“Well, I’m sure I don’t know――” began Mrs. Lyle, doubtfully. “I suspect you will know,” murmured Peaches, pessimistically. “Sooner or later.” There were footsteps on the farther sidewalk and a figure passed, a dark form in the uncertain radiance of the nearest light. Barry saw Mrs. Lyle lean suddenly forward and stare intently through the gloom, saw Betty’s hand go out and rest on her mother’s, saw Mrs. Lyle settle back in her chair. The sound of a faint sigh came to him in a pause of the talk. It was a small enough incident, yet it left Barry vaguely disturbed and curious. A moment later Mrs. Lyle said: “Betty, don’t you think it’s getting just a little――” Then Mr. Benjy was awakened and the party was over. At the gate Walter Millington turned to call back: “I’ll have my radio set up by Monday, Betty. I want you to come over and hear it. And Mrs. Lyle, too, and Mr. Benjy, if they care about it.” Betty consented eagerly, but what her mother said was drowned by Mr. Benjy’s voice. “Wonderful invention,” he was declaring as he got out of the hammock. “Makes one wonder what――er――what next, eh? I was reading the other day――” But Mill and Zo didn’t wait to hear what he had read, and in the withdrawal of the rest, which was accompanied by the scraping of chairs, the balance of his remark was a total loss. But Mr. Benjy didn’t mind. It happened so often. Baseball practice was over for the fall and on Monday Peaches proposed tennis in the afternoon. But they found all the courts in use, and so, leaving their rackets behind, they sauntered over to the running-track and watched the football squads performing on the gridiron beyond. Peaches was rather bearish regarding Broadmoor’s chance of a victory the coming Saturday, when she was to play Peebles School at Clear Lake. “We haven’t got the material we had last year,” he said, sitting on the turf and chewing a grass. “Lost a lot of good fellows in June. Almost the whole back field and half the line. I don’t say the Major won’t have a team by the time we face Hoskins, but he hasn’t got it yet, nor the sign of it.” Just then a stray football came bobbing across the running-track and settled a few yards behind them, and Barry got up and went after it. Some forty yards away down the field a player raised a hand in signal. “Let’s see you kick it, Barry,” called Peaches. Barry smiled dubiously but accepted the challenge. He poised the scuffed ball, stepped forward, swung his right leg, and dropped the pigskin. Fortune stood by him, for instep and leather met fairly and the ball arched away, across the bluish ribbon of track, safely past the end of the goal, and straight to the waiting player. Barry stared in mingled surprise and pleasure and Peaches clapped his hands. “If that wasn’t an accident,” he laughed as Barry returned to his seat on the grass, “they ought to have you on the team. That was a mighty pretty punt, son, and all of forty yards.”