Doctor Forester and the Head Master of Boxford walked up and down within the lines, repeating the same amiable courtesies and remarks about the weather and the view and the condition of the teams that they had made for years, as though this were the first instead of the twentieth struggle in which Deal and Boxford had been engaged. It was a specially important game, as the score in games between the two schools was a tie. The present scribe, who was not a football player, cannot undertake to describe that eventful game in technical language. The intricacies of formation and mass play were beyond his humble abilities at school, as he has no doubt they are to the majority of people who nevertheless follow the game with as keen interest as if they knew it. That is to say, it is inconceivable to him, that anything could be quite as exciting to a Deal boy or a Kingsbridge man as to see his school or college team pressing nearer and nearer the coveted goal, or to watch a fleet-footed boy dodge through a broken field, sprint as though the fate of empires hung upon his fleetness, and sprawl gloriously at last behind the enemy’s line on top of the ball. The technically curious are referred to Vol. LX, No. 2 of the _Deal Literary Magazine_, where they will find a more accurate account than they certainly will find in the pages of this chronicle. They will miss there, however, an incident, which impresses the scribe as having been the most important of the game. Suffice it, the ball was kicked off at three o’clock by the Boxford center, and went sailing down the field into the arms of Sandy Maclaren on the ten-yard line, and eleven blue-garbed Boxfordians went chasing after it lipity-cut. Here one described a graceful parabola as his knees encountered the hardy back of Arthur Chapin, another went flying off involuntarily in a reverse direction as he caught Deering’s hand in his ribs, but one, surer than the rest, dived for a tackle and laid Sandy low just as he was crossing the thirty-yard line. Cheers rang out indiscriminately from both sides of the field, until the scattered teams had run together, and, kneeling face to face, with hands clenched, faces grimly set, the muscles a-quiver, waited while Kid Drayton, Deal’s little quarter-back, gave the signals in his high shrill voice, “Forty-nine, eleven, sixteen.” Then the ball was snapped, and Chapin, the half-back, was hurled through a hole in Boxford’s line for a gain of seven yards. Once, twice, thrice, the Deal boys made their distance to the indescribable joy of their supporters. Then the Boxford team, recovering from the unexpected strength of the first onslaught, stiffened and became as a stone wall, and held Deal for three downs, so that Thorndyke, the full-back, dropped behind for a kick. The oval went spinning through the air, Tony speeding away almost under it, dodging the player who tried to intercept him, so that as the Boxford half leaned back to catch the ball, he downed him in his