“I thought so. Well, I’ll wager you anything you like that if you’ll do what I say to-morrow you’ll eat enough dinner for a dozen men. And you needn’t stick to training diet, either. Eat whatever they give you, and lots of it.” “Why don’t you take your own medicine?” asked Dan. “Can’t you go along with me?” “I could, but you’d be dragging in football every minute. And,” laughed the coach, “if you didn’t I should! No, you do it the way I said. Tooker’s a good chap; he will make you laugh, and that’s what you need.” After Dan had taken his departure, in a much better frame of mind than he had arrived in, the head coach went to the telephone and called up Dudley Hall. The telephone there was in Mr. Austin’s room, and when the chemistry instructor came to the line Mr. Payson said: “Is that you, Mr. Austin? This is Payson. I want very much to get hold of Tooker. Is there any way you can get him to the ’phone without much trouble? You can? Thank you very much. Yes, I’ll hold the line.” CHAPTER XV NED EARNS A QUARTER “Walking,” replied Ned the next morning with enthusiasm, “is the very best thing I do. As our English cousins say, I’m awfully keen about it. When do we go and whither?” “I thought we might start right after church service and tramp over to Lloyd. Payson says there is a good place to eat over there.” “All right. That suits me.” “You’re sure you weren’t going to do something else?” asked Dan. “We aren’t likely to get back much before supper, you know.” “I wasn’t going to do a thing, Vinton. If I had been I’d give it up, because on a dandy day like this there’s nothing finer than a good tramp in the country. I’ll get into a pair of easier shoes, though, I guess.” Ned observed his patent leather Oxfords disapprovingly. “And I’ll meet you outside Clarke at eleven-ten sharp.” And so at a quarter-past eleven Dan and Ned took the road together. Each had togged himself in an old suit of knickerbockers and had put on a pair of good stout, easy shoes. The morning was just what one might expect in early November after a day of rain. There was a bright blue sky overhead, a wealth of golden sunshine and a little breeze from the southwest that held a tang of the sparkling Sound. After they had crossed the bridge over the river and taken the inland road that led to Broadwood, they had the broad marsh on their right. The marsh this morning was a wonderful far-stretching expanse of faded green and russet and gold and red, with, here and there, a brilliant blue ribbon of water winding across. On their left as they trudged over the road made firm by the rain, was a hillside of maples and beeches. The storm had almost stripped the former of their scarlet livery, but the beeches were still brightly yellow, while the ground was thickly carpeted with the fallen maple leaves.