, very inelegantly. “Prepare yourself, my friend.” Peaches’ voice trembled. “This will be a great shock to you. They――” he pointed tragically to the package――“they’re dead, Toby, quite dead!” Toby stared blankly an instant. Then his gaze went to the package. “Who’s dead?” he asked. “The snails, you mean? Of course they’re dead, you chump! They can’t live out of water, can they? Huh!” Toby gave the other a scathing glance and mounted the stairs. Peaches fell in behind and Barry followed in turn, and as the two tramped solemnly upward they chanted a dirge for the dead snails.