“The top o’ the morning to ye, Andy!” “Well, see who’s here!” “Andy, I believe your hair’s faded!” The trainer waved a freckled hand toward the seats and began to unload his cart. There were dozens of gray blankets, a gunny sack full of footballs, nose guards, pails, sponges, a can of water and numerous other treasures. Andy inverted the gunny sack and the footballs came tumbling out and went bobbing about in all directions to be pounced on by eager hands. A whistle blew and order resolved out of chaos. The candidates clustered around the coach and captain, Kendall following the others. He couldn’t hear very well what the coach was saying, since he was quite on the fringe of the crowd, but he caught occasional fragments: “... Necessary to learn the rudiments of the game ... seem like hard work, but it’s work that pays well in the end.... You can’t build a house without a foundation and you can’t build a football team without.... Men who played last year report to Roeder.... New men stay here.... On the jump, now!” I don’t intend to weary the reader with a detailed account of Kendall’s experiences that afternoon. They were uninteresting, or would have been save for their novelty. Kendall found himself one of a group of twenty fellows in charge of a quick-spoken, gingery little chap whom he afterwards discovered to be Holmes, the second-choice quarter-back. Now and then Payson made his appearance and looked on for a moment, sometimes dropping criticism or encouragement. The work for the awkward squad consisted wholly in accustoming themselves to the handling of the ball. They passed it about in a big circle, passed it at a walk, passed it at a trot. Then they tried dropping on it as Holmes rolled it along the ground, and finally they were made to catch it on the bound and to pick it up on the run as it dribbled along in front of them. Later they were formed in a line on one of the white marks and taught to start quickly as the quarter snapped the ball back. It was tiresome work, although Kendall only discovered that when it was all over and he was walking back up the hill, walking alone amongst more than a hundred boys and wistfully wishing that he had someone with whom to talk over the practice. It seemed to Kendall that he was the only boy in school who hadn’t friends or acquaintances. He had been instructed to stop at the gymnasium and have his name entered in the manager’s book. So he followed the crowd through the big oak doors, down a flight of broad steps and into the locker-room. The manager proved to be an harassed-looking youth whom the others addressed as Cowles or Mister Manag_eer_. It seemed the proper thing to do to confuse Cowles as much as possible, and the manager was continually begging mercy.