Joe was only a fair skater, and now, swinging along and following the curving shore, he found himself envying the ability of those chaps on the hockey teams. It must, he thought, be fine to be able to skate as they did, to feel as much at home on steel runners as on leather, and he wondered if any amount of practice would ever enable him to duplicate their marvellous feats. He wished he could play hockey, too. It looked mighty exciting. Experimentally, he turned and started to skate backward, zigzagging as he had seen the Second Team’s coverpoint do. All went well for a minute, but then he raised his hands to the sky, followed them with his feet and went down on his head and shoulders. He had quite a nice slide, but he wasn’t able to enjoy it much, since he was too busy watching the vari-coloured stars that flashed in front of his closed eyes. When he stopped sliding he felt gingerly of his head, grinned and climbed carefully to his feet again. “That’s what you get,” he murmured, “for trying to be smart.” However, when he had got his breath again he was ready for more experiments and tried the inner edge-roll with fair success, and, becoming more ambitious, essayed a figure eight. But that didn’t go very smoothly, and since by that time he had neighbours about him he stopped his capers. One of the neighbours skated toward him, but Joe paid no heed to him until he swung around and came to a stop a few feet away. “Do it slower and you’ll get it all right,” observed the boy pleasantly. Joe saw then that he was Strobe. He had pulled a faded blue sweater on and still carried his stick. He was a merry-faced fellow, with good features, bright blue eyes and a good deal of colour in his cheeks. He was evidently about sixteen and rather tall for that age. He smiled in friendly fashion as Joe glanced up and stopped so awkwardly that he almost fell into Strobe’s arms. “It isn’t hard,” the latter continued. “Like this. See?” He described a circle on the outer edge, changed to the inner and completed the figure slowly and gracefully. “I know very well it isn’t hard,” replied Joe, “but it’s hard for me because I’m a perfectly punk skater.” Strobe laughed. “Oh, well, practice is all you need. Can you do the ‘Figure 3’?” “Pretty well. I guess you have to learn to skate when you’re about five years old to do it decently. Like swimming. I never skated much until two years ago.” “I started when I was about eight, I guess,” laughed Strobe. “Know this one?” “This one” was a “Maltese Cross” so perfectly done that every loop was the same to an inch. Joe watched and sighed in envious admiration. “That’s dandy,” he said. “It’s like the ‘cross-cut’ only there’s more of it.” “Yes, the ‘cross-cut’ repeated three times. It isn’t hard, really. You could learn it in an hour.” “I couldn’t learn it in a month,” replied Joe disgustedly. “I can’t even skate backwards without bumping my head on the ice.”