Wednesday, however, Mr. Cooper was not at the field, and on Thursday it rained, and as a consequence Loring didn’t meet Mr. Cooper again for almost a fortnight. There was no practice for the second nine on Friday, for Spring Recess commenced that day after the last recitation. Only those living a considerable distance from school were permitted to leave before Saturday morning, however, and the Triumvirate spent Friday evening discussing their plans for vacation. Tom was to be Clif’s guest until the following Saturday. Then he and Clif were to go to Tom’s home in New Jersey, stopping in New York on the way to take luncheon and go to a theater with Loring. Tom declared that he was mighty glad he hadn’t made the first team, after all, since if he had done so he would have had to remain at school. The first played four games during recess, the first one at home and the others away. Clif said he thought taking the spring trip with the nine would be more fun than going home. Loring agreed with him, and so, perhaps, did Tom, although he refused to acknowledge it. Loring introduced Mr. Cooper again as a subject of discourse, but the others were rather fed up on that gentleman and side-stepped. Loring went off soon after breakfast in a big, shining limousine, a car of the make that Tom called a “Rolled Rice,” with a liveried chauffeur in front and Wattles, immaculate in a silk-faced black overcoat and his famous black derby, sitting beside the boy, an impressive picture of Respectability. Wattles unbent for an instant as the automobile rolled away and lifted his hat to the group on the steps of East Hall while Loring waved his farewell. Wattles’ lapse from his standard of decorum was induced by Tom’s parting hail of “Toodle-oo, Wattles, old top!” Mr. Bingham arrived an hour later, and Clif and Tom piled their bags into the back of the old blue car and then crowded into the front with the driver. The blue car wasn’t a “Rolled Rice,” but it refused to take any one’s dust――not that there was any dust to-day, however――and slipped across country to Hartford, the luncheon stop, and then on to Providence quite as expeditiously and probably just as comfortably as the other could have done. Clif took the wheel after lunch and Mr. Bingham retired to the rear seat to smoke several long cigars.