“But――but I don’t want to play football!” he protested. Peaches chuckled. “Go and tell the Major, Barry,” he advised. Barry stared at the coach’s retreating form and shook his head despondently. “You know blamed well I wouldn’t dare to,” he sighed. “He――he’d probably order me shot at sunrise!” CHAPTER VIII WITH THE SQUAD There was one person even more surprised at the addition of Barry to the football squad than Barry himself. That person was Clyde Allen. Barry felt that Clyde wasn’t going to be pleased. He couldn’t think of any satisfactory reason for displeasure on his friend’s part, and yet the conviction haunted him from the moment he was drafted by the Major to the moment he found Clyde in Number 42 the next morning and broke the news. At first Clyde laughed, for of course Barry was only joking. But the laugh was short-lived. It ended abruptly in a frown. “Do you mean it?” demanded Clyde, incredulously. Barry replied that he did. “Well, but――but, for the love of Lucius, what’s the idea?” Clyde wanted to know. “You’re no football player, Barry! I mean――well――hang it all!――you know, yourself, you’re pretty fairly rotten!” Barry agreed without resentment. “It was just that I happened to boot that ball pretty decently and he saw me,” he explained, “and――and then he said I was to report to-morrow,――I mean to-day,――and that was all there was to it. He did say, though, or as much as say, that I had no chance this fall; that he had to think of next year.” “Well, even so――” Clyde stopped and shook his head. Then he laughed again, shortly, almost grimly. “I don’t envy you when the Major finds out that that kick was just a fluke, Barry.” “I told him it was,” replied Barry. “The most he can do is let me go again.” He seemed to find reassurance in the thought. “Yes, and the sooner he finds it out, the better for you. What I mean is, he’s likely to get pretty sore if he wastes a lot of time on you and then discovers that you’re punk! Coach didn’t happen to say where he thought you’d fit, did he?” “He said something about the back field.” Clyde said, “Oh!” and stared hard a moment. Then he shrugged and turned away. “Well,” he said, “he knows what he’s doing, I suppose, but it looks crazy to me.” “But why are you so down on the idea, Clyde?” demanded Barry. “I can’t see that there’s anything very much――very much out of the way in my playing football if Mr. Loring wants me to.” “‘Out of the way’!” echoed the other, impatiently. “Of course there’s nothing ‘out of the way’! I didn’t say there was, did I? Great Scott, Barry! All I’m thinking of is how you’ll look when the Major finds he’s picked a lemon and gives you the gate. Fellows will laugh at you like anything, I suppose, and I’ll have to hand out the yarn about the Major insisting on having you, and it’s going to sound mighty fishy!”